Falcon Waterfree Technologies Gets It

“As much as 5% of fresh water consumed is currently used to carry away urine. Each Falcon Waterfree urinal typically saves an average of 40,000 gallons (151,000 liters) of fresh water per year.”

Not much would be required beyond that quote to say that Falcon Waterfree Technologies clearly “gets it”. Read about them and their mission and vision, and you’ll also be thinking “yes, these are the kinds of companies that deserve to thrive and prosper” – and should they succeed, it’s going to make the world a better place for all of us.

But wouldn’t you know it; they’ve taken it a step further and incorporated some great design as well. Sure, as far as urinals go, their products have some nice lines and are easy enough on the eyes – plus, no piping or anything that you need to touch with your hands (bonus).

But did you notice that little speck in the back of the bowl? No, that’s not a bad scan – that is, in fact, a little cartoon bee that is painted on the unit itself – and it is a brilliant example of iconography, universal language, and simplicity.

The unit is water-free after all, so to keep things as clean as possible and working properly it stands to reason that there are optimal ways to, um, “interact” with it. They could have created little instruction panels (bringing up language concerns) that nobody would read or certainly wouldn’t read until they were already in mid-relief. They could have done any number of designs like bulls-eyes or arrows or other things that were heavy-handed and might make people loathe to comply for just that reason (unless the consequences were dire) because we’ve all got a little bit of rebellion in us. Instead, they acted upon a piece of universal knowledge: guys like to aim at stuff.

There’s something about that bee, isn’t there? It’s not overly cartoon-ish. It’s not overly realistic, making you think that it might crawl out of there if you don’t zap it – perhaps adding to some patrons’ existing stage fright. There’s no explanation, and no pressure. It just…is. Consequently, it is almost diabolically hard to resist aiming at. You see, there isn’t really much else to do whilst in the act, so there’s a bit of human nature there to turn what would otherwise be total downtime into a simple game. That’s the impulse that makes you kick a bottle cap around when you’re waiting for your friend to pick you up; the impulse that used to make you try to flick a field goal with a little paper football while waiting for the bell to ring. So, if all else is white on a standard urinal but there’s a little black chip mark in the porcelain or something, dollars to donuts, guys will aim at it. Why not take it up a notch, and in the process, guide the users of your product to keep it working more efficiently (proper aim reinforces the vortex that keeps the liquid moving down the water-free drain) – reducing maintenance costs, keeping things more sanitary, and improving the experience for everyone?

So there are a few lessons here:

1. When all else is equal, something that offers people the chance to test their skill or have a little fun in an otherwise rote or mundane setting will likely be utilized.
2. There are few things as intuitive as directing specific behaviors by capitalizing on the innate trends and tendencies of the target audience; thereby reducing potential fatigue and misunderstanding that can occur when using more traditional methods of communication (text, audio, video, instructive graphics).
3. Not every design decision has to be beaten into the ground – sometimes it really is acceptable to just go with something because you have a visceral response to it or because it is “cool” (properly executed, of course). I’m sure there was research behind using the bee, but if it was a little hammer or one of those mushroom guys from Super Mario Brothers, I’m willing to bet the results would be the same.

Strong iconography that can be understood (or elicit specific behaviors) globally is something to strive for – I’d be pretty proud of this had I come up with it. To quote one of our fearless leaders (Brian) when we were talking about the genius of this design at the Think Space (obviously, our inspirations know no bounds): “…that’s what is so brilliant about it…I mean, I think Europeans probably like peeing on bees too.”

Who wouldn’t, Mr. McIntire. Who wouldn’t.

Ivan Gets It: Getting Your Point Across

Last night I was enjoying an IM conversation with a former colleague of mine. Among the topics was a bit of a gripe session about some designers we’ve known who insist on creating Flash applications inside of browsers that look and function more like a software application than a web app. I think I said something like, “Not only do you lose a lot of real estate by building a frame within a browser frame, but you’re limiting any kind of expandability by building a frame in the first place.” I thought I was soooo smart.

This morning I started catching up on some of my blogs and Darryl over at Plaid wrote about Ringo by Ivan Tihienko.

Holographic Interface – round interface – Ringo from Ivan Tihienko on Vimeo.

This is still a concept piece done for a final project at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, but it blows away my thoughts about the limitations of a frame.

Why does Ivan get it? Aside from coming up with a cool idea, Ivan found a way to demonstrate it in a compelling and entertaining way. How many great ideas have been destroyed by the 30-minute PowerPoint presentation meant to pitch the idea? This is the same reason car manufacturers create unbuildable prototypes.

Will Ringo ever be built? Who knows. But it has more potential to inspire the next generation of UIs to be built than a flash app in a browser window.

Way to go Ivan!