18 ms·
The hotel bathroom puzzle
- caiocaiocaio 8y agoGood article, but what they failed to notice was that the bathtub already blocks both doors from opening.
- lstamour 8y agoOkay, how would tying the two doors together prevent the doors from opening if the doors opened inwards? It’s pretty obvious the doors would have to open outwards from the bathroom into each suite. So the bathtub’s size and position in any diagram is even more irrelevant, I’d suggest.
- sampo 8y agoIf one has always lived in a country where bathroom doors (or outdoors, for that matter) as a rule open inwards, maybe the idea of a door opening outwards is too distant to contemplate.
- jtchang 8y agoWell it is cheaper to change the direction of the door than it is to demolish and rebuild the hotel.
- sjburt 8y agoIt's a poor drawing. They look like doors that open inward. Doors that open outward would be need to be set more deeply into the door frame.
- handojin 8y agoA poor drawing and a worse excuse. There's only one way this could work and how it's drawn has very little to do with it.
- drexlspivey 8y agoIf they open inwards you replace the rope with a stick.
- quickthrower2 8y agoA stick can handle both inwards and both outwards, but if one is in and one is out then it's no good.
- acranox 8y agoThis sort of goes to something I learned as an auto mechanic. When you have a problem, describe the symptoms as objectively as possible. Don’t say, “I need my tires balanced.” Or you might get your tires balanced but the problem persists. Instead say, “I feel a vibration when driving on the highway at 60mph.” This forces the technician to diagnose the problem. That’s an overly simplistic example but that’s the point. Tell your doctor what your symptoms are, without including statements that suggest a cause, or otherwise limit the scope of the issue.
- sumanthvepa 8y agoThat would be the right thing to do with a competent technician or indeed your doctor. However, here in India where I live, mechanics and computer technicians are for the most part essentially illiterate. They have absolutely no experience with the kind of analytical and critical problem solving skill you describe. Very often I am the expert in the room, and the only thing preventing me from doing the repair myself is the actual tooling (Plus I don't want to get my clothes dirty :-) ). So I do the do the diagnosis, and tell the mechanic what to do and they do it. Works well for all of us. :-)
- acranox 8y agoThat’s different then. You aren’t asking for someone to solve a problem for you. You are just paying them to perform a task. I’m referring to the issue addressed in the article about problem solving.
- ggg9990 8y agoIndia has exceptionally skilled mechanics. I saw one resuscitating a worn axle by stick welding new metal onto it! (In the street)
- 1996 8y agoLet me guess... Puegeot branded car?
- blt 8y agoThe bathroom in my house is like this. This solution would make me happy, but perhaps is too weird to be worth explaining to visitors.
- chii 8y agoI'd imagine visitors would marvel at the succinctness of the design, and it'd be a talking point!
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoUnless they're HNers, in which case they'd take great delight in demonstrating their superior intelligence by explaining why your locking system is ineffective due to various hypothetical scenarios.
- other_herbert 8y agoOr attach the lock mechanism to the toilet so when a door is opened it flushes
- jf- 8y agoI’d find it rather difficult to use a bathroom that was divided in half by a leather thong.
- tantalor 8y agoThe strap could be diverted around a pully so the room is still usable
- esturk 8y agoWhy, because of the string thru the room? It can be placed along either side of the wall.
- m_herrlich 8y agoI think just because thong is a funny word that means different things in different places
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoThe word means a (leather) strap - which is why thong underwear and thong sandals are called "thongs" that's what they're made of ... like rubbers being called rubbers (kinda, note a rubber in en-gb is both an eraser and a prophylactic).
- michaelmior 8y agoI have trouble seeing how it could be placed along the wall while maintaining the necessary tension.
- StavrosK 8y agoThrough rings bolted to the wall.
- rjtobin 8y agoI visited some dorm rooms in Croatia once, and they had a nice solution to this problem. Both doors opened inward, with the non-hinge side of the doors sitting very close to one of the walls with no doors. Instead of a conventional lock, a narrow piece of wood ran the length of this no-door wall that could be rotated to block both doors simultaneously. This is like the solution in the article, except deals with the "opens-inwards" case instead of the "open-outwards" case, and is less fumble-y than having to attach a rope to both doors.
