Adam reviewing potential changes to our prototype with a Kumasi family
At IDEO, designers live by the mantra “fail early, fail often,” and we’ve kept true to that this week here in Ghana. After leaving four toilet prototypes with families to test for a few days, we met with the families and came across some pointed criticisms from the users. It’s these failures, early in the process, that help us understand how to improve our designs, and we were glad to hear them. Overall, though, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive, and gives us great hope for the future of in-home sanitation.
A few notes from our conversations:
- Haija, with whom we had met several months ago, was intrigued by our prototypes, but came away confused after a few days with them. In her 70′s, she had potentially the most to gain from in-home sanitation (no more walking to the public toilet! no more squatting!), but the complexity of the prototype we left with her and her family was overwhelming, and she suggested we simplify it dramatically to ensure it can be used and understood by children, the elderly and everyone in-between.
- Kamal, an assemblyman and an upstanding member of his community, had some complaints about the smell of one prototype and it’s location in the home, but also noted, “This is the first time I’ve sat on a toilet since grade school,” and after giving us a handful of useful suggestions, was inspired by the possibility of having a toilet in his home full-time.
- Mohammed, another friend from our previous visit, gave us some great feedback on pricing and helped us understand what value the toilets might have in the home. While some families politely told us that sanitation is a much higher priority than television or mobile phones, Mohammed pointed out that he’s already got a way to dispose of his waste (albeit not hygienic or pleasant, by his standards). So if he came upon harder times, he’d choose to pay for things that he couldn’t do on his own, like entertainment and mobile phones. Though he still placed significant value on sanitation, this was a good reminder of why it’s critical to design an aspirational service- one that provides more than basic sanitation and hygiene, but dignity, pride and satisfaction as well…
All in all, a very positive first week, failures and all. We’ve left the toilets with another group of families for the weekend, and are anxiously awaiting their feedback tomorrow. Fingers crossed!
One of our prototypes installed in a home in Kumasi
One of the families we left the prototypes with this weekend
-Danny Alexander, IDEO (@dalexdalex)
The above system really should be vented and a carbon (wood shavings/coconut coir for biological) or ash/lime (alkaline-killing) additive used with each fecal deposit. A process for dealing with the inner solids container should be worked out. It’s about process, not technology.
Hi again,
But I have to.
You are doing a great callenge!
I do not know what is the best place where to ‘drop’ this.
So I’ll start here.
I want to connect some dots.
Just finished reading this book:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5350
from this visionary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Hiram_King
Centuries old Asian durable ecological food to waste chain used human manure. A good bucket toilet redesign would be a great contribution within this frame. Like the nonolet http://www.de12ambachten.nl/engnonolet.html or anny improvement you will make.
Hey Danny, great progress! I’m just curious if you were able to find out in your interviews if people are interested in knowing how to keep the toilets clean.
Thanks for all your great comments. To reply:
• Anna, we agree that it’s about process, and not technology. We’re experimenting with coal, ventilations, chemical digesters– you name it. We’ve got some great feedback on the user benefits of each, and will be testing different solutions with the next families. Great point!
• Harry, thanks! We’ve looked into some similar technologies, and are prototyping variations of that as well. Thanks!
• Anokha, good question. Every family, of course, has their own unique perspective on how to clean. But we have been able to observe many common features. Germs are considered less important, generally, than bugs, smell, etc., so we’re focusing on providing a proper level of hygiene while really focusing on the users’ main concerns. We’re playing with varieties of cleaning products, technologies and services, and will hope to find out more this week.
Thanks for reading!
-Danny Alexander, IDEO (@dalexdalex)
Hello! Considering the health benefits of the natural squatting position ( http://www.naturesplatform.com/health_benefits.html ), and considering that the squatting position is a custom of the people of Ghana, I ask: Why change? And if this change really cause health problems to long term?
And if the proposed solution generate a bigger problem than what we have today?
Consider this, please!
A hug and good luck!
Hello
I didn’t mean biological process so much as community process. There are many papers about the many failures of toilet introductions. They are all the result of not creating a community input process and a local community group to address these and figure out where they will be emptied and what will be done with the endproducts. The porta-potties and tiny systems will look like expensive pee pots to these people. The challenge here wasn’t one of technology design but of resource planning.
Good morning from gray and cold Antwerp.
I agree with Anne Zanders. Technology is the easiest part. Handling the whole system (and particularly us humans in it) is more of a real challenge.
Please check out on TED.com how Willie Smits pieced it together: http://www.ted.com/talks/willie_smits_restores_a_rainforest.html
If he can do a rainforest we should be able to do sanitation.
Hello,
Having lived in Ghana for 1.5 years in both urban, peri-urban and rural settings across the country I can truly empathise with your design challenge.
Sanitation in Ghana is one of the worst in Sub-Saharan Africa and after many discussions with Ghanaians about the state of their toilets I am still at a loss as to why most Ghanains don’t value toilets. Have you explored people’s values around sanitation?