Browsing Tag: bathroom

    Miscellany

    This is How You Do a Men’s Room

    November 24, 2013

    We just wrapped up our SMX Social Media Marketing conference and it’s always a favorite event for me, in part because of the venue. We’ve now been at the Aria Hotel in Las Vegas for two years running, and it’s a magnificent place.

    The rooms are super nice, and this is the men’s room in the conference center portion of the building:

    aria-mens-room

    The picture doesn’t even do it justice. It’s probably the nicest men’s room I’ve ever been in. Super clean, super modern design and decor, big and roomy … this is how you do a men’s room. Much nicer than that bathroom fail that I wrote about a few years ago. 🙂

    Miscellany

    Bathroom = Usability Fail

    February 25, 2009

    I’m no globe-trotting jet-setter, but I have stayed in plenty of hotel rooms in the past couple years. And I’ve never stayed in a room with as bad a bathroom as the Hyatt Hotel in Santa Clara, California.

    How bad was the bathroom? Let me count the ways:

    bathroom-fail

    1. Sink
    It’s bad enough that the sink sits up high, on top of the counter; everyone knows sinks should be below counter level. But look — the darn thing is sideways! Who’s the genius that decided we’ve been doing it wrong, all these decades of having the faucet to the rear of the sink?

    2. Hot/Cold Faucet
    Everyone knows that hot water is to the left and cold is to the right. That’s how it works when the faucet is behind the sink. So, in this sideways arrangement, you’d assume that pulling the faucet closer to you (i.e., to the left) would be for hot water. And you’d assume wrong. Not only is the sink sideways, but the faucet is also backwards; pulling the faucet closer (i.e., to what should be the left) is for cold water. Stupid.

    3. Towel Rack
    How do you explain putting the towel rack below the sink, where the water will splash all over the dry towels as you wash your hands and face? It’s a terrible spot for a towel rack, and it also means you have to lean a bit to get your face above the sink — you can’t get right up close to the counter.

    4. Vertical Toilet Paper
    Again, who needs years of familiarity with having a horizontal roll of toilet paper? Not the Hyatt. No, they have the TP sitting vertical, so all your learned muscle movements related to pulling and tearing the bum wipe are completely useless. Total fail.

    5. Toilet Paper Placement
    It’s not just the vertical stance, but also the terrible placement. You don’t really get a sense of the depth in this photo, but that roll of TP is way back against the wall, completely out of reach to anyone not named Plasticman. To get there, you have to turn your body, rotate your neck like Sybil, and contort your arm into a position that it wasn’t meant to form. I strained muscles I didn’t even know I had just reaching for some TP.

    Why not put the TP near where the towel rack is (and hang it horizontally), then move the towel rack to the wall above the toilet … like at every other hotel on earth? And mix in a normal sink while you’re at it, Hyatt.

    On the bright side, the water pressure in the shower was pretty good.