- sushid 8y agoDo you have a picture or a diagram of this? I'm finding it hard to visualize.
- thrav 8y ago|\ /| imagine those being the doors slightly open into the room. Now here it is with the doors shut and the wood beam between them. ||__|| Can’t open either inward until the beam moves.
- ronilan 8y agoThe thing in the middle is a stick attached to the wall on a hinge. View from above - open: |\__.__/| View from above - closed: ||_____|| The whole thing at “face level” with the pushing beams sliding in guiding loops.
- thunderbong 8y agoI just can't believe I understood the whole concept so easily by the creative use of ASCII characters!! Thanks.
- m-p-3 8y agoBut if the beam somehow fell/rotated in place while no one was in there with the doors closed, you'd be locked out without a non-destructive way to unlock it.
- hgdsraj 8y agoNo need for a strap, Bluetooth linked locks that are automated so when one opens the other does to. Or put the lock on the wall rather than on the door and have a mechanical device running up and through the roof to the other door, configured such that the two door locks are restricted similar to the automation.
- atomical 8y agoBattery dies every so often and guests complain. Also, Bluetooth. It's often unreliable.
- Kranar 8y agoThis hotel was built over 100 years ago and was destroyed in a fire in the 1960s. The article isn't about how to actually solve the problem of locking shared bathroom doors... it's about sharing insights into how designers were better able to solve a problem by focusing on the objective rather than focusing on the implementation.
- tom_ 8y agoBut why the need for Bluetooth, when you have a strap?
- whatsstolat 8y agoI'd know what I'd bet on to actually work.
- ghostly_s 8y ago> You could, of course, tear down and rebuild the entire hotel, at great expense, so that each room has its own bathroom—a solution that might sound ridiculous, but isn’t so far removed from how similar design problems are addressed every day. The 'similar design problems' link in this sentence points to an article about how the video game Destiny was delayed due to a story re-write. What on earth?
- fireattack 8y ago>where bathrooms share a bathroom Is this a typo?
- m_herrlich 8y agoIn the Hotel Louis IV even the bathrooms have bathrooms (but the guests still have to share)
- alexchamberlain 8y agoI think it should read "where bedrooms share a bathroom".
- arikrak 8y agoAnother way would be to make the the lock a large rotating latch that was connected mechanically to a similar latch on the other side. While this would be more complex, it wouldn't get in the way as much.
- krallja 8y agoAnother possible solution: Each side has two locks: one that is locked when the key is missing, and one that is locked when the key is present. To give yourself privacy, you must also lock yourself in. To exit the room, you must first unlock the other door and use the key to unlock your own door.
- TylerE 8y agoThat would violate fire codes almost everywhere.
- pzh 8y agoIt’s also asymmetrical. The occupant of the locked-when-key-is-present room would have no incentive to return the key and to unlock the opposite room door.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- krallja 8y agoIt’s not really assymetrical: both sides have one key and two locks. But you’re right that it won’t work.
- krallja 8y agoNope, ignore me. This protocol has a fatal vulnerability: either user can just remove the other side’s key, and put it on the windowsill.
- skepticmoron 8y agoYou can use sensors to figure out if someone is inside these days. Tech is cool.
- panic 8y agoThe sensors have a lot more failure cases, though, and it can be hard to tell whether they're working properly.
- macintux 8y agoReminds me of light sensors in bathrooms. Often you have to wave your arms to let the sensor know you’re still inside.
- panic 8y agoYeah, that's what I was thinking of too. Don't relax in the tub too long or the doors will unlock!
- jessaustin 8y agoThat could be a feature, for someone waiting to use the facilities...
- aj7 8y agoThis entire treatise presumes not using one switch, two locks. Cars seem to have no trouble with this.
- bdamm 8y agoElectronic locks was not a thing in 1900. Old cars with manual locks did indeed have the cases where the driver reaches over and locks the passenger door, when the passenger forgets to lock it themselves. And users of old cars will remember the "open front door, reach inside and unlock back door" maneuver.
- KayEss 8y agoCentral locking: if you're in the centre of the car yu can lock all the doors.
- user5994461 8y agoCars in 2000 still had that.
