On ergonomics

[plonq]

There is a book that I was tempted to buy a couple of years ago, but the title escapes me now. It was a dissertation on ergonomics, and the lack thereof in our modern society. The impetus of the author to write it centred on a time when he got stuck between two sets of doors at a fancy bank because there was no obvious way to open the next set of doors. His book was an indictment against modern design and devices that are not obvious in their function - especially ubiquitous items like doors and telephones. He argued that one should not have to relearn how to use a telephone every time one gets a new one, or upgrades an old one.

I encountered that in our hotel room last night. My first brush with un-ergonomic design was the alarm clock in our room. It has all sorts of lovely buttons on it with labels like Wake Mode, On/Off, Snooze, Sleep, Nap, Fwd, Rev, Cancel, Set Time/Wake/Lock. I managed to figure out how to set the alarm time, but after that things went wrong. For some reason the buzzer started on a cycle of beeping every ten minutes, with no obvious way to stop it from sounding. Hitting the "Nap" button caused a little LED with the name "Nap" to light up and go out respectively, but neither setting stopped the beeping. I hit the "Cancel" button, and that caused the selfsame LED to blink... and it started beeping again ten minutes later. The On/Off button just turned the radio on and off. The Snooze button just stopped the beeping for ten minutes. I guess I'm just a slow learner, because it was only on the fourth time it went off that it finally occurred to me to unplug the clock. A well-designed clock does not require a user manual to operate it.

My next encounter was with the shower. I have used many hotel showers in my time, and this is the first one that has completely stymied me. I could get the water flowing, and I had the temperature just where I wanted it, but I couldn't figure out how to get the water to switch from the faucet to the shower head. There were no buttons, levers or other obvious ways to accomplish this. If I had stuck with it long enough, pushing, prodding and pulling enough random things I'd have eventually figured it out. I noticed that atara had wet hair when she came out of the bathroom, so I assumed that she had figured it out and sought out her advice. Apparently it was as easy as grabbing the unmarked base of the tap and pulling down until it clicked into place. A shower should not need a user manual to operate it.

The problem is that everybody thinks they have a better way of solving problems that have already been solved. There is no reason why a clock or a shower cannot be designed in a manner that is obvious to use. I have never had trouble figuring out a shower or a clock before, and I think I'm a bit young for senility to be setting in yet. Grrr. Oh, and I'm grumpy and have a headache this morning from lack of sleep (bloody hotel pillow - I knew I should have brought in my own pillow from the car). Ah well - nothing a bit of breakfast and coffee won't fix.

Comments

[aerofox.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my mothers new house has the SAME shower faucet!

If it wasn't for the sticker that was still stuck to the faucet head showing how to switch it over to the shower, i would have never figured it out...

I'm sure that sticker was long since torn off any hotel shower leaving guests to tear their hair out trying to figure out how to take a shower.

but yeah, in the land of VCR programing, this is a terrible issue as every company has their own cryptic way of setting the damn things.. and it changes from year to year even within the same brand.

[unciaa.livejournal.com]

Third verse, same as the first. I hit the same kind of shower whilst visiting a friend in the UK. I stood there, naked, for a minute, then yelled out and asked how the hell I was to operate the damned thing. :p

[mwalimu.livejournal.com]

I remember one book entitled "The Psychology of Everyday Things" that sounds like the one you're describing, though this one dates back to about 1990. It talks about things like why it's bad to put a handle on a public restroom door on the side you have to push to open. I once had an encounter with one of those unworkable clocks that was two hours and some odd minutes off. It wasn't beeping or anything; I finally had to turn it to face the wall to get myself to ignore it.

[furahi.livejournal.com]

Heheheh, every time I visit a new friend's house or hotel in the US I have to figure out their shower, it seems that, here, they can not make two showers operate the same
I never had this problem in Europe, despite visiting dozens of showers in spas, houses, hotels, etc...

So I'm assuming this "disease" hasn't spread to Canada either?