Last week I was on trip in Redmond. We stayed in Fairfield Inn, a really nice hotel.
Everything was great, except I had some problem with the bath faucet. (Later, I found out one of my colleagues had same problem.)
The faucet looked like this:
(I should have taken a picture…)
It was very clear that the red dot stood for “Warm Water” and the blue one for “Cold Water”.
So, how do I get warm water?
I tried below operation but I failed. It didn’t move.
(This is so-called “User’s Model” *)
And I tried in the direction out of this page. I failed again.
I was very confused. Then I accidentially found it works like this:
(And this is so-called “Design Model” **)
It’s a very good sample that the design is to make it look better but less workable. And the user’s model cannot map to design model very well.
I would think to myself – DON’T HAVE THIS FAUCET IN YOUR SOFTWARE!
*,** – Please refer to the book “The Design Of Everyday Things”, which I was just re-reading on my flight.