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I've never got the meme about numpads on microwaves being needlessly complicated design. On about any decent microwave made in the last 10 year, pushing 1-6 giv

I've never got the meme about numpads on microwaves being needlessly complicated design. On about any decent microwave made in the last 10 year, pushing 1-6 gives a cook time of 1-6 minutes, respectively. Pushing start again after cooking has started will add 30 seconds. For longer cook times, press "time cook." Maybe this sounds a bit complicated, but it's efficient and all written down on the keypad. Mechanical timers really don't work well for less than 5 minutes. Good microwaves with a dial use a rotary encoder and increase time logarithmically. It sure looks elegant on the builtin over your stove, but log scaling really isn't intuitive outside volume controls, and probably more fiddly than buttons. If there is a gripe to be had about microwave numpads, it's the useless popcorn setting. The microwave popcorn bag tells you not to use the popcorn setting. It's like something out of bad standup. /rant

pnt12 6y ago
It's a textbook example on design and UIs, spread by professionals and teachers. Do you just dismiss it as a meme because you don't get it? From your own post, it's more complicated already. With wheel/knob, you have an interface for time and another for power. A little twist means a short value, a long twist means a high value. If you know what you want to do, you already know how to use this microwaves. I think the problem is it's slightly harder to use, eg you need to understand that more food needs more time to heat, that different cooking needs different power, etc. But you learn as you go. I think the equivalent for a car would be to have a buttons for 'fast', 'medium', 'slow', 'bumpy terrain', 'road','long trip', 'short trip'. How crazy would that be?
- COGlory 6y ago
  > I think the equivalent for a car would be to have a buttons for 'fast', 'medium', 'slow', 'bumpy terrain', 'road','long trip', 'short trip'. How crazy would that be? Plenty of upmarket cars have these types of settings, and are routinely praised for it.
dredmorbius 6y ago
There are nonlinear dials with larger, clearly-marked steps for short periods (often only a few seconds), then larger steps. See: e.g. https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61-ZBoSyt0L.jpg https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61-ZBoSyt0L... https://media.primasupply.com/25104-38090/cms/38090/files/8cd9a347-829d-490e-abf2-da939382a1fe https://media.primasupply.com/25104-38090/cms/38090/files/8c... DDG image search: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=micrave+dial+timer&iax=images&ia=images&pn=1 https://duckduckgo.com/?q=micrave+dial+timer&iax=images&ia=i...

pnt12 6y ago

It's a textbook example on design and UIs, spread by professionals and teachers. Do you just dismiss it as a meme because you don't get it? From your own post, it's more complicated already. With wheel/knob, you have an interface for time and another for power. A little twist means a short value, a long twist means a high value. If you know what you want to do, you already know how to use this microwaves. I think the problem is it's slightly harder to use, eg you need to understand that more food needs more time to heat, that different cooking needs different power, etc. But you learn as you go. I think the equivalent for a car would be to have a buttons for 'fast', 'medium', 'slow', 'bumpy terrain', 'road','long trip', 'short trip'. How crazy would that be?

COGlory 6y ago
> I think the equivalent for a car would be to have a buttons for 'fast', 'medium', 'slow', 'bumpy terrain', 'road','long trip', 'short trip'. How crazy would that be? Plenty of upmarket cars have these types of settings, and are routinely praised for it.

dredmorbius 6y ago

There are nonlinear dials with larger, clearly-marked steps for short periods (often only a few seconds), then larger steps. See: e.g. https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61-ZBoSyt0L.jpg https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61-ZBoSyt0L... https://media.primasupply.com/25104-38090/cms/38090/files/8cd9a347-829d-490e-abf2-da939382a1fe https://media.primasupply.com/25104-38090/cms/38090/files/8c... DDG image search: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=micrave+dial+timer&iax=images&ia=images&pn=1 https://duckduckgo.com/?q=micrave+dial+timer&iax=images&ia=i...