Personally I feel microwaves are getting less usable. They used to have a numpad and a "Go" button. Now they have dials, programs, modes, and of course cryptic

Personally I feel microwaves are getting less usable. They used to have a numpad and a "Go" button. Now they have dials, programs, modes, and of course cryptic iconography. The reason that microwaves and washing machines are like this is that the two use cases "Buying an appliance" and "Using an appliance" are wildly divergent, as patio11 hinted. When using an appliance, your thought is, "Just let me push one stupid button to accomplish this task and get on with my life." But when shopping for an appliance, you are weighing cost, features, aesthetics, brand name, perceived value, and so on. We can tease that this is due to gender roles, but the fact is that I know all the above, and yet I just spent 25 minutes in a Target trying to decide which toaster to buy.