The Legend of Dishes — Breath of the Wash
— A user experience observation of a mysterious dishwasher
I worked for a small company for two years, where I found everyone and everything so amazing besides a dishwasher so frustrating. I’ve tried my best to avoid using it, but still, each encounter felt like a boss fight to me. Now I decide to share my combat experience, I mean, user experience here.
Myth 1: The hidden boss — Mr. Anonymous
Introducing our minimalism designed dishwasher. Here is what the panel looks like at the first glance:
For those who’ve never used this particular dishwasher before, you would think you could just load some dirty dishes, add some soap, close some door, and hit some “start”. Then the washer will do some work. Wrong! Nothing would happen after you press the start button. Why is that? Because there is an ultimate, the most powerful button you just missed: the Power button. Guess where is it?
Ta-dah! It is inside the door! And it is the only button that’s not on the panel but rather in the interior. More amazingly, it doesn’t even bother to tell you what it is! No text, no sign, no light, just a single, pure, lonely button out there, silently laughing at the stupidness of yet another first-time user.
Now you’ve accepted your lack of imagination as a dishwasher user and gently pressed the power button. You finally grant permission to start this advanced technology. Let’s close the door again, and hit “Start” again. Congratulation! You’ve just done an amazing job by successfully turning on a dishwasher!
Usability thoughts
We normal human tent to view things in common ways: when things are located together, we see them as a group; when something appears on top, to the left, or has a bigger size, we see it as more important; so on. If we see things in a way, we expect things to be designed in that way. If this power button of the dishwasher is the first button we should press, then we will expect it to be the first thing we saw when looking at the panel. We expect it to be bigger than the rest, to have a power sign or text, and to light up when it’s on. Sadly, nothing in our daydreams is taking into consideration by the designer.
As for the location, some may argue that pressing a button before closing the door is not a big deal. True. It is not big for those who already know where it is. But as a first-timer, how am I supposed to look inside, when most of the other home applications — laundry machine, dryer, stove, microwave oven - all have their power/start button outside? We solve new problems by recalling approaches we’ve used before on similar problems. Clearly, the designer of the dishwasher is expecting a breakthrough in human cognition.
Myth 2: The secret totems
Now we have the power on, should we just press “START” or do some settings? There on the left of the “START” button, we have three other buttons, surrounded by four symbols, and two red lights.
3 buttons: a “PROGRAM”, a thermometer look-like icon, and a steam look-like icon.
4 symbols: from left to right: a pot, a cup, a glass, and a shower? The second one usually lights up.
2 lights: the loser half of the outer circle content two red lights and now they are both on.
To be honest, I’ve never bothered to mess up those settings. What I usually do is just to press the “START” and leave it there, because I absolutely have zero clues what is going on from looking at those buttons and icons. Is the thermometer button to set up the temperature? But I don’t see any screen to show me the temperature. Is the steam button for drying? Are these pot, cup, and glass icons for different sizes, loads, or metals? Is the shower button for rinsing, or for draining? You’re free to guess and you’re free to try! If a cup breaks, guess what? It doesn’t matter! It’s your cup anyway, not the designer’s!
Yes, I know there should be a manual somewhere. Wait, what?! Grandpa, you still keep the paper manual after 8 years?
Any clue? Open the door again! The hint is again inside the door! The designer is so proud of the durability of the door. He just won’t let you go without bumping it enough. A pot represents “heavy wash”; a cup is a “normal wash”; glass is a “quick wash” of course; a shower is “rinse and hot”. Forgive me but this is really something beyond my guessing skills. No wonder I’ve never won a Powerball. A thermometer is a normal temperature and steam is a normal drying. Excuse me but what is “abnormal temperature” or “abnormal drying”? Or put it in another way, what are the other options besides “normal”?
Silent.
Usability thoughts
I use to believe that every designer has somehow read or heard of the book Don’t make me think by Steve Krug since it’s such a great book about usability. As the name of the book suggests, which is also the biggest idea of the book, good design should be self-evident, or at least self-explanatory. When you see a scissor, you put your thumb in one loop and the other four fingers in the other loop. You never read a manual. The tool explains itself. When you see a door with a push bar, you push it to open. You never read a manual. The tool explains itself. If a product makes its users think, guess, research, or even worse, keep trying and failing, we can almost say it’s a failed design. (The reason I said “almost” instead of “surely” is simply that I appreciate the time and effort the designer spent.)
Obviously, the designer of this dishwasher disagrees.
Myth 3: The demon haunts at night
I was told that we can only start the washer by the end of the day. And we are not supposed to open it when it is drying, or the machine will stop the drying process. Not paused, but completely stopped. Wet dishes will be trapped in the mist for a whole night and brew a special smell for the next morning. If I forget to do it in the evening, I will have zero clean cups the next morning, but wait until next evening to do the work. Why not run it in the morning? Well, running the dishwasher in the morning won’t change the fact that I have zero clean cups to use for my morning coffee since the drying process takes hours to finish. It has to be done in the evening.
To make things worse, we have no way to tell if the drying is on or done — no screen, no sign, no light — but to wait for the machine to stop itself. So we leave a sticker note there just in case someone in the office doesn’t know the washer is on and open the door by accident. I didn’t take many photos but we have some really cute stop sign drawings.
Usability thoughts
Users and interfaces should be able to communicate. Users expect and deserve feedbacks on their operations. They need to know what is going on and what to do next. A text on a screen, a flashing light, a beeping sound can all do the trick. Silence simply won’t do any good here.
Every time I looking at this sticker stop sign, a pity for the designer rises from deep of my gut. I wonder how would he react if he sees this sticker note. I wonder if he ever reads complaints from customers. I wonder how is he doing now if he is still a designer after realizing he’s made such a stupid mistake in his career. I wonder what else does he also design, a seat belt, a baby cart, or a heart pacemaker?
Imagination vs. Reality
I can imagine how proud the designer is of this ultra-simple, minimalistic, exclusively modern interface. I can also imagine a perfect commercial video: It is a sunny afternoon, in a tech company, a modern and colorful kitchen. Several beautiful young people smile with each other and put their coffee mugs in this elegant dishwasher. Door closes. Door opens. Clean cups shining in the sun. In the next scene, a modern mom in dress and heels with her angle like children are chopping vegetables for a healthy dinner (not junk food though)in a huge kitchen. Again, here shines our dishwasher. Door closes. Door opens. Clean plates shining in the sun. None of those people should worry about messing up the settings or discovering a hidden button. The dishwasher will just do its job. Everything seems as easy as one tap. This is magic. This is heaven.
Unfortunately, my real experience with The Legend of Dishes — Breath of the Wash is not even close to any of those fancy scenes:
First try: I couldn’t find the power button to run the machine at all, so I left the office without cleaning the dishes. My manager was unhappy the next morning. — Game over.
Second try: I figured out how to turn it on by asking a colleague, but failed to understand the setting, had to ask for help again — Game over, try again.
Third try: Colleagues didn’t know the symbols either, so we just pressed “start” and let it run at the default setting. Everything looked okay but the next morning we found the dishes still wet and smell like feet. Someone opened the door while it’s still drying because I didn’t stick the “stop sign” on the door. My manager was extremely unhappy the next morning. — Game over.
…
Nth try: I’ve already solved the riddle of the mysterious symbols, but I pressed some button by accident and didn’t know how to set it back to normal. I took out all dirty dishes, washed everything by hand, and wiped them dry with a kitchen towel. It’s about the time to ask for a promotion, I can’t risk letting my manager down this time no matter what. — Game upgraded to hard mode.
