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Comment by failedartifact | Hacker News Reader

Reminds me of 2 button toilets: an unlabelled big button and a smaller button..

Is the big one the more convenient button to push, therefore for number 1's. Or Is the big one for a big flush, therefore for number 2's?

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Press both together to take a screenshot

Good morning laugh here. Thanks.

This one always comes to mind when I see some fancy toilet designs at various venues. Which one do I press? Normally in UI a bigger button usually means a more used feature. I can't imagine the average person doing number 2 more than number 1. Most toilets around here have the same size button but an icon with a big circle representing a big flush and small circle for small flush. The buttons being the same size makes the icons have more "meaning".

I have just gotten used to that is not always the case and they actually went for small button = small flush. It makes sense physical-wise but UI-wise not so much.

So glad I'm not the only one. My house has four different two button toilets and I can't for the life of me figure out which does what. My wife says smaller button is for less water, but on one toilet the small button is tiny and integrated into the bigger button which makes me think it can only be there for when you need a power flush and you press the whole thing. I have no idea.

How long have you been living in the house? This seems like it wouldn't be too difficult to figure out through casual experimentation.

That takes the fun out of it! No in reality there doesn’t even seem to be a material difference in the amount of water used by each button. But I think in the spirit of this thread, why isn’t the interface obvious. At my last house it was a two lever flush where the “eco” flush was a green tab. Much more obvious.

The toilets in our house have two large buttons that are the same size - even after repairing the mechanisms a few times (which is a bit like keyhole surgery as everything is built into the wall) I still have no idea if they do different things.

Oh man me too. First i recall dual flush in Australia in the 80s when I was a kid and it was a push down for full, pull up for half - labeled in English - now I have no idea! Now, I always resort to just push both buttons to be sure.

The buttons on mine are the same size, one has a picture of 1 water droplet on it and the other has 2 droplets.

I grew up with those! I always called them small flush or big flush.

I've always assumed that pushing the smaller button means a smaller flush, but... with many of the ones I've used, pressing the small button also pushes down the big button, and I frankly have no idea what that indicates.

Yes! This is the root of the confusion. Certain dual button flushes have the small button to combine with the larger one to make the complete flush but on others the small button does the small flush.

At what point does the small button cross over from meaning big flush to small flush!? I swear on most toilets where small means small you need steady hands of a surgeon to hit it!

It’s physically more work to waste more water.

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