Reading Response: The Psychopathology of Everyday Things
Something That Drives Me Crazy: Confusing Shower Knobs
One of the most frustrating design flaws in everyday life is the lack of a standardized, intuitive shower knob system across different countries. If you’ve ever traveled internationally, you’ve likely encountered showers that seem to require a degree in engineering to operate.
In the United States, many showers have a single-knob system where you turn left for hot water and right for cold. However, some models require you to pull or push the knob, which isn’t always obvious. In the United Kingdom, separate hot and cold taps are still common, making us mix water manually. In Norway, for example, some showers have buttons that must be pressed in a particular sequence before water flows. The inconsistency means that travellers like me often accidentally scald themselves, turn on the water at full blast, or get an unexpected cold shock.
The biggest issue is discoverability. There’s often no clear indication of how the system works. Some showers even have extra knobs that control water pressure or temperature separately, adding to more confusion. Without obvious instructions, we are left to experiment, sometimes getting drenched unexpectedly in freezing or boiling water.
Applying Norman’s Principles to Improve Shower Design
Don Norman’s principles of discoverability, affordances, and signifiers could help improve shower designs:
- Clear affordances. The shape and placement of knobs should signify their function. A lever-style handle naturally implies to us that it has to be turned, while a button clearly calls for you to press it.
- Icons or labels could tell us about temperature directions, with simple red/blue colors universally suggesting hot and cold temp.
- Natural mapping. This could be a horizontal sliding control that moves left for hot and right for cold. It would be more intuitive than rotating knobs in random directions.
Another potential hi-tech solution is a digital shower interface with a display which could get rid of confusion entirely.