Taps

May the faucet be with you

One thing you learn while developing hands-on exhibitions is the vital importance of making controls easy to use, and of providing information in places where people's gaze will fall naturally. This principle should apply to all things that we use, but trendy tap designers seem to be losing sight of it. Below is my personal rogue's gallery of taps - sometimes hard to turn, often hard to identify as hot or cold, and in one case completely hidden.

For lack of a photograph, I've omitted the hotel taps which bore no identifying marks at all. What's worse, these particular taps were obviously a very long way from the cold main or the hot water tank, because you had to run several minutes of lukewarm water before finding out which was which.

For the same reason, I can't show you the bathroom taps whose heads were shiny plastic domes with only the most subtle deviations from perfect circularity. Almost impossible to turn with wet or soapy hands.

We will go onto taps where there's a hot/cold problem next, but first, here's a tap in a train toilet, which is obviously so embarrassed at being a tap at all that it skulks out of sight behind a panel. The panel then has to have a label "Water" to tell you where the tap is (left). The lever for the soap dispenser is visible but not prominent. You can see the tap if you stand too far away from the basin to reach it (right).

The taps above are in a hotel bathroom. On the left, you see them from a standing position. (Most people adopt this position to wash their hands.) If you look carefully, you might just be able to see which is the hot tap and which is the cold tap. However, only if you kneel down (right) can you clearly see the narrow (and recessed) red and blue collars that identify them.

Here is a pair of taps in a domestic bathroom. On the left, they are seen from a standing position. But which is the hot tap and which is the cold tap? Look at the reflections in the tap spouts for a clue. On the right, we see that the red and blue marks are visible only if you kneel down (as one does). These taps also spring another surprise. The shape of the handle suggests that you might lift it to make the water flow. Instead, it swivels to one side. But which side?

This is a variation on the same theme, from a restaurant toilet. The projecting handle of this tap is angled down, so that you can't see the red/blue marks (arrowed) from the front even if you kneel down. Once you are low enough to see under the handle, the countertop is in the way.

The next pictures are of a shower control. On the left we see it from the normal showering position. You pull the lever out to turn the water on, but which way do you swivel it to make the water hotter? From here, there's no way to tell. On the right is the same control seen from below while squatting on the floor. There are those helpful red and blue marks. Why didn't I think of looking there in the first place? Silly me!