Innovation down the drain

Last year they installed flushless/waterless urinals in the men's restrooms on the second floor of our building. They are supposedly revolutionary in how little they require maintenance and how much water they save. What's cool about working here is that we often get to be guinea pigs for products being tested for use in the hotels. Much like the awesome espresso machine that sits uncleaned and broken down much of the time in the cafeteria. I tell you, maintenance kills many good ideas. Is it something about our culture, lack of foresight, prevention, time? Another blog entirely, I digress.

I was in awe of the clean lines and minimal design but skeptical of their function. Some disappointment came when my 4-year-old suddenly discovered the new 'short' urinal was too high for him to use. The design requires a lot of drainage in the basin so the lip of the receptacle is much higher. This was a major let down after an exciting build up to start with—independent peeing at age 4 is such a big deal especially into new experimental urinals.

That was a minor blow however compared to the problems of daily adult use. Soon a sign went up, albeit 2 feet higher than the average line of sight (glaring usability 101 error with the restrooms being on either side of the Creative/IA/UI Dev departments). The sign reads "Please do not pour coffee, tea, soda, etc, into the urinals. This will cause them to clog." Installing the new urinals was a major investment of time and energy requiring closings of restrooms, new plumbing, and retiling surfaces, so I knew they were expected to be permanent. But I would fear that this maintenance issue is a deal beaker. You suddenly put these finicky flushless urinals in front of people who have been raised on toilets being disposal devices and you're asking for trouble. Sure enough, even with the signs, I'd often find chewed gum adorning the drains. PHHT!

3 weeks ago I noticed one urinal with a build up of...uh...fluid at the drain. I began refraining from using it, but others were not so attentive. Finally an out-of-order sign went up just above it. I was relieved that potential disaster had been averted. But within a day, the sign disappeared and the puddle at the drain reemerged, and grew deeper, and darker, and yes, just plain more disgusting. It was like no one knew what to do. Should we keep using it? Should someone say something? It's flushless...why is it also not self-unclogging if it's so innovative?

Today the drain cover and some thick metal ring has been pulled out and laid over the top of a clear garbage bag now covering the urinal. A hand lettered out-of-order sign has been taped to the wall above it. This entire event leaves me thinking about the immediate cost and investment in innovation compared to long-term benefits. The subject has been on my mind lately while using gas pumps and driving past clunky yellow school buses. We all rely so much on the design of certain products that it's hard to imagine them differently or to reconcile that those designs were probably not the best way to do things from the very beginning. But everything else around them becomes so accommodating to their faults that they become learned and accepted and more of a pain to change than correct.

In all design, when you take chances, you really have to be on top of the follow up. Or no matter how life-changing your work is, some people won't want their lives changed and will just continue to clog your drain. And sometimes intuition only goes so far. With the permissive, prolific and perpetual laziness in our fast/cheap society, it's best that you expect to have to use the three E's: engineer, execute, and educate.