Bad Design (Assignment 0)

For the first assignment, we were told to look for a bad design and capture the user reaction. It was quite hard initially, but the more I brainstorm, the more I realized that there are a lot of stuff pertaining to user experience and it is just that most of us adapted ourselves to what we have and tend not to think about it.

There are a few designs that came to my mind, but was reflected in the blogs of past year students taking this module. But I finally found this:

Figure 1

Figure 2

(1 and 2 refers to the position in which the pictures for figure 1 and 2 were taken respectively.)


From Figure 1 and 2, we can see that the urinal is virtually exposed to anyone who might be walking past the door of the male toilet and this is especially embarrassing as the door is right near the only path that leads to the female toilet. Anyone who glance in the door would see a person taking a leak.

I still remembered when I told one of my friend about this some time last year. His first reaction was, "REALLY!?". Then he checked out the flaw and decided to wait for the cubicle as the urinal that is nearest to the sink was being occupied.

I pointed this out to one of my female friends. Reaction? She went, "Oh ya!". Then she started giggling. Oh my God!

Reflections:
For most of the toilets that we used before, I realise that designers usually build toilets such that

1) People walking pass the toilet will not be able to see what is happening in the toilet.

2) Reflected image from the mirror about the scenes inside the toilet will not be seen by the people outside.

The above mentioned toilet had a serious design flaw made by the designer which I feel, can cause utmost embarrassment to it's user and post as a unsightly scene in social context.

The best way to fix this problem is to rebuild the toilet of course, but for now, maybe a drape/curtain can be used to cover the the "huge peep hole".