- foxhop 8y agoWhen I was a young child I tied the pantry light's pull chain to string and tied the string to the door handle, just taut enough that it would enable the light when the door was opened. Regretfully to shut the light off, I needed to first close the door, re-open the door and then finally close it.
- hyperdimension 8y agoCrafty. I like it. It's funny the little (and not-so-little) things we put up with, just so we can bask in the joy of our own creations.
- userbinator 8y agoIn other words, the bathroom is a "critical section" and instead of focusing on locks on each door, it's been replaced with one big "lock" that locks them all at once.
- brudgers 8y agoIt makes the transaction atomic.
- cryptonector 8y agoYou can do that with two locks too, but one is simpler. Also, there is a failure mode here. Can you think of it?
- bdamm 8y agoDeath of the person in the bathroom? Damage to the hooks causing a jam or releasing the lock entirely? Simply not engaging the lock at all? Someone walking off with the thong and using it creatively elsewhere in their hotel? A few failure scenarios. Nothing's perfect!
- cryptonector 8y agoDeath or incapacitation of the person in the bathroom is what I had in mind. Yes, there's also the leather strap or hook (or doorknobs, ..) breaking. I hadn't considered that, oy.
- chii 8y agoI can't see what failure mode that the single lock has that isn't the same in the 2 locks version.
- jib 8y agoI often share the bathroom with my wife, and we don’t always enter at the same time. I.e. sometimes you don’t want to lock your own door.
- whoisjuan 8y agoA designed degradation, also common in software. For instance, the low battery mode in iOS is a designed degradation around the fact that is close to impossible to improve the capacity of a lithium battery (the soloution would be a completely new kind battery) so they allow people to disable non-critical features to get a slower battery drain. “Unlike common designs, excellent designs can circumvent the existence of “unhappy” conditions as well as the influence of other low-performance designs. Many times this requires the new design to lower its own performance and although this is not ideal, this is usually a trade-off that can help to maximize the existing conditions.”: https://uxdesign.cc/designed-degradations-ux-patterns-for-hostile-environments-7f308d819e50 https://uxdesign.cc/designed-degradations-ux-patterns-for-ho...
- drusepth 8y agoIn what way is the design of the room a degradation? As I understand it, the hooks work as well as (if not better than) the locks you'd otherwise have.
- whoisjuan 8y agoThe degradation is the string that keeps both doors shut. It degrades the experience of the bathroom because it limits mobility inside of it but this degradation was designed to circumvent a larger deficiency of the design (shared bathrooms).
- chii 8y agoThe hooks could double up as towel racks. And also, if the doors are near to the edge of the wall, the hooks will be near the wall too, and so not really take up space. And it's not like you'll be dancing in the bathroom, so it taking up some room that otherwise won't really be used isn't as big a problem as privacy.
- sampl 8y agoIn product management this is often described as problem space vs solution space. One of my biggest lessons in “managing up”: agree on the problem, and take any suggestions for a solution seriously. Then work to make the solution you present as good or better.
- chii 8y ago> often described as problem space vs solution space .... agree on the problem The hard part being agreeing on the problem! Sometimes, management sees the "solution", and present it as a problem that engineers then must solve. For example, competitor has brand new feature, and management asks said feature to be implemented (presumably, keeping up with the jones style). But the actual problem isn't lack of said feature, but that customers are not buying, and the only reason that's presented is a lack of said feature.
- tamaharbor 8y agoWouldn’t this make it easy to get into the adjacent guest room?
- mcphage 8y agoThey could still have locks on the doors, but the locks would be to keep people out of the hotel rooms, not out of the bathroom.
- michaelmior 8y agoI believe the parent is suggesting that the two rooms adjoining the bathroom would be mutually accessible when they shouldn't be.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- joshuahutt 8y agoYes, so you have a lock on the door that you can only manipulate from your room. Unlock it when you need to use the bathroom, lock it otherwise.
- michaelmior 8y agoThis of course doesn't allow you to lock the bathroom when you're in it from other people also in your hotel room. Although this is certainly much less of a concern.
- blt 8y agoso then you need to remember to bring your hotel key into the bathroom.
- radicality 8y agoWhy? It’s not a key, just a lock you open/close from inside your bedroom into the shared bathroom. Once you are in, you can just walk back into your room unless someone in your room on purpose locks you in.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- cryptonector 8y agoAh, but there is one failure mode... Can you find it?
