This may sound rather abrupt, but I want to say how interesting it is to think about the right and the left.

It’s common knowledge that 90 percent of humans are right-handed, so most products are designed for the right-handed. That often causes inconvenience among left-handed people when, for example, they pass through automatic ticket gates at railway stations. The universal design has been around to deal with such unfairness, but honestly, I find it hard to have a real sense of the problem because I am right-handed too. My lack of awareness of this reality came home to me when I stayed at a hotel during my business trip just a while ago.

For some reason, a water faucet in my hotel room was made to run hot water by turning it clockwise. I tried to turn it anticlockwise as I’m used to do so in my daily life. Of course, it didn’t work. As an adult, I had to be able to understand how it worked once I experienced it. But curiously enough, my right hand repeated the same move of turning it anticlockwise with no anticipated result. I was laughing at my silliness, but it was actually a feeling that my hand unconsciously chose an anticlockwise move before my rational mind issued a command. Furthermore, even while I was taking a bath, I repeated the same mistake a couple more times and ended up feeling anger, saying to myself, “What an unfriendly design this is!” I only felt awkward at using a faucet, which shouldn’t be a big deal when I think of many left-handed people around the world suffering a lot of inconvenience in their daily lives. With that thought in mind, I fell asleep on my bed. The next morning, I woke up and tried to turn the faucet to clean my teeth. Then, once again, I turned it anticlockwise presumably because I was half awake. A new day started with some sense of clumsiness, but I began to feel comfortable when I turned my eyes to a clear autumn sky outside the window.

What I experienced in the hotel room came as a fresh and intriguing experience. It made me realize some interesting things: a surprise to know how difficult it is to use a product smoothly when it is made to work against my expectations; a stereotypical mechanism ingrained in my body and brain that orders me to run water by turning a faucet anticlockwise; and realization that the anticlockwise move of a faucet is designed for right-hand people to use it easily.

When I made a business trip last week, I chose to stay in the same hotel. Despite my wish to take my revenge, I ended up doing a couple of clockwise moves before realizing my mistakes. I resigned myself to raising the white flag and accepted the reality. Then I thought about having a coffee for refreshment and stepped into a convenience store. When I tried to open a door of the coffee vending machine to get my coffee, it didn’t move as I expected. Contrary to my expectations, it was made to open to the front left side. I suffered the second straight loss! But I soon pulled myself together and thought it was a blessing in disguise. I was so accustomed to the daily conveniences that I needed a wake-up call for my easy feelings. I said to myself that it’s better to keep a positive frame of mind though many things happen in my life.

Satoru Nagai

CMFG Design Dept.

Unit Leader