You’ll have to tick all the essential boxes of comfort, safety, and accessibility to provide your commercial washroom users with a great experience. When we talk about user experience, however, we mostly focus on the design and layout of the washroom facility. But let’s not forget, accessories play an equally important role as they are one of the most crucial bathroom essentials.
Although you’ll be installing several bathroom accessories in your washroom to comply with regulations, it’s primary purpose should be ensuring a pleasant and comfortable experience for washroom users. A 2018 survey from Sofidel revealed that more customers demand cleanliness as well as right accessories in commercial washrooms. Moreover, the installation of the right accessories is equally crucial in commercial bathrooms of offices and educational facilities as well.
In this article, we’d like to discuss bathroom accessories ideas for your commercial washroom and the things you should consider to make sure you have the right thing installed at the right place.
Bathroom accessories you don’t know will delight your users
You may be well aware of the regular bath decor that your commercial washroom needs. But you’ll have to do more than that if you aim to please your users at best. Remember, different surveys have noted that more commercial washroom users are not satisfied with the standard accessories. For example, more users today prefer paper towels over hand dryers as well as expect touchless technology for safety concerns. However, there are still quite a few accessories that users may not expect in a washroom environment but would be delighted to come across one.
Here are a few not-so-common accessories you may want to focus on installing along with the common ones to provide a better experience to a broad audience. Let’s discuss ‘how to decorate a bathroom’ from another perspective.
Baby change tables/stations
Baby change tables or stations are a welcome addition to commercial washrooms, especially in the hospitality industry. In most restrooms, however, baby change stations are only available in the women’s section. It’s best to introduce it in the men’s room as well to allow all parents to use the feature.
Though there is no strict government regulation regarding the installation of baby change stations in the commercial washrooms, adding it in your facility will undoubtedly please the parents.
You can install this simple accessory in your washroom right away. Commonly, there are two types of baby change stations: recessed and wall-mounted. Wall-mounted stations can get mounted directly to the surface of a wall anywhere. In contrast, recessed changing stations may require a bit of planning as they need a recessed piece in the wall to insert the station.
Hand and toilet seat sanitiser
People are more concerned about cleanliness and safety since COVID-19 pandemic. New safety protocols will possibly shape all commercial washroom designs of the future. Introduction of hand and toilet seat sanitisers will be a great addition to the washroom environment to ensure additional safety to your users.
Health experts have been suggesting a rapid reduction in common touchpoints in public facilities to hinder microorganism transmission among people. While eliminating all common touchpoints may not be possible in the current scenario, introducing sanitisers where it’s necessary can play a crucial role in providing your users with extra comfort while reassuring them about safety in your premises.
Sanitary Item dispensers
Your washrooms accessories should cater to all users. There are, however, quite a few gender-specific accessories you might want to consider installing at your bathroom. Sanitary item dispenser is one of them.
Introducing sanitary item dispensers in the women’s section will be a great addition to your commercial washroom. It doesn’t matter what your industry is; it will undoubtedly provide a more comfortable experience for your female patrons.
Different sanitary product dispensers come in a similar design. They are flat, metal boxes, finished with two turning knobs at the bottom to dispense the products. They can either be mounted on or recessed and set into the wall. And you can decide whether to dispense the products for free or charge a certain amount.
Grab bars
Installing grab bars in toilets is a great courtesy to the disabled and elderly users and is now mandatory in a lot of areas. Grab bars help a great deal in providing a stabilising handle for the users as they move from standing to sitting and vice versa. You can mount these long metal bars on the walls of either side of the toilet quickly.
Sharps containers
Ideally, every washroom in Australia must provide sharps containers to assist people who require safe disposal of needles and other sharps. Adding such containers in your washroom will comfort people who have various health conditions. However, you must install an Australian Standard sharps container in your facility to ensure the community is safe against injuries or infections.
Considerations
Every bathroom accessory benefits the users differently. And if you want them to function at the highest, you should consider a few small things during the installation. Creating an excellent washroom is not just about decorating your bathroom with accessories but also about making them function at best. Here are two of the most important areas you should give special attention to:
Accessibility
Though you have installed the best accessories in your premises, it won’t delight your users if it’s not universally accessible. Some accessories target a specific group of people, but most accessories, such as trash bins, paper towels, soap dispensers, and sanitiser dispensers are for everyone. You should aim to please all users who visit your washroom. That’s why you should make sure all users are using them without a problem. Placement plays a vital role in this case.
More washrooms users of restaurants and similar services complain about not being offered a right washroom facility for small children. It’s because not all accessories are placed with all users in mind.
Technology
Advancement in technology has allowed us to rethink the possibilities of comfort in commercial washrooms. Technology has also made it easier to apply new safety protocols effectively. So why not rely on technological advancements during these uncertain times and in the future?
Touchfree technology in accessories will help maintain safety and cleanliness in commercial washrooms as there have been significant concerns over common touchpoints in public places since COVID outbreak. Auto-sanitisation can also be a great addition to maintain cleanliness and hinder the transmission of microorganisms since it’s not possible to make everything touch-free inside a washroom.
And Finally
Installing the right bathroom accessory shouldn’t only be about decorating your washroom. Your accessories should also function at best to make sure the users will have a delightful experience. The user experience of your washroom will have a profound impact on your business in the hospitality sector. On the other hand, it will impact the productivity of the whole team if it’s a corporate sector.
Users of different sectors may have different preferences. So it would be best if you targeted your niche while designing your washroom or installing the right bathroom accessories. However, if you want to keep yourself on top of the game, you should never stop researching user’s preferences, fresh trends, and new technology. There are great ideas from around the world, such as the sound princess you can experiment at your premises. For more discussion on how to decorate your bathroom with accessories or bathroom decor ideas, contact Cubispec. Feel free to discuss your new washroom project with us.
