Sloan makes a variety of plumbingproducts, including motion sensor activated faucets. These faucets are now commonly found in public restrooms,including many on Cornell’s campus. These touch-less faucets are designed to be clean and waterefficient. While their sleekdesign is aesthetically pleasing and the environmentally friendly conceptsbehind the product are appealing, there are flaws in the design that lead to aless than satisfactory user experience.  

Thisdesign has no inherent affordances. A flat surface naturally asks one to sit or place something on it. This does have such a property. However, through decades of culturalexperience, we as a society know that this is a faucet under which we wash ourhands. Given that it is usuallyplaced on top of a sink, the only clue for how to use is its context. If someone who had never seen a sinkbefore had encountered it, they would have no idea what to do. Furthermore, it has a criticalambiguous affordance – if you had never seen an automatic sink before but hadused manual sinks, you would approach this tool knowing what it was used forbut not knowing how to use it. There is no clue that says to forgo any on/off switch and use it as ifyou didn’t need one. If you hadnever encountered a faucet like this, you might even thing it was broken forlack of handles to control water flow and temperature You are just supposed toknow from experience. Even if youknow that it is a motion sensor faucet, proper use of the sensor is hard todetermine; a user may not know how far or deep to put there hands in order toactivate the sensor.

The only positive element for visibility is that if you haveuse a sink before, you can see where the water will be released. The motion sensor is visible, but givenits aesthetic design, it isn’t obvious enough to make the faucet easier to use. 
Knowingwhere the water comes out of is the only mapping element, and it is a learned,cultural one. There is no othercontrol for an action. In fact,the absence of controls is what makes this design so flawed – there is nocontrol for water temperature. Auser can never adjust the temperature of the water in their sink. In public bathrooms, the buildingcontrols the temperature.  Additionally, the water from these automated faucets often comes out in a very strong stream that had a tendency to splash off your hands and onto the counter or your shirt.  Since there are no user controls for the strength of the stream, users cannot customize their hand washing experience.  
Thereis one major and effective feedback element to this design – if you use itproperly, the water turns on. Ifyou are not using it properly, however, there is no element of design to tellyou what you are doing wrong and how to fix it. I would suggest that to help provide more feedback, the black sensor area should light up (say in red or green) when your hands are properly placed in front of the device.  This will provide feedback as to whether the faucet is working.  In addition, Sloan designs their sinks to be water saving,meaning water flow is restricted to a set number of seconds. While you are washing your hands, thewater may stop flowing, and on your own, without any design clues, you have toknow to bring your hand out and put them back to reactivate the sensor. Perhaps another way to provide feed back is to - instead of having the sensor area light up - include a small digital component in the same place that counts down how many seconds you have left before the water flow stops.  This would certainly increase the ability of users to understand the device.
Basedon the lack of visible affordances and lack of feedback in the case of somethinggoing wrong, I place this design in the hall of shame. This tool, designed for simplicity andcleanliness, leads to too many instances where the user is confused.