The Worst Design
- Anneka Calder
- Apr 8, 2020
- 2 min read
I went on the hunt for the worst design and found myself looking at a couple. There are a lot of designs out there that are harming our environment which qualifies them as a bad design.
The design that stood out the most for me was automatic toilet flushers. The aspect of the automatic toilet flusher that triggered me to think it was the worst design ever was its flush timing. It tends too flush before you are ready, before you are finished, before you need the toilet to be flushed. The result of this is having to try set the flusher off again wasting more water. Western Water facts sheet (2020) state that in Australia the most commonly used toilet flush system is the “single toilet flush systems”. These systems are the “most efficient” with the smallest amount of water used is 4.5/3 litres. The document doesn’t state exactly how much water is used in the public toilets we use, however, if the most efficient toilet uses 4.5/3 litres that is still a huge amount of water. If the flusher were to go off before we are ready, leading us to flush the toilet again, then we are using double, that is with the hope all public toilet with the automatic flushers are using the most efficient single flush system.
It got me thinking, why do we have automatic toilet flushers? I asked the question, do they have a purpose in the world? After doing some research I discover these flushers were there for more than just the hygiene purpose. Spectrum Interiors (2020) website states that the automatic system extends “the lifespan” of the flushers because of “less wear and tear and clumsy handling.” I thought this was a fair point from Spectrum Interiors and it made sense that now with these automatic toilet flushes there is a smaller risk of a flusher breaking.
Because I was unhappy with this design I naturally started to think of improvements and new designs altogether. Toxboe. A (2011) states that a “good design is functional.” Toxboe. A then explains “a useful design solves problems.” These automatic toilet flushers solve one problem to “Prolong the lifespan” of the toilet, however, it raises another problem regarding the environment. My idea to solve both problems was to keep the automatic system as I do believe the life span would increase with it and just change the location of the sensor. Put it in the cubical where no movement will be detected until we are ready to go out of our way to make a distinct movement to trigger the sensor and then the toilet will flush. It will then flush when we are ready, when we are finished and we need it to be flushed, saving the planet one toilet break at a time.
#DES100 - Inspiration
Western Water, Australia, (year unknown),
Spectrum Interiors, England, 2020 - https://www.spectruminteriors.co.uk/
Toxboe. A 2011- Blog, What is good design?- https://ui-patterns.com/blog/What-is-good-design
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