The UX of Door Locks: A Heuristic Evaluation

Going to the bathroom in a public restroom is nobody’s favorite activity. It’s always a little dirty or a little bleachy and it’s impossible to avoid touching something wet that you didn’t want to touch.

When talking about an experience that is this crappy (pun intended), something as simple as a door lock can really amplify the pain.

I’m going to perform an abbreviated heuristic analysis of five common door locks we see used at public bathrooms.

First, a Primer on Heuristics

Jakob Nielsen has a list of ten heuristics that are considered the gold standard in usability and they go as follows (along with my super brief explanation of each):

1. Visibility of System Status
   Picture a loading bar or a scrolling indicator. A popular example is a bar that fills up from left to right when reading an article to show how far you are.
2. Match between System and Real World
   This is why your trash icon is a trash can and why a floppy disc is a save icon (although that means nothing to a lot of people these days!)
3. User Control and Freedom
   This is like the ability to exit your cart user flow at any moment.
4. Consistency and Standards
   Icons shouldn’t change on each page for example.
5. Error Prevention
   This is why confirmation screens exist.
6. Recognition rather than Recall
   The user should understand inherently what something does rather than have to learn it and remember it. They also shouldn’t be required to remember information from previous screens, it should be displayed again.
7. Flexibility and efficiency of use
   Allowing custom shortcuts is an example of this. A power-user can tailor the product to their own flow to increase efficiency.
8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
   Don’t forget that the primary function of most digital products is to present information. All design decisions should reflect this primary goal.
9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
   If something goes wrong, give the user options to fix it. A great example is if a new password creation isn’t accepted, explaining why and allowing another chance.
10. Help and documentation
    Providing users with a place to find answers to questions is crucial.

Performing a Heuristic Evaluation