- cryptonector 8y agoGuess not. The failure mode is: the person in the bathroom becomes incapacitated or dies.
- georgyo 8y agoThe bathroom connects two rooms where you don't know or trust the other room. Without a lock you have no way to prevent them coming into your room when you are not there. Still that is some great out of the box thinking.
- joshuahutt 8y agoThat thought occurred to me, too, but I realized that you could add locks that could only be locked from the bedroom sides.
- zackkatz 8y agoYes, but then the problem becomes possibly being locked out of your own bedroom, stuck in the shared bathroom!
- radicality 8y agoHow? If someone from your room on purpose locks you in the shared bathroom? That doesn’t sound like a likely scenario
- redsparrow 8y agoI lived in on-campus student housing that had bathrooms like this (the locks on both sides of both doors version.) My friend was in the bathroom during a commercial break of X-Files and I locked him in there. Ha ha. So he knocked on my neighbour's door and got out that way, but he still needed to get back into my room from the public hallway. I was watching him through the peep hole in my door, and to taunt him I opened the door and quickly closed it again. The two problems with that were that the peep hole made it look like he was further away than he was and the door had a hydraulic arm on it and didn't close as quickly as I expected. Anyway, I put ice on my forehead for the rest of the episode and then went to the hospital for three stitches. I'd say that the likeliness really depends on whose bathroom it is. ;)
- aeternus 8y ago
- aluminussoma 8y agoWhat if the high humidity of the bathroom causes the leather strap to break at an inopportune time? What happens if the strap gets misplaced or stolen? This is not a good idea.
- 3131s 8y ago> What if the high humidity of the bathroom causes the leather strap to break at an inopportune time? I doubt that would happen, but use something other than leather? > What happens if the strap gets misplaced or stolen? Replace it?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- LeoPanthera 8y agoA surprising number of these comments are trying to find problems with the solution. I've noticed a tendency for hackers to assume that practical solutions to real world problems are theoretical, and then try to pick holes in them, forgetting that if the solution is already implemented and in place, then it probably works just fine.
- Kiro 8y agoWhy settle with "just fine"?
- mindcrime 8y agoOpportunity cost. Time spent trying to come up with a better solution to something that doesn't need a better solution, is time that isn't being spent doing something more valuable. OTOH, one could argue that pursuing a seemingly trivial improvement to an existing solution could - by serendipity - lead to a breakthrough that actually does solve other problems as well. But I'd guess that, on balance, there's a greater payoff for spending time on something besides incremental tweaks to existing solutions. But that's just a guess...
- dvdkon 8y agoBut that’s a big part of designing anything: Trying to find a solution’s faults to then be able to implement a better one or at least be aware of the faults and work around them. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
- jdbernard 8y agoTo echo you, that's also one of the things you painfully learn when working with real software systems: there will always be failure cases you didn't think of. Better to catch as many as possible early. Just because it's working now doesn't mean it will keep working tomorrow.
- mkagenius 8y ago> find problems with the solution You would be surprised to know how many nobel prize winners do that.
- Jaruzel 8y agoAs everyone else is trying to re-solve this problem in a better way... Here's my 2p's worth: Employ a monkey to lock/unlock both doors for you. Use something like a banana for lock and an orange for unlock, keep baskets of both fruits in the bathroom. To stock the baskets get the maids to do it when they change towels.
- King-Aaron 8y agoI would pay good money to stay at a hotel that utilises monkey-lock-fruit-bowl arrangements
- cwkoss 8y agoOne ticket for the lockpicking monkey circus please
- IshKebab 8y agoHas nobody ever been swimming?
- megablast 8y agoI have never seen this situation at a swimming pool, and I have no idea why it would be necessary at all? Just have a cubicle with a shower curtain, or an ordinary change room.
- IshKebab 8y agoAll swimming pools in the UK have cubicles with two doors - one that leads to the pool and one that leads to the exit. There isn't any way around the cubicles. It's to prevent people casually walking into the pool in shoes and making it dirty. They use a single piece bar that locks both doors simultaneously.
