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Okay, if you purchase and keep around a machine that sprays you with hot soapy water... you are a design snob. Or, more likely, you're just using something as a
by napierzaza 16y ago
Okay, if you purchase and keep around a machine that sprays you with hot soapy water... you are a design snob. Or, more likely, you're just using something as an extended metaphor. Can you REALLY not know when it's on? Or is it just for the purposes of this article. They love to take literary liberties at 37Signals. I can imagine it happening a few times, but it's likely there is some indication that it's on and a slight bit of attention paid to that keeps you from making the same mistake.
- dpcan 16y agoJust leaving your hand on the handle for another 2 seconds would probably feel warm or a very slight vibration. I'm having a guilty-pleasure chuckle right now because the "kings" of UI are getting sloshed with soapy water because of a bad design decision :)
- iamdave 16y agoI'm with the both of you. It might be an unfortunately uninformative design, that doesn't mean you have to rely 100% on design to accept a little bit of responsible attention to detail and feel the door and check for movement inside to tell you the thing is still running.
- irondavycole 16y agoTheir criticism stems more from the "don't make me think" philosophy. If you're quickly fetching something from the kitchen, it's totally understandable if your mind is elsewhere. It's not so much that it's impossible to know if it's on, it's that it could be much, much more obvious. This is analogous to a row of unlabeled buttons that only show their meaning on hover. Sure, if the user stopped for a moment and surveyed the scene, it would be possible to know what everything does. But to what end? There are no benefits and the cost is high: you interrupt the user's train of thought. More on that: http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/help-your-train-of-thought-is-sacred/ http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/help-your-train-of-thought-i...