Men’s lack of precision when aiming in the toilet bowl or urinal has been a concern both in households and public toilets.
Urinal designers have tried many solutions to find a solution to this problem (known as ‘splashback’).
For example, there are splashback screens that let urine in but not out, ribbed urinals that reduce the splash, etc.
But at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, the authorities came up with a rather unusual solution.
They etched the image of a black housefly into each urinal.
And this is the insight they used: “Most men like to play with their urine stream, so you put something in the toilet bowl, and they’ll aim at that.”
Apparently, this insight came in from someone’s experience from serving in the army in the 1960s, where urinals had small targets placed in them.
While no formal study has been conducted to understand the effectiveness, the total savings on the cleaning costs have been estimated to be between 8% to 20%.
A housefly was chosen because it is universally disliked but is not considered intimidating.
Something pretty (ladybug) or intimidating (spider) may not have been so successful.
This solution is considered a prime example of choice architecture. A choice architect is someone who organises the context in which people make decisions. For example, someone who decides what products go on what shelf at a supermarket store is a choice architect. Menu designers of a restaurant could also be choice architects.