- yardstick 8y agoNo one has mentioned this yet: remove the two private doors and install a single door in the common hallway. Yes you lose some convenience by having to be clothed while entering and exiting the bathroom. But at least you guarantee the door is always unlocked when not in use.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- user5994461 8y agoThat's only possible if the bathroom is next to the hallway, otherwise they have to tear down the building.
- vagab0nd 8y agoI get what the author is getting at. But this particular example doesn't really help with the conclusion. The solution is still about locks, just that the 2 locks are now linked together.
- TeMPOraL 8y agoThere are no locks in doors at all. There is a single mechanism physically connecting the doors together, so that neither can be opened, and that can only be engaged and disengaged from the inside.
- amalcon 8y agoHow is that mechanism not, itself, a lock? It's an unusual (and well suited) kind of lock, sure, but still a lock.
- JdeBP 8y agoTry pointing to the part that is the key that unlocks it, and you will see. (-: Yes, strictly speaking the headlined article is likely talking about door bolts not locks.
- jasonkester 8y agoI'm reminded of a discussion we had here a few weeks ago, where somebody noted that humanity wouldn't be able to invent, for example, a machine to automatically rack pins at a bowling alley today. The 2018 solution to that problem would automatically involve computer vision, AI and robotics. The idea that one could construct a giant mechanical device the size of an entire bowling lane that is purpose built to lift, sweep, collect, rack, and place pins with no capacity for customization whatsoever wouldn't even occur to today's generation of engineers. You can see it happening in some of the comments here.
- asoftwareperson 8y agoI don’t think this is true. It may be true if you asked software people to build it. Ask some mechanical engineers.
- nebulous1 8y agoYeah, this isn't even close to true, and honestly I think it's an issue that so many people seem to think it's true
- StavrosK 8y agoHave today's engineers somehow stopped believing that the simpler thing is the most useful? Or is it that writing some code to glue together off-the-shelf parts is cheaper and easier than designing and manufacturing a giant machine?
- raverbashing 8y ago> Have today's engineers somehow stopped believing that the simpler thing is the most useful? See how much crap do you have to install before using some modern js framework For some others, you need to use an Arduino to make a led blink Or maybe the true engineers are solving other problems.
- lghh 8y ago
- basicplus2 8y agocould also use a mechanical interlock such that when one door opens, it locks the other door, then when you return to your room the act of closing your door behind you unlocks the other door.
- king_nothing 8y agoIf only London hotels architects had known this, the majority of showers might not be a size smaller than a phone-booth such that you cannot turn around in it and must enter/exit sideways... while not being at all rotund.
- erespace 8y agoAwesome
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- sorokod 8y agoSo: try { lock() } finally { unlock() }
- coherentpony 8y agoWhat if both doors don't open in the same direction?
- cryptozeus 8y agoSomeone attaches the rope and dies in the bathtub. Now we have a problem ...
- FrozenVoid 8y agoInstead of relying on the user to "do the right thing", the idea is to prevent the user from doing "the wrong thing" and making it as automated as possible. This is course clashes with the "let the user freedom to do anything", forcing subpar decisions and predictable mistakes. Making the interface of system simple is more important that making the system itself simple.
- jamesfisher 8y agoSome parts of the solution are left unspecified. Which way do the doors open? Surely not inwards, else someone can intrude. Do they only open outwards? In which case, to get out, does the leaver first detach the rope from the handles?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- euyyn 8y agoYes to the last question.
- np_tedious 8y agoI was thinking this too. They must open out which is uncommon enough (at least nowadays) to deserve comment
- PeterisP 8y agoRealistically, if you're the one solving the problem, then the answer to "Which way do the doors open?" is "whichever way you want, since it's you who decides on how to build them".
- wool_gather 8y agoAwesome solution, simple genius. So many times I've tried to explain a similar principle for this kind of situation. Signs don't work! People don't read them (actually, they often don't even see them, at least consciously). Especially when it's a common action. You generally have to physically alter their path through the task to get their attention -- disrupt the affordances somehow. If you don't want anyone to turn on the oven, cover the knob (or remove it). Same for a door handle. There's one case of something on the shelf that's earmarked for a particular purpose? Tie or tape it in place. A sign works to give reasoning, but first you have to slow down the distracted and goal-oriented person enough to read it. Another good example of this kind of design is circuit breaker lockouts: an electrician needs to work on a particular circuit, so they turn off the breaker. To make sure that no-one turns it on and kills them while they're still working, they bar the switch in place with a physical lock that only they have the key for. Better, some models allow multiple locks to be attached (it's like a physical concurrency semaphore). Then the circuit can't be re-powered until all locks have been removed.
