As many of you know, I am currently doing some teaching and R&R in Hawaii. Yesterday, I watched a Japanese woman helplessly fuss with the paper towel dispenser in a public restroom at Hanauma Bay: She was trying to pull the shreds of paper towels out of the jaws of the dispenser, not realizing there was an "inviso handle" that would unjam the towel jam. After helping her out, I got to thinking:

Forget web sites and technology interfaces for a minute. What about public bathrooms? They generally rank high on the "suck meter" for usability and customer experience. Here are just a few common irritants:

Horrid stall doors with locks that never seem to work

Hand dryers that wouldn't blow an eyelash of your skin

Toilet and sink sensors that play hit or miss games

Soap dispensers that reguarily fail and clog

Small, narrow, wall-mounted garbage bins overflowing with trash

Double roll vice-grip dispensers that will not dispense the T.P.

Banked sink counters, which collect puddles of water that:
     --> Dampen your personal property if you set it down
     --> Dampen your pants if you lean in to wash your hands

Airport bathroom stalls too narrow for a person and a roll-aboard

Now, I am presenting my next complaint largely from the perspective of "a sitter." I'm sure you "standers" have your own bathroom usability problems, and I don't paricularily want to know what they are. However, even the standers need to sit eventually, and I am sure all of us want to know the answer to this question:

Who was the braniac that invented the gigantic roll of one-ply toilet paper?!

Reach in, find free end of the paper, and pull it to get a few squares --- and get a shred. Pull it again - get more shreds, which will begin to litter the floor. "Giganto-roll" is inevitably too heavy (unless half empty) to rotate with a single ply pull.

In an effort to get enough paper out of the Giganto dispenser, you must twist at the waist and, in awkward feat of acrobatics, reach over to pull the paper with one hand while "coaxing" the wheel of paper around with your other hand. We'll call this move the "twist and shuffle".

If you are lucky enough encounter a Giganto Roll installed low - at armrest level - you get to try an even more sophisticated move. We'll call it "the angry squirrel". While twisting, you must also bend at the waist to reach up UNDERNEATH the dispenser to blindly locate end of the toilet paper, and shimmy the giganto roll around in circles.

While you are in the impossible act of squirreling away to get your measly squares from the dispenser -- the automatic toilet sensor will inevitably pick up your movement and WOOSH -- flush the toilet while you're in mid-squat! Nice.

After you recover from your involuntary water ride, compose yourself, leave the stall and endure your entire handwashing experience, you get to leave with a souvenier: the micro shreds from the failed Giganto pulls clinging to your pant cuffs and/or shoe heels. Charming!

Okay, so probably enough time dedicated to this subject. Maybe I'm just too jet-lagged to be more profound, but I thought his was worth mentioning. Don't even get me started on the "perch and hover."

As for a solution? I dunno. I'm not sure there's really enough incentive for anyone to improve bathroom usability. I mean, it's not like they'll give out an award for public bathroom innovation. However, it would be nice to see some improvement. So all you architects and contractors out there: some food for thought! ;-)

The image is a picture of complicated, multi-function toilet which frightened my pal, Kelly Goto in Japan. This is probably proof that things won't be getting easier for us any time soon.