Why do public toilet doors mostly open inwards?

Short answer: most bathroom stall doors open inward so they do not swing into the aisle and hit people walking past or waiting at the sinks, and because an inward door is easy to push shut and lock from inside. The big exception is the accessible stall: in the US, the ADA requires its door to swing outward, so a wheelchair user has room to get in and close it.

As a designer, this is a very interesting question to ask. Why does it open inwards and not outwards? There are no official building codes that toilets follow worldwide e.g., the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety code does not specify the direction public bathroom doors must open.

There are building codes that actually require the opposite in case of emergencies.

Most public toilet doors open inwards for a few key reasons: Do not block hallway, emergencies, privacy and keep unpleasant smells out. Let’s go over each one.

They don’t block the hallway

Have you ever been in a public restroom where the door opens out and somebody is trying to get in while you are trying to get out? It is not a pleasant experience. Toilets that open inwards prevent this from happening as they do not block the hallway.

For privacy

When you are in a public restroom, you generally want as much privacy as possible. This is especially important in toilets that do not have locks. If the door opened outwards, people in the stall would be more exposed. Inward-opening doors provide more privacy.

To keep unpleasant smells out

Nobody wants to be greeted with a waft of unpleasant smells when they open a door. Toilet doors that open inwards prevent this from happening as they keep the smells contained within the stall.

While the above are some reasons that explain the inward opening design, the real reason behind the bad design is convention and lack of incentive to change it. It has always been this way and so there is no real reason to change it.

Accessible stalls open outward

In the United States the 2010 ADA Standards say that for both wheelchair-accessible and ambulatory-accessible stalls, “toilet compartment doors shall not swing into the minimum required compartment area.” In practice that means those doors open out. The standard also asks for the door to be self-closing, with a pull handle on both sides near the latch, so a person who has swung it out can pull it closed behind them. A standard-size stall has no such clear space to protect, which is why ordinary stalls keep opening in.

Should a bathroom door open in or out?

For a whole restroom or a home bathroom, there is no single answer, and local building codes win. The trade-offs:

• Inward keeps the door out of corridors and is what most people expect, but if someone collapses against the door inside a small room it can be very hard to open.
• Outward avoids that problem and frees floor space inside a small bathroom, which is why it is common for accessible single toilets. The ADA’s rule for toilet rooms is that a door shall not swing into the clear floor space needed at any fixture. The cost is a door that can hit someone passing outside.
• Sliding doors or doors with removable stops and emergency-release locks are the usual compromise where neither swing works.

This is a classic affordance problem as much as a building one: whichever way the door opens, the hardware should say so. A flat plate says push and a handle says pull. Door hardware is full of these small usability trade-offs; we look at another one in why do door knobs still exist.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.