5 ms·

As a modestly tall guy, using a short urinal is a bad experience. It's almost impossible to control splash, and the large attack angle makes the target area app

As a modestly tall guy, using a short urinal is a bad experience. It's almost impossible to control splash, and the large attack angle makes the target area appear very small. And I'm not even that tall. Viva the high urinal

dec0dedab0de 11y ago
I always thought low urinals were ridiculous. Let short people use the regular toilet.
edgyswingset 11y ago
Having just come back from a conference where, as a very tall person, I had to use very short urinals ... there is a serious problem in the overall height of the urinal itself. You know how when you walk up to a urinal and there's pee all over the top of it? What kind of asshole would do that, right? Unfortunately, a well-intentioned but very tall person may end up peeing on the top of a urinal placed lower to the ground because he didn't get the angle just right at first.
wdmeldon 11y ago
My metric as a tall person is, if I can comfortably rest my scrotum on the top of the urinal, it has no place in an adult setting. Seriously. Every workplace I've been to has had a substantial percentage of urinals that looked like they were sized for an elementary school.
upbeatlinux 11y ago
Completely agreed - short urinals have the worst user experience for tall or dare I say average height males. In fact the average height in the US is approximately 5' 10". Claiming all urinals should be short ones seems instead like misplaced aggression or dare I say a bit of Napolean complex. This being said selecting urinals as a comparison to enterprise mobile UX/UP patterns is a bit off-putting, sexist and simply unprofessional.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  I'm not sure I see why it's sexist, aside from the fact that it is tangentially related to gender. Which is not to say it isn't, but I'd like to hear you explain/justify your claim that it is sexist.
  - atom-morgan 11y ago
    > I'm not sure I see why it's sexist, aside from the fact that it is tangentially related to gender. That's usually all it takes nowadays.
  - Fomite 11y ago
    I'll take a swing at this...with the note that something can be 'mildly sexist'. Sexist, without being a four alarm fire. The problem is it feeds pretty heavily into the notion of "Male as Default" and that when you're talking to a tech audience, you're talking exclusively to guys. The thing being discussed, compared to, etc. is supposed to be a common experience, something that you've actually thought about, or at least would go "Yeah, that is weird..." For half the population, urinals are not so much something they interact with. By assuming it's a common experience, you're assuming the reader is male.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- zeveb 11y ago
  > This being said selecting urinals as a comparison to enterprise mobile UX/UP patterns is a bit off-putting, sexist and simply unprofessional. You must be great fun at parties.
seany 11y ago
I was thinking the same thing when I passed that part. Some times I come across low mounted ones where I might accidentally hit the `valve on the top`, never mind the top of the actual urinal.
logfromblammo 11y ago
The mounting height is only relevant for "bucket" style urinals. "Trough" style are less hostile to tall users, and "piss-on-wall" style urinals are equally accessible to all males. Splashback is too often ignored by urinal manufacturers. The angles of surfaces should direct all streams and all splashes toward the drain. When you have a perfectly flat back, the user has to stand further away, which enables direct drip onto the floor or aim-related scattering. The "piss-on-wall" urinal with recessed floor drain is the... golden standard. Really, the design constraints for female-use urinals are far more challenging. I have no hope that existing manufacturers can get close to correct there as long as every men's room I see outside of a sports stadium has "bucket" style urinals, mounted at the wrong height, with no thought to splashback or occupancy etiquette.
- eru 11y ago
  See http://www.ampnet.co.uk/femorabilia/pee_standing.html http://www.ampnet.co.uk/femorabilia/pee_standing.html
  - developer1 11y ago
    Thank you for enlightening me as to why female public washrooms are disgusting places. I wonder how many women are honestly so germaphobic as to never touch their rear to the toilet seat. Which results in them trying and failing to perform these kinds of feats, which in turn makes the toilet and floor disgusting, which in turn makes other women not want to go near. Perpetual cycle. I haven't had to clean public washrooms in over 10 years now, but I will never forget the incredibly disgusting sights I had to endure in the stalls of women's washrooms. While men's stalls aren't always spic 'n span either (if any man reading this has ever taken a piss without even lifting the seat, or have poured half your liquid onto the floor - fuck you), the number of occasions on which this is encountered is a tiny fraction compared to what women routinely do. Yuck.
- gradstudent 11y ago
  > The "piss-on-wall" urinal with recessed floor drain is the... golden standard. ?!? The piss-on-wall urinal is horrid. There's splashback no matter how you stand. The problem is especially exacerbated if the user is wearing sandals. The golden standard (imo) is a water-flush bowl-style urinal mounted at an appropriate height and with wide dividers between users. TBH though, I still prefer a stall.

