Bathroom Paper Towel UX Analysis

Being a UX designer sometimes hurts, because our brain wired to see things other people don’t, and analyze and observe other humans using things.

And so one day my brain decided to analyze something completely out of my typical scope of analysis, something as simple as the paper towel dispenser in a public bathroom.

So this simple, everyday device, designed for the following user interaction: it contains perforated paper roll, which means you pull down a sheet, it detached from next sheet and also pulls it down for the user to pull out the next one, and so on…

For about few weeks, every time I was in the bathroom in our office building, I was observing an interesting behavior; about 90% of users using this device, using it not as intended… They unroll the paper and then just rip the paper off which leaves the next user no choice but do the same action since the paper is not easily available due to prior action.

Now mind you, there are many different species of paper towel dispenser, there are the ones that have like a lever on the side that you either push down and it unrolls the paper so you can rip it off, or the ones with a lever on the side to simply unroll the paper and rip it off, the touch-less ones that you just wave your hand in front of it and it dispense the paper, etc.

But this specific one is from the family of pull the paper down… with the function of unrolling but its kind of imbedded into the box on the side that you have to stick your finger in, to unroll the paper for the emergency situation when the paper sheet is not sticking out.

After observing this interesting behavior in many different public bathrooms, I found another one at my gym, a much more clever one, clearly the designer thought it all through, and made some adjustments to the design…

a. The lever to dispense the paper is hidden behind the paper sheet, so not visible if the paper is out, however, if its not, the user can see the lever, push it and get the desired result of available paper.

b. Included a clear visual instruction of what to do and how to use this clever device.

And yet, I have spent some time observing how this very intuitive dispenser being used… and noticed an identical behavior, people actually going around the paper which is an extra effort to push the lever several times to dispense the desired amount of paper and rip it off…

So here I am, trying to figure out is it in our nature as humans to ignore instructions, or maybe not think, or, the design is bad… Now when it comes to digital products which is what I mostly work on, if the user is using the product incorrectly or not as designed, or if the user is confused by the function or how to perform a task, than it means that the product is poorly designed, but in this fairly simple example, I wonder, is the design broken or we are?

If any of you ever read the book The Design of Everyday Things?—?by: Don Norman (which I strongly recommend!) the author brings many different examples of products that seem to be fairly simple and used on a daily basis by millions of people, yet are poorly designed and confuse those millions of people on daily basis.

However, Don Norman talks about the fact that some of these products are not intuitive enough, or clear enough, or provide no affordances, etc. But in my case here, seems like the device, especially the one at my gym, is pretty clear, fairly intuitive and provides a clear instruction.

So here is what I realized by observing and analyzing usage of this everyday product… The reason why people don’t really know how to use (as intended) some of the paper dispensers boils down to a lack of Unified Experience.

Most bathroom devices used by us is fairly unified, the faucets can be manual or automatic, yet they all have the same interaction no matter where you are and in what country, same goes for toilets, water flushing mechanisms, showers, sinks, etc. And paper towel dispensers are the ones who lack that unified interaction experience, when people encounter such device, they often have to spend a few seconds trying to identify which one is it? the automatic? the pulling? the pushing? the unrolling?

This is why for the longest time I’ve been a strong advocate for Unified Experiences in both digital and physical products.

Basic products/devices/items, have to be identified fast, easily and with no instructions.

As the famous quote by Steve Krug goes?—?DON’T MAKE ME THINK!