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In physical UI our group calls this the Microwave Problem. No one uses the 20 extra buttons on the microwave, they mostly just use one or two buttons. But no on
by 2four2 2y ago
In physical UI our group calls this the Microwave Problem. No one uses the 20 extra buttons on the microwave, they mostly just use one or two buttons. But no one will buy a microwave with few buttons.
- jeffreygoesto 2y agoI must be no one. Love my Samsung ME82V since a decade now. Two dials. Period.
- closewith 2y agoIf you know the model of your microwave offhand, you're definitely an outlier!
- NortySpock 2y ago"Dial-A-Yield: Not just for nuclear warheads!"
- euroderf 2y agoI'm sure that having two dials costs more to produce than a crappy membrane keypad, and that the product manager was nearing retirement.
- diarrhea 2y agoHilarious coincidence. I had and loved that exact same model for the same reasons. Until one of the dials broke and I discovered how utterly irreparable the thing is. Had to get rid of it and indeed, it’s impossible to find similarly simple models. Oh well!
- robocat 2y agoI would love a microwave with a slider for power level and a dial for time. Best I have found so far is the now obsolete Breville BMO734 with jog dials for power and time, plus I use the quick-start and cancel buttons. Importantly you can change power and time even while it is running - very nice. Jog dials are not my favorite but the UI works. Extra feature buttons on inside door jam is a good design although honestly I never use the extra features. Ervery microwave with a keypad has been total shit UI in my experience. https://www.breville.com/content/dam/breville/us/assets/microwaves/finished-goods/bmo734-the-breville-quick-touch/bmo734xl-the-breville-quick-touch/images/BMO734XL-the-quick-touch-cooking-microwaves-dna2.jpg.transform/breville-lrg/image.jpg https://www.breville.com/content/dam/breville/us/assets/micr... I bought a spare second hand one the other day for parts!
- mekoka 2y agoI was confused for a moment as to which "no one" you were. The "no one" who uses the 20 buttons, or the "no one" who buys microwaves with few buttons.
- andruby 2y agosame. love it. had to buy a microwave oven last year and went out of my way to find the same one. two dials is the only ui you need for a microwave.
- mattmaroon 2y agoHigh-end blenders too. All I want is speed dial, pulse switch, and on/off switch. And that's all anyone wants, but for some reason every new generation has to have all these functions nobody uses.
- namaria 2y agoNo one has ever been paid for keeping a good design the same.
- bombcar 2y agoCommercial ones are simple - unless it has a programmable “do the smoothie steps” button.
- mattmaroon 2y agoI actually have gotten free Vita-Preps on occasion by doing events with the company. Most everything Vitamix has made for years has all sorts of that stuff. They thankfully still have a base line that is simple.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago> All I want is speed dial, pulse switch, and on/off switch. Really? I want "quiet". A certain level of noise is inevitable, and blenders are way, way past that point. They're louder than food processors!
- wry_discontent 2y agoYou can buy that. That's what's on my VitaMix I bought a few years ago.
- drdaeman 2y ago> But no one will buy a microwave with few buttons. Marketing is the king. Spend resources on memeing your way into people minds, then advertise “we removed the cruft to give you <something>” (more space, better experience, whatever you can think of, even if it’s a big stretch) as some sort of revelatory breakthrough and bleeding edge innovation - and they’re gonna buy it and joke about “uncool” others’ microwaves with silly extra buttons are, affirming how cool their microwaves are. Worked for a lot of crap on the market.
- PurpleRamen 2y agoThere is value in choice. Not won't necessary always use just the same two buttons, so people like have the option to use other buttons. And quite often more buttons also come with better specs.
- blue1 2y agoApple used to sell stuff that had “curated UIs”: few control, few functions, and excellent UX. I remember the cleanliness of the iPod vs the overfeatured and complicated competitors.
- realusername 2y agoThe competitors were too cheap to have any feature, usually they had a big play button, a next and previous button and that's pretty much it. The settings were usually pretty poor on those mp3 players, on mine you had a microphone mode, language, timezone, some shuffle configuration and that's pretty much it. The iPod did look much much better and refined but in terms of simplicity, it's hard to beat the single play button of an mp3 player which doesn't know to do anything else. Those things were designed like appliance more than tech products.
- blue1 2y agoI don’t think that’a true. Too many years have passed so I cannot cite makes and models, but I worked in an IT magazine back then and there were mp3 players with a lot of buttons, not unlike those overcomplicated VHS recorders which sold on “features”.
- realusername 2y agoThat's true, those also existed but what I've seen, they were not bought as much as the cheap kind. The ipod gave a reason to pay extra, those half way though products really did not. I had one similar to those https://i.pinimg.com/originals/95/43/8b/95438b86a98370a741c2e76bcfa9ba33.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/95/43/8b/95438b86a98370a741c2... Those things really didn't have a single real feature beyond playing music and recording with a microphone in the settings (which nobody really used) The screen and processing power was way too bad to do anything else anyways, even if they wanted to.
