Yet Another Shower Handle Critique
I am not a very picky person usually, but when it comes to showering, I like the temperature within a very specified range — not too cold to get me sick, and not too hot to burn my skin off.
However, I, and almost everyone on this planet have been victims of the infamous shower dilemma. You turn the handle towards “Hot” and wait for eternity in the cold stream before the water actually turns hot — usually too hot to handle. You then, naturally, turn it back the other way, and wait, now in the burning hot stream before the temperature reverts to being as cold, if not colder than what you started off with. Back and forth you go until you just give up and accept your fate: you’re not going to have a good shower today…
And there is only one perpetrator to blame: your overly simplified shower handle. If only it had a second handle to control stream volume, or at least some graphical representation or range on the handle. With a set of vague arrows moving from “Off” to “Cold” to “Hot”, your judgment of what’s “decent” temperature is completely based on relative intuition. Unbelievably enough, this is still a common issue despite the technological advances that have been made since the invention of this traditional interface. It goes without saying, not all shower handles are created equal, but the most commercially used ones have more or less the same design. The ones I encounter at Brown every day certainly do.
The main issue with these handles is the lack of affordances which poses a question about their usability. This is most evident in terms of efficiency and memorability. Given the fact that there is no set range defining what relatively good temperature is on the handle, it’s often hard to remember where the perfect position to place the handle was the last time you showered. The classic ad-hoc method of moving the handle back and forth does not help either; it is very time-consuming to keep waiting for the water to change temperature every time you move the handle but also very inefficient since your judgment is completely based on intuition. Even worse, the suffering you go through to obtain a good result will most likely get you nowhere as you struggle to remember where the perfect spot to position the handle is.
Having said that, many constraints are limiting the designers of such an impactful product. First, the concept of what’s good varies widely across audiences depending on culture, climate, and other factors, making it harder to identify a range of acceptable temperatures. Secondly, there is an inevitable cost increase with the introduction of more affordances such as graphical or enumerated ranges because of the extra materials involved. Finally, the scalability of such change, especially on larger scales like dorms at Brown, can pose a big time and effort restraint; it would take a whole lot of facilities workers to replace every shower handle at the university. Doing so would also take quite some time which could be another valid concern.
Still, I believe that the cost-benefit ratio favors the introduction of new, modernized handles. Doctors advise bathing within a temperature range of 105–115 °F. And while it may be an issue of personal preference to choose what is a good temperature, I believe enumerating the handle from cold to hot and highlighting the previously mentioned range would be a good idea since it would probably cover most people’s needs. Additionally, adding a second handle to control water flow would be a helpful tweak to reduce time spent under extreme temperatures while waiting for the flow temperature to change. Finally, adding arrows to describe the ON/OFF directions could be a helpful affordance to improve learnability. A proposed design follows.
All in all, there are many challenges and constraints facing the implementation of those modernized models, which become ever more apparent as we scale the change upwards. Nonetheless, it’s definitely a worthwhile investment, in my opinion, since the scale of this problem’s negative impact makes the usability gains significantly outweigh the time, effort, and money invested into fixing it.