Are you taking the piss?
I was in a restaurant at the weekend and when looking for the gent’s toilet I encountered one of my bug bears in life - bad usability. In this case obscure and overly designed toilet signage.
In user testing for the web one of the major metrics of success is task completion. In essence it’s all about flow and in this instance it was quite literally halted.
So there I am in Pinxto people (a fantastic modern tapas bar), admittedly a little tipsy, confronted with a dilemma of which toilet door to go through. The designs on the doors are huge thin letters (M and F) in Helvetica typeface, rotated 70 degrees. The problem is in the narrow corridor outside the two doors you are actually standing too close to the design to clearly make them out.
The interior designers had come up with something they probably believed to be funky but it made me needlessly think. And as anybody interested in user experience will tell you ‘don’t make me think’ is Steve Krug’s first law of usability.
You see it in many bars and restaurants where interior designers are trying too hard. In Britain I’ve been in Spanish restaurants where the signs proclaim ‘mujeres’ and ‘hombres’, and German bars with ‘heren’ and ‘damen’ emblazoned on the door. If your menu offers a translation then why not the facilities?
More challenging are toilet doors solely employing graphics. I’m never sure which of the astronomical symbols for Mars and Venus is the toilet I’m meant to use. I’ve even seen toilet doors with beautiful pictures of a chick and a rooster on them that anyone, except a visually literate vet, would find difficult to translate.
Now I can hear some of you saying: “It’s all part of the design, an extension of the brand”. This might be true and I’m firmly against creating a dull homogeneous world. However design should be helpful and communicate clearly. So please leave off the novelty toilet signs. After all the sooner I complete my task the quicker I get back to experience the core of your brand, in this case another glass of Rioja, great food and a convivial atmosphere.
Tags: design, usability, user testing
October 28, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Do away with the signs - unisex cubicles is the way forward!