- aatd86 2y agoAlledgedly simple UI (although I never was a Apple guy, was using iRivers at that time), but building the iPod was hard, probably entailing a flew of difficult, complex hardware and design issues to tackle.
- dimal 2y agoHas anyone actually tried? I’ve searched for simple microwaves and can’t find any.
- itronitron 2y agoThe IKEA MATÄLSKARE Microwave oven has 4 buttons, I press one to add 30 seconds and another one to cycle through the 4 power settings. That is their mid-range microwave, it has 750 watts of power and the more expensive models seem to have similar controls. Their low end microwave TILLREDA has two knobs, but I've never used it.
- youngtaff 2y agoOur microwave has two knobs… one for the power setting and one for the time My only criticism of it is there’s no button to cancel the time back to zero and you have to wind the timer knob back
- Zak 2y agoWhat would be the advantage of a button to cancel instead of turning the knob back to zero? It seems like that would add quite a bit of complexity to the mechanism to provide a UI that's just different rather than obviously better.
- Zak 2y agoThis is also my preferred control scheme, and I bought one a few years ago. To see what's easy to find now, I typed "microwave oven knobs" into amazon.com and got several with the classic mechanical timer and power knob design. Most of those are relatively small, but "commercial microwave oven" found some larger ones.
- jayd16 2y agoIt's a nice analogy but imagine trying to thaw something for 10s of minutes with the add 20 seconds button. That would be pretty annoying.
- iknowstuff 2y agoA dial should do fine
- andy99 2y agoI've seen many one-button clocks that just either increment faster or change increment to a larger value if you hold.
- bmitc 2y agoPopcorn even comes with instructions to not use the popcorn button.
- xboxnolifes 2y agoOnly because popcorn manufacturers don't want the quality of their popcorn to be judged by the quality of your specific microwave's popcorn button implementation. They have no control over how it's implemented.
- bmitc 2y agoYea, I was emphasizing the point that most microwave buttons are unneeded.
- xboxnolifes 2y agoBut the button isn't bad. On most microwaves it probably even works well. Of course, if you rarely eat popcorn it's probably an unnecessary extra button.
- pdimitar 2y agoThat figures, my new microwave somehow thinks 90 seconds is perfect for popcorn while the one I am buying requires like 3m 30s.
- Sohcahtoa82 2y agoTechnology Connections did a great video on the Popcorn button and why it sucks on most microwaves. https://youtu.be/Limpr1L8Pss https://youtu.be/Limpr1L8Pss
- swayvil 2y agoJust got a new microwave. Panasonic NE 25 F. One dial. Built like a tank. Stainless steel. Compact yet roomy. And there's no stupid rotating platter. What they do is rotate the microwave antenna instead. But that's inside the guts somewhere so you never see it. (Why don't they do that on all microwaves? I dunno) So it's easy to clean. Even cooking. Max microwave. I love it
- xorcist 2y ago> Why don't they do that on all microwaves? They used to, but the standing waves are formed by the cavity geometry, so it's not nearly as good as rotating the platter.
- swayvil 2y agoWell I had a microwave with the rotating platter. And now I have one without. And the one without definitely works better. So that's a strike against your theory.
- loa_in_ 2y agoSo they do exist! It's a relief, honestly.
- acheron 2y agoI searched that one up and it's on the "commercial" section of Panasonic's website with a price of "contact sales". How did you end up with it?
- mekoka 2y agoAnd none of those 20 buttons can turn off the beep. So 2am sneak snacking means watching your oven like it's 1999.
- kayodelycaon 2y agoSome microwaves do have this feature. I don't think you'll ever see it on the box so you won't know until you've read the entire manual.
- kibwen 2y agoThey can, actually! Your microwave probably has an arcane button combo that will turn off the beep. You'd never, ever stumble across it randomly, you need to read the manual. On mine, I need to hold the "2" button for five seconds.
- wry_discontent 2y agoThe real takeaway here is that you should read the manuals for all your appliances. I've learned a lot about them.
- tristor 2y agoHonestly, I've had a number of microwaves in my life and I have read the manuals and attempted to use various other types of operation (such as sensor cooking). The reasons why I don't typically use those additional modes of operation are perfectly rational and not due to UI bias as such: 1. I know exactly how to cook something, based on time (and power level), because that's a mental model that's universal across microwaves. 2. I don't know how to cook something and need to follow package directions, which are always expressed as time (and power level). 3. I am iterating towards a desired end state, and want to do so in small step increments. The only possible way to do so is by short bursts of time (at a specified power level). These are the reasons I've never used any of the extra modes. Technology Connections did an entire hour long video about the popcorn button, and it sounds like at least /some/ microwaves actually implement a very good method, but most don't, and so these types of modes are also generally untrustworthy. Having additional modes has never been a deciding factor in buying a microwave for me, most of the time I bought am microwave based on materials, appearance, and mounting options. Now, a toaster oven, on the other hand, I want all the modes, and I use them.
- Suppafly 2y agoI literally only ever use the +30 and the cancel button on mine. It'd be hilarious to see a microwave that only had those 2 buttons though.