What can we learn about design from a paper dispenser — Field Notes

The paper dispenser was designed to be used with stacks of paper towels. Those were replaced with a paper roll. It is nearly impossible to pull paper out of it with wet hands.

So what is the problem?

You might say, it is not used as intended. Cannot argue with that. But then if the intention for it is to dispense paper, why does it work with just one type of paper? There might be many reasons:

To keep the manufacturing costs down
Customers asked only for this kind
This is how executives like their paper served, and they are convinced that the whole world does too