- opdahl 8y agoVery interesting problem! The supplied solution is simple and it works for that specific use case, but there are still some problems. 1) This can only be done where its feasible to connect the two doors with a rope. What if the doors are physically seperated far away from each other, or maybe even seperate entrances to a large bulding complex? 2) You can be locked inside the bathroom if someone locks the door behind you. So i tried coming up with my own solution to solving the specified problem while also dealing with the problems with the other solution. First off it makes sense having a system with keys and devices that are easily installed at each door. That way you deal with problem 1. With this solution another problem arises: You can just remove a key from the room and nothing will work, so a constraint is introduced. Specifically: It should be impossible to exit the room while carrying any of the keys, given you don’t work together with the opposite side. So my solution is: A connected sliding lock on both sides of both doors, plus a sliding lock containing a key on both doors inside the bathroom. So one sliding lock in the apartment side and two locks the bathroom side for each door. Inside the bathroom you can only lock the opposite sides door by locking your own door first. Locking your own door with the sliding lock containing a ley gives access to the key which you insert into one of the sliding locks on the opposite side. An important feature is that you can not remove the key from the lock on the opposite side without first unlocking it and you can not unlock your own door without using the key. So with this system it is impossible to leave with a key from the bathroom, and you also can’t lock your opponents door without locking your own door, barring your escape. At first I thought this solution was the perfect one, but then I realised that there is nothing stopping someone from stealing the key from the opposite side by just locking the opponent door with their sliding lock, removing the key, and leaving the room. The solution to this is that the sliding lock for eachs side key is connected to the sliding lock on the apartment side. By this I mean that when the door is locked on the apartment side, it will make the sliding lock on the bathroom side unmovable, and aldo vice versa. If you have locked the door on your side, the sliding lock will also be immovable. This way nobody can lock you inside, and you can not steal the opponents key because it is locked from its apartment side therefore blocking the use of the sliding lock with the key on the bathroom side. So I think this solution works, even though it is somewhat complicated. So heres the user story for using the bathroom. 1. Unlock door on apartment side. 2. Lock door on bathroom side, and take key. 3. Use key to lock door on opposite side 4. Do your business 5. Unlock opposite side, and take key 6. Use key to unlock your own door, locking the key in place in he process 7. Exit the bathroom and slide the lock again. I guess this is what you would call «over-engineering» but it was fun trying to come up with a solution! Please tell me if I’ve missed something that would break this, I can’t come up with anything atm.
- bahmboo 8y agoSure, but what if both doors open _into_ the bathroom?
- bradlys 8y agoOh. I get how the solution works now. I was assuming the doors opened into the bathroom (which I think most do in most places I've been??). If they open into the room then you have two giant rods that you connect together to hold them shut? Another solution but even weirder...
- farss 8y agoI was at one of the baths in Budapest recently where I saw another solution to this problem. The locker room is mixed gender, and the changing stalls have two doors that open to opposite sides of the aisle. But the doors open inward, and the bench inside folds down to block them while occupied. Then you have to lift the bench to get out.
- sriram_iyengar 8y agoBrilliant ! Means vs End. Getting fixated and not taking a step back only adds more debt to the solution, if the problem is partially solved.
- King-Aaron 8y agoI'd have assume the door handles are close to a blank/empty wall... Otherwise all I can imagine is trying to use various things in the bathroom and having to step over a waist-level leather strap running through the middle of the room while you're trying to use it. As the diagram goes at least, if you were sitting on the toilet, and then decided to have a bath, you'd be contorting yourself over the strap.
- yitchelle 8y agoI guess if society had no problems with nudity and bath room activities, the problem of needing to keep the doors locked when it is occupied not exists.
- roddds 8y agoI have zero problems with nudity and I still don't want anyone walking in on me while I'm taking a dump.
- madcaptenor 8y agoI thought this was going to be about the question of why every hotel bathroom has a different way of controlling the hot and cold water in the shower, and why none of these are anything like what you see in most residential bathrooms.