Popped through SFI on way to Cancun last week and tried a Dyson hand drier again. Still go fish.
First, it starts unpredictably. Some times you put your hands in and it goes on, other times not.
Second, the slightly bowed, praying mantis position that it requires you to maintain causes any bag hanging on one shoulder to keep sliding down, as one repeats trying to get it to start.
Third, with all the false starts, shoulder bag sliding, etc., I'm not at all sure that there is a net gain in efficiency of hand drying.
Fourth, I stepped back and watched others use it and another Dyson and saw other persons having the same problems.
Conclusion: This technology is on the right track, but it needs to be redesigned to be more intuitive to use and more ergonomic.
I don't think placement would solve the problem...
Conceptualize the problem this way.
First, simulate the positioning of arms and hands using a traditional hand dryer. You bend your arms, bringing your hands up, usually one hand under and one hand over with palm facing palm. It is kind of a hand washing motion you the affect under the blower nozzle.
Second, simulate the positioning of your arms and hands using a Dyson dryer. You bend your arms at the elbow and dangle your hands in a slightly praying mantis position. Your hands are in vaguely the same position as if you were standing in front of a keyboard and trying to type. It is the same basically stressed position as typing. Hands nearly together in the same horizontal plane. Palms down. And the motion is like repetitive dunking into a trough with a narrow top opening.
What I find is that this hand position, like that on a keyboard, and the dunking motion required for the Dyson, especially when trying to keep the hands in the same plane, is actually awkward and slightly stressing, even for only the brief few seconds you need to dry with the Dyson. And there's really no elevation on the wall that would alleviate it. Raising the machine to chest height of a tall person would make it worse for most adults and virtually impossible for a child to use at all.
cont.
A traditional hand dryer, while perhaps not as fast, or energy efficient, is much more comfortable to use, because the blower nozzle puts out a long column of air, so there are quite a range of hand elevations possible for different heights of persons to iterate along to find comfortable position on. Further the hand washing motion is just easier to execute than holding hands consistently in a single plain as when typing on a keyboard.
Remember, when ergonomic keyboards began to be developed, the first thing was done was to get the hands out of the same horizontal plane. Solutions ranged from slightly rounded keyboards with left finger keys separated slightly wider apart from right finger keys than on flat boards, all the way to keyboards broken in half and turned up on end to get the fingertips and palms of each hand facing the other palm and fingertips.
I know drying on the Dyson does not require hours and hours of repetitive use, and so trigger repetitive stress injury, but it just is awkward.
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