by D. Sproul | March 1st, 2009
Good user experience can be applied to everything in our lives, including the lowly household appliance. We recently moved into a new home with a sparkling white microwave. It works well, but I have a problem with the user experience. It takes three button clicks minimum and a delay of five seconds to make that thing turn on! Why do you have to hit a button marked “cook time”, when this is the main thing the microwave does? Everyone who goes to the microwave wants it to cook something. (If you visit a European restaurant without being able to speak the language, the person who greets you knows why you’re there: to eat. It doesn’t matter if you can’t speak a word.) Back to the microwave: Then you enter the time, then hit “start.” Then it waits several seconds before beginning. It even has a scrolling message across the front to tell you to hit “start!”
Wouldn’t it make more sense to just enter the time alone? That thing could turn on after a delay of two to three seconds on its own, just to make sure you didn’t want to change the power settings. Instantly, we’ve cut down on the work we had to do to by two-thirds.
And does anyone ever use the buttons at the top for “popcorn,” “hot dog,” or “frozen pizza?” The popcorn usually says on it not to use the microwave’s pre-sets. I think that small interface would be better used for buttons from 1-6 in 1 minute increments, with the number pad as well, and perhaps three buttons for power levels: low, medium, and high.
What are your appliances like? What is your business website like? Does it also make the visitor take more than three clicks to find something important? Does it miss the most needed link? Does it include the all-important site map? My bank’s phone system failed to have a link for “locations” without going through the whole system and putting in your account number. A different bank has a disappearing log-in box that goes away after you move your mouse off it (to hit the enter button)! Who thought of that one?!
Something to think about the next time you use your microwave…
