human use analysis

This phenomenon is ultimately a problem in hygiene for the users. While Dyson can say on their website that they have a bacteria filter inside of the Airblade and post videos of microbiologists defending the cleanliness of the dryer (see here), the everyday user is still unaware. For users, the just the feeling of touching something that others have in the bathroom is enough to make a process feel gross, and thus Dyson needs to work on making it clear through the product itself that the Airblade is hygenic.

The second biggest complaint was that the Airblade didn't completely dry users' hands. More specifically, users noted that oftentimes, the air was so concentrated along that thin, thin line that the Airblade's drying power was not able to span their entire hand. Bother Users 2 and 3 gave up early (and didn't want to spend the extra time drying) and left with semi-wet hands. User 1 compensated for this incomplete drying by curling her hands together inside the Airblade to better "distribute" the moisture on her hands. You can see her do this in the gif below.

Ultimately, the Airblade needs to have a greater area span, as users often reported that it was not able to dry their fingers as well as it did other, more central parts of their hands.

So how can we make this hand dryer better? Below is a sketch of a preliminarily redesigned version of the Airblade that aims to prevent people from accidentally touching it (addressing big problem #1) and that has two air different air blades on each side, in an effort to reach more parts of the hand (addressing big problem #2).

In this image, the compartment labeled 1 houses all of the components (bacteria filter, motors) necessary to make the Airblade as powerful as it currently is. The componenet labeled 2 indicates that an extra "airblade" is added to each side of the hand dryer, in an effort to extend the dryer's drying power to more parts of the hands. As can be seen in the side view, the sets of two airblades (indicated by the large dots on the circles with arrows pointing out) are angled differently because of the circular nature of the part that they are on, and hopefully this difference in angle will also help in reaching different parts of the hands. Projected air flow of the "airblades" can be see in the part of the diagram indicated as 4, with the arrows representing the path of air.

The part of the image labeled 3 tries to make it less easy to mistakenly touch the dryer. First, there is an increased distance between the two sides of the hand dryer to allow the user more space. Secondly, as much of the side material of the dryer has been removed, and been replaced with a "T" design, with the airblades on the upper part of the "T." This reduction in walls will hopefully prevent users from bumping into the walls of the dryer like they did previously. Finally, as can be seen in the side view, users no longer have to awkwardly stick their hands down vertically. Instead, the hand dryer is now angled to hopefully make the process less awkward.

And there we have it folks. The redesigned Dyson Airblade, that might hopefully start to address the concerns of the dissenting users. Quite an enlightening journey, as I finally see why some might really dislike such a product. Has it changed my view? No, I don't think so. I still really, really, really like this hand dryer.