4 ms·

To be honest, that setup would make more sense for me; I always brew from freshly ground whole beans. It sounds like they flat out bought the wrong coffee maker

To be honest, that setup would make more sense for me; I always brew from freshly ground whole beans. It sounds like they flat out bought the wrong coffee maker. They should have gotten one that doesn't come with an integrated grinder at all. That coffee maker is well designed for its intended happy path use case, which is not the same as you can say for this Oracle software.

redshirtrob 6y ago
No doubt it was the wrong coffee maker for them. I don't think it was well designed though. I think it was "eh, ok" designed for the happy path, and very poor for the unhappy (but probably pretty normal) path. I think what threw me is the "grinder off" button with a red light. The red light made sense in the context. But, if I were designing this, I would have a "grinder" button with a green light that was default "on", indicating that grinding was imminent. There was no green light on this part. It was red or off. That would have been consistent with the rest of the interface, where a green light on the "brew" dial meant the timer was set and a red light meant the coffee had brewed.
- wging 6y ago
  In this situation, a physical toggle switch seems like a good idea. Its state is always inspectable and it stays the way you left it.
- mediaman 6y ago
  Yeah, something like this would be much better off with a rocker switch with Grinder: ON, OFF. Then it saves state between runs and it's always clear if the grinder is on or off.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    That does seem like the ideal solution, but sadly a mechanical rocker switch would cost some number of pennies more to implement, hence they haven't. I have a hot water stand-by boiler in my kitchen a $15 outlet switch because the darn thing didn't come with a simple power button. Hardly anything these days does. All of which is to say, the ideal design often conflicts with the consumer's other expressed preference of "lowest price possible, it doesn't matter how many corners are cut and how quickly it dies".
bbarnett 6y ago
Except a case like this could so easily have memory, or even a physical toggle switch. So many things should be "preserved state" switches, but people put up with it. Not sure why.

redshirtrob 6y ago

No doubt it was the wrong coffee maker for them. I don't think it was well designed though. I think it was "eh, ok" designed for the happy path, and very poor for the unhappy (but probably pretty normal) path. I think what threw me is the "grinder off" button with a red light. The red light made sense in the context. But, if I were designing this, I would have a "grinder" button with a green light that was default "on", indicating that grinding was imminent. There was no green light on this part. It was red or off. That would have been consistent with the rest of the interface, where a green light on the "brew" dial meant the timer was set and a red light meant the coffee had brewed.

wging 6y ago
In this situation, a physical toggle switch seems like a good idea. Its state is always inspectable and it stays the way you left it.
mediaman 6y ago
Yeah, something like this would be much better off with a rocker switch with Grinder: ON, OFF. Then it saves state between runs and it's always clear if the grinder is on or off.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  That does seem like the ideal solution, but sadly a mechanical rocker switch would cost some number of pennies more to implement, hence they haven't. I have a hot water stand-by boiler in my kitchen a $15 outlet switch because the darn thing didn't come with a simple power button. Hardly anything these days does. All of which is to say, the ideal design often conflicts with the consumer's other expressed preference of "lowest price possible, it doesn't matter how many corners are cut and how quickly it dies".

bbarnett 6y ago

Except a case like this could so easily have memory, or even a physical toggle switch. So many things should be "preserved state" switches, but people put up with it. Not sure why.