I think every single person who has ever lived in a society agrees that public restrooms are awful to use, and we all avoid using them whenever possible. And I’m sure that part of that is because some people trash the place for no reason, but a majority of the time, it’s just awful public design.
First of all, it’s about time that we extend the doors of the stalls all the way to the floor. There is no reason not to?? And it would make everyone so much more comfortable. I have told my friends about a restroom that has full stall doors like someone talks about a good first date. It leaves such a good impression and makes the experience so much better. It easily provides so much more privacy and comfort. I’ve also heard and seen online that these tall doors are really important to little people and other short people. The gaps under doors in a normal restroom are proportionately worse for people depending on height. For people with dwarfism, people who are extraordinarily short, and even for children, these door changes could mean so much. Not to mention the people with anxiety or paranoia who really benefit from the added privacy. It’s just such an easy fix, like why is it not commonplace? >:|
Also, why do we have to have designated “disabled” stalls? Especially when sometimes those stalls are not even wide enough for the wheelchair users they are built for? I propose that all stalls should be wide, then disabled people have the same options for stalls as anyone else, and also everyone else can enjoy the spaciousness of wider stalls. Everyone knows that people generally gravitate towards using the disabled stalls anyway, so just make them all like that. Even if making the stalls wider would mean that there is less space for stalls, I would rather have three wide stalls than five narrow, cramped, uncomfortable stalls.
I’m probably just ignorant of how designing public spaces works because I genuinely can’t think of a reason why these are not how restrooms work already. There are so many other changes and recommendations that people could bring up, too. We need to get on this!