Watercooler FAIL
Here’s a photo of the watercooler we have at work:
Seems simple and harmless enough. Each chute is clearly labeled. There are good affordances for where to place your cup.
But the first couple times I used this machine, I had a really hard time figuring out how the heck it worked. I’d put my cup in front of it, and nothing would happen. I’d move it around a bit and then ice or water would come out (depending on which chute I was in front of) in some unpredictable and erratic fashion. But I couldn’t figure out why it worked some times and didn’t work other times. Here’s what my cup looks like:
It’s a mug and tea infuser made out of glass. I hate using styrofoam cups so I use it as a (very delicate!) water mug as well. On a complete side note, it’s a really cleverly designed and elegant object. Though it has some usability issues and I think sacrifices function for form, it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make … despite the occasional hot tea burn. (Link to Bodum tea infuser on Amazon)
So as it turns out, that black and red rectangle with the three dots in it is some kind of sensor, I’m guessing it’s a photo (light) sensor.
In this watercooler’s manufacturer’s perfect world, all cups are made of plastic or some other opaque material, which, when placed in front of the photo sensor, blocks light and therefore dispenses water in the desired molecular state, be it solid or liquid. I guess that they didn’t account for the fact that some people drink water out of fancy-schmancy cups made of transparent glass.
I don’t think that glass cups can really be considered an edge case (there’s at least one other person in my group with one!), and I think it constitutes an oversight on the part of the manufacturer. I suppose that these kinds of machines are often accompanied by a styrofoam cup dispenser, and perhaps only the characteristics of this kind of cup were considered when a photo sensor was chosen over (gasp!) …… a plain old lever.
Sometimes just because you can do something – like install fancy sensors in a water machine, or a towel dispenser, or a faucet (I often find myself trying to coax those things into firing off by using awkward hand contortions and spastic gestures)- doesn’t mean you should.
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