Creativity under Constraint

With bathroom designs being as variable as they are, there is plenty of opportunity to observe how things can go wrong for the human user. Unbound creativity may score points for esthetics, but creative design that is also user-friendly ultimately wins. Traveling in Europe and Northern Africa, I was again witness to variety, although most of the individual examples of design are not worth describing. On a non-design note, I report that the Moroccan public bathrooms I visited were kept scrupulously clean. I sheepishly confess that I had lower expectations.

The object of this post is a design marvel I stumbled into on my way home. Coming into London Heathrow on a late ride from Madrid, I had to spend the night before pushing on to Boston. Heathrow, like Gatwick and Schiphol, has a "Yotel," an auberge with tiny rooms and hourly rates (I am no longer amused by the weird looks I get for this tidbit). The Yotel is located in the mezzanine of Terminal 4. With an online reservation, check-in takes all but 2 minutes, and this is where the efficiency begins. I walk down a narrow hall to room (dare I say "room"?) number 10. Stepping in, I find myself in a space reminiscent of a cabin on a cruise ship, only smaller.

In the central postage-stamp-size area, I put down my bags. On the right, there is a full-sized bunk with a flat-screen TV at the foot end. On the left, there is a bathroom with the trio of toilet, sink, and shower. The toilet meets Moroccan standards of cleanliness and offers no confusing choices of how to flush. The sink is smaller than expected, but does the job, suggesting that most sinks are too large. The water fixture is on the left, inviting me to get my right hand wet first. The operating lever is placed directly above of the tap. As I pull up, water comes. Moving left and moving right makes the water respectively hotter and colder. A red and a blue dot foretell the result. No hassles and no experimentation. The shower is even better. A single lever controls water volume and temperature. A downward movement makes the water come down from the "monsoon" showerhead. I appreciate this feature because the direction of the movement matches the direction of the water's flow. Moving the lever back up, stops the water by keeping it above.

As I marvel at this example of design gone right, I wonder if, given all the variation out there, some designers get it right thanks to the laws of probability or dumb luck alone. In the Yotel the answer is no. On the bed, I find a booklet with essential information presented in an easy-to-read and well-structured way. Again, good design wins. The CEO tells the story of how the Yotel came to be and how its features were selected and optimized. The CEO's own frustrating experience with overpriced and inefficient airport hotels played a role as well as customer preferences, carefully assessed. For example, the CEO notes that Yotel mattresses are made of organic materials and designed to accommodate the needs of babies. Effective story-telling meets education.

I learned from this experience that physical constraints and limitations can be effective teachers. When every square inch matters, the designer must look at each feature carefully and consider how the features interact to facilitate the user's move from one to the next. The people at Yotel met this challenge mindfully. They imagined a choreography of moves through a microcosmic space. Their design solutions subtly lead the guest by affordances, not by riddles or demands. The ability to use space fluidly has its own esthetic, which is more comprehensive than the merely visual.

Constraints can stimulate creativity. Creativity under constraint is different from ordinary creativity, which asks for quantity and diversity. How many uses can you imagine for a brick? As you think about this creatively, you step out of traditional mindsets and go beyond. But where? In contrast, constraints contract reality, while posing the challenge of solving a problem that otherwise would be easy.

Faucet afterthought. Remember that faucet controls must regulate water volume and temperature. I have thought about these two variables as independent and hence have praised designs that afford independent movements, such as vertical movement for volume and lateral movement for temperature. There is an interesting alternative. I found a faucet whose operating lever's resting position is down and central. As you move the lever up, you can also move it laterally. Imagine the design as a triangle, where the top left point gives the hottest water at the highest volume and the top right point gives the coldest water at the highest volume. Any combination of volume and temperature has a unique location within this triangle.