dec0dedab0de 11y ago

I always thought low urinals were ridiculous. Let short people use the regular toilet.

edgyswingset 11y ago

Having just come back from a conference where, as a very tall person, I had to use very short urinals ... there is a serious problem in the overall height of the urinal itself. You know how when you walk up to a urinal and there's pee all over the top of it? What kind of asshole would do that, right? Unfortunately, a well-intentioned but very tall person may end up peeing on the top of a urinal placed lower to the ground because he didn't get the angle just right at first.

wdmeldon 11y ago

My metric as a tall person is, if I can comfortably rest my scrotum on the top of the urinal, it has no place in an adult setting. Seriously. Every workplace I've been to has had a substantial percentage of urinals that looked like they were sized for an elementary school.

upbeatlinux 11y ago

Completely agreed - short urinals have the worst user experience for tall or dare I say average height males. In fact the average height in the US is approximately 5' 10". Claiming all urinals should be short ones seems instead like misplaced aggression or dare I say a bit of Napolean complex. This being said selecting urinals as a comparison to enterprise mobile UX/UP patterns is a bit off-putting, sexist and simply unprofessional.

sliverstorm 11y ago
I'm not sure I see why it's sexist, aside from the fact that it is tangentially related to gender. Which is not to say it isn't, but I'd like to hear you explain/justify your claim that it is sexist.
- atom-morgan 11y ago
  > I'm not sure I see why it's sexist, aside from the fact that it is tangentially related to gender. That's usually all it takes nowadays.
- Fomite 11y ago
  I'll take a swing at this...with the note that something can be 'mildly sexist'. Sexist, without being a four alarm fire. The problem is it feeds pretty heavily into the notion of "Male as Default" and that when you're talking to a tech audience, you're talking exclusively to guys. The thing being discussed, compared to, etc. is supposed to be a common experience, something that you've actually thought about, or at least would go "Yeah, that is weird..." For half the population, urinals are not so much something they interact with. By assuming it's a common experience, you're assuming the reader is male.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
zeveb 11y ago
> This being said selecting urinals as a comparison to enterprise mobile UX/UP patterns is a bit off-putting, sexist and simply unprofessional. You must be great fun at parties.

seany 11y ago

I was thinking the same thing when I passed that part. Some times I come across low mounted ones where I might accidentally hit the `valve on the top`, never mind the top of the actual urinal.

logfromblammo 11y ago

The mounting height is only relevant for "bucket" style urinals. "Trough" style are less hostile to tall users, and "piss-on-wall" style urinals are equally accessible to all males. Splashback is too often ignored by urinal manufacturers. The angles of surfaces should direct all streams and all splashes toward the drain. When you have a perfectly flat back, the user has to stand further away, which enables direct drip onto the floor or aim-related scattering. The "piss-on-wall" urinal with recessed floor drain is the... golden standard. Really, the design constraints for female-use urinals are far more challenging. I have no hope that existing manufacturers can get close to correct there as long as every men's room I see outside of a sports stadium has "bucket" style urinals, mounted at the wrong height, with no thought to splashback or occupancy etiquette.

eru 11y ago
See http://www.ampnet.co.uk/femorabilia/pee_standing.html http://www.ampnet.co.uk/femorabilia/pee_standing.html
- developer1 11y ago
  Thank you for enlightening me as to why female public washrooms are disgusting places. I wonder how many women are honestly so germaphobic as to never touch their rear to the toilet seat. Which results in them trying and failing to perform these kinds of feats, which in turn makes the toilet and floor disgusting, which in turn makes other women not want to go near. Perpetual cycle. I haven't had to clean public washrooms in over 10 years now, but I will never forget the incredibly disgusting sights I had to endure in the stalls of women's washrooms. While men's stalls aren't always spic 'n span either (if any man reading this has ever taken a piss without even lifting the seat, or have poured half your liquid onto the floor - fuck you), the number of occasions on which this is encountered is a tiny fraction compared to what women routinely do. Yuck.
gradstudent 11y ago
> The "piss-on-wall" urinal with recessed floor drain is the... golden standard. ?!? The piss-on-wall urinal is horrid. There's splashback no matter how you stand. The problem is especially exacerbated if the user is wearing sandals. The golden standard (imo) is a water-flush bowl-style urinal mounted at an appropriate height and with wide dividers between users. TBH though, I still prefer a stall.