How Not to Design a Microwave

Re:How Not to Design a Microwave by mrob on Sunday January 07, 2018 @05:13AM (#16090195)

This is almost a good design, but there's a potentially dangerous flaw. Although it's not obvious in the picture, the dials have skeuomorphic fake machining marks. These marks can make reflected light look like lines radiating from the center. And the indicator mark is only a shallow depression, which is low contrast under some lighting conditions. The reflections on the fake machining marks can camouflage the indicator mark and make it hard to see. If you mostly use the microwave on full power, that's what you'll expect to see, so it's easy to miss it if the power setting is actually lower. This could result in food being heated less than you expect. It might be warmed instead of cooked, resulting in fast bacteria growth.

This can easily be fixed by coloring the indicator mark with a black permanent marker.

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Re:How Not to Design a Microwave by watt on Sunday January 07, 2018 @05:42AM (#16090301)

FWIW here's a perfect microwave. I bought it around year 2000 I think. https://imgur.com/JMaM70x

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Re:How Not to Design a Microwave by mrob on Sunday January 07, 2018 @05:54AM (#16090339)

Agreed. The newer Samsung is an inferior cost-reduced version of this design. The old version is better because the time can be set purely by muscle memory. The new version uses a rotary encoder, where you need multiple turns to set a time. The required back-and-forth movement of the hand is too complex for muscle memory. The rotary encoder skips steps if you move it too fast. The time dial does not move as it counts down, so you're forced to read the display to check the remaining time instead of just glancing at the dial.

The only real improvement is the replacement of the door opening button with a more intuitive door handle.

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Re:How Not to Design a Microwave by TeMPOraL on Sunday January 07, 2018 @06:22AM (#16090410)

> The only real improvement is the replacement of the door opening button with a more intuitive door handle.

Actually, it's not an improvement. A door opening button is easy to operate with one hand; a handle needs two in order not to shift the microwave. At least all the microwaves I've seen have doors requiring noticeable amount of force to open. My guess is it's to avoid the situation in which a large dish rotating inside pushes on the doors and opens it.

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Re:How Not to Design a Microwave by clarry on Sunday January 07, 2018 @05:20PM (#16093064)

I can open my own as well as family members' microwaves' doors by the handle with one hand just fine, without shifting it. The trick is a snappy tug.

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Re:How Not to Design a Microwave by nnq on Sunday January 07, 2018 @05:31AM (#16090259)

oh c'mon... there's an LCD/OLED display showing the time clearly. This is so much better than ANY alternative that any critique is nitpicking. (Though, to be honest, I have a very old white with black marks microwave that avoids the problems you mention... but it also had an ugly design that doesn't fit most modern kitchens :P)

Translated to web, you're basically saying "all websites should use a high contrast serif font at >16pt. to avoid people committing dangerous mistakes when reading instructions online" :)

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Re:How Not to Design a Microwave by mrob on Sunday January 07, 2018 @05:39AM (#16090280)

The display shows only the time. The power setting is shown by the indentation on the lower dial. This can be hard to see under some lighting conditions, specifically because it's designed to trick people into thinking it's made of metal.

The analogy is more like web pages using scanned images of hand writing, which I'd also say is bad design.

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