Affordance in toilets.

This design principle is pretty much hard for me to relate to everyday things. I guess because of the unfamiliarity of the meaning of the word. So I will try to discuss this principle in this entry so I can be more familiar with it - by talking about toilets. Haha...

Donald Norman has talked about the U-shaped curve of complexity in his book. He says that, "the development of a technology tends to follow a U-shaped curve of complexity: starting high; dropping to a low, comfortable level; then climbing again." This is when a new object is introduced to the world and hence its newness makes it complex, since it is something we haven't seen or used before. Then through time, these objects evolve into something with a simpler structure and yet a better performance. But eventually, because of the need for increased sales and marketing, companies design more complex versions of these objects, giving it more features.

Toilets may not have started off as a complex design since they once appeared as seats with holes during ancient times. But perhaps the actual bathroom fixture with the flush feature started out as the modern and complex toilet design. Eventually, people got used to this design of the simple toilet seat with the flush. This design is an example of affordance. Just by looking at the toilet below, one can easily understand how to use it. It looks similar to a chair, so one would know that it has to be sat on (after lifting the cover of course), and it has a silver lever you push down to flush. It's very easy to use.

Nowadays I've encountered very complex toilets in public bathrooms that going to the john isn't as simple as one-two-three anymore. Well they still have those seats with holes, but the flushing system? It has gotten more and more complicated. At one of the suites in a hotel, their toilet had all these buttons on them for flushing/washing. How do use those? What are they for? There wasn't any manual beside it, and no, why would i read a manual just to pee?



In public bathrooms they have these sensor flushes that do not require any pushing of any button or lever. It was so confusing! How do I flush now? There is nothing to push to flush. There is a blinking red light, but what do I do to it? I wave my hands in front of it and nothing happened. I got so frustrated, I left the toilet unflushed. Euw. Haha. Definitely a poor example of affordance.

*Photos taken from Darkcreek.com/toilets and TheDamnMushroom's Flickr