COVER STORY
SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE
Metsä Tissue fill us in on their new range of Katrin dispensers – the Katrin Inclusive Range, explaining the thought processes behind creating a range of washroom products that were designed specifically to cater to a wide range of users.
Metsä Tissue has recently introduced a new range of Katrin dispensers, called the Katrin Inclusive Range. This new range has been designed in collaboration with industry experts, as well as a wide variety of customers and end-users right across Europe, and takes into account the needs of a wide selection of users, including children, the elderly and those who are visually impaired, or have physical disabilities.
BARRIER-FREE USAGE But how great is the need for such functionality? Mark Dewick, Managing Director for Metsä Tissue UK, explained: “Legislation in the UK and across Europe makes all companies legally and morally obligated to actively do all we can to make access to our products and services as easy as possible, and this is what Metsä Tissue has done with these new Katrin Inclusive Dispensers.
“This was really brought home to us at a recent event we ran, where a blind architect outlined the difficulties he encounters trying to use a washroom.”
22 | Tomorrow’s Cleaning March 2016
Some of the things that the gentlemen explained include:
• On entering the washroom, he uses the wall to find his way to the right facility – but he has to try and work out if there are urinals, cubicles etc. This requires a lot of touching. For this reason, centrally placed islands with washbowls are a nightmare – as tracking around the wall he may never find these.
• Once in a cubicle, he has to feel for toilet roll. If it is lodged on top of something, or on the back of the cistern – it is very easy to knock off – then he is left feeling around the floor for it – not a nice thing at all. He prefers a good solid dispenser on the wall.
• He does not like dispensers that have complicated openings, or wheels to turn – he has no context as to what to do in those circumstances.
• He does not like “piles” of hand towels on the side – this means he drips water all over them whilst trying to find them. Again, he
prefers a good solid dispenser on the wall – that he can quickly ‘feel his way across to’– where access to the paper is very obvious.
• He is not a fan of hot air dryers because it is not obvious from feeling the devices how they work. And the noise can be quite stressful.
Mark added: “The issues, once explained in this context, are quite obvious and the Katrin Inclusive range goes some way to resolving some of these.”
SPECIAL CONSIDERATION Features of the range that help address these issues include:
• The dispensers are obviously solidly fixed onto a wall/unit.
• For those with restricted visibility, strong contrasting colours make the dispensers easier to see, especially when they are mounted on a wall of the same colour.
• Use of large ‘push faces’ eliminates the need to turn ‘wheels’ to feed paper – something which as explained, can be difficult for some users.
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