Mark Geller

As a product guy slash nerd, I often notice when I encounter a user experience that is particularly good–and also when one is not so good. Today I want to highlight one of the former. The experience in question was great to me because aside from being a good experience, it is an iconic example of great design that can be applied to many other products and services.

This particular experience appears at the Google San Francisco office, although not where you might expect. Believe it or not, this one occurs in the men’s restroom (insert potty humor here), or more accurately, just outside it. The entrance to this particular restroom includes an ante-room with two doors. As you enter the restroom, it is clear which of the two doors leads to the facilities. However, due to the layout of the ante-room, as you leave the restroom, the door you see first, which you naturally believe is the exit, actually leads to a closet, whereas the door to the office is off to the side.

Here is where the design comes in. As you leave the restroom, just as you are about to push the wrong door, you see a sign someone has posted (probably a random Googler) that says simply, “Nope.” Then, before your brain even fully realizes what is happening, you glance to the side and see the sign on the right door: “Yep!”

This is great for several reasons:

• It perfectly anticipates the issue the user is going to have
• It elegantly solves the issue with the absolute minimum effort
• It injects a bit of humor into an otherwise slightly embarrassing situation (user going into the closet)
• It ties in nicely with the overall Google brand, which is providing useful solutions with minimum effort, maximum speed, and a sense of playfulness
• It makes even a totally mundane task, exiting a restroom, into a small game
• It shows that no issue is too small to create a fun, useful solution

Maybe the best aspect of this experience is that it was most likely created by a random Googler who happened to work in the office. (I cannot confirm this, although having worked at Google, it would surprise me if it were otherwise.) This connects with the core values of Google’s culture to always be vigilant for issues that affect users and when you encounter one, come up with an elegant solution and implement it… yourself, if possible.

Sure, there are many examples of user experience design that solve more pressing, complicated user problems by implementing much more elaborate technology. However, in terms of creating a simple, elegant solution for a problem most users will experience, this one is tough to beat.