Washing your dirty hands at a Basin

Toilet is everyone's best friend. Its probably the most frequent place we go in our entire lives...

You have just done your toilet business and you head for the basin to wash your hands, that's good hygiene. So this is what you see at the basin:




You reach for the tap's handle. Oh my gosh, you can't find it! Relax. It could probably be an automatic tap. Intuitively, you place your hand under the hose. Nothing comes out.

Don't panic yet. You move your hand around to capture the automatic sensor. Nothing comes out still! After some scratching of head with your dirty hands and playing with the tab, you trying turning this nob,





Water comes out. Salvation at last.


Tap Review:

There are a few standard design for taps:

1. Twisted Nob: The nob is very obvious which usually sticks out of the tap itself
2. Flip switch: a lever style switch that controls the amount of water coming out of the tap.
3. Automatic: placing the hand at the right place that allows the sensor to capture

For this tap design, it would be design 1. But the twisted nob is not obvious at all.



From the image above, there is no nobs sticking out of the tap to make it apparent to the tap user. It would be only after elimination of the type of design (ie from flip to automatic then finally nob), the user would then try to find out where the nob is. The protruding line on the nob MIGHT give a clue to the user that it is a twisted nob, but some people might think it is part of the tap's visual design.



I was around to witness another toilet commuter figuring out how to use the tap. He had his hand under the tap hoping water will come out (he thought it was automatic). After a bit of thinking, he tried twisting the nob.

Solution:

If the tap is using a twisted nob design, make it obvious. Visual cues on the nob, such as arrows indication, would greatly help users understand that that is a NOB for water. Making the entire nob a single color along with the entire tab will not help in guiding the user.

And toilet users won't feel like an idiot playing with the tap, figuring how to get water out.