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Post date: Jan 11, 2012 11:04:53 PM
1. INTRODUCTION
This is the control panel of the little microwave oven in my apartment. It is divided into 5 sections.
The first part is a Display at the very top of the control panel, demonstrating results of all operations and providing feedback to users.
Below that, there are many buttons.
The 2nd section is called Quick Touch as you can see in the picture. It is equipped with one-touch presets for many kinds of food, including popcorn, food plate, frozen entrée, potato, beverage and pizza.
Specifically, the times you press the button will determine setting for different quantity of food. For example, if you press the beverage button once，the display section will demonstrate the number “1”. If you press it again, the display will show the number “2”. A third time press will change the number to “3” while a fourth time will make it go back to “1”. After adjusting the parameter, if you stop for 2 seconds without any operations, the system will start to operate for a given time according to the preset parameters.
Section 3: Extra functions. There are three functions provided in this section, clock, timer and auto defrost.
“Clock” is nothing more than useless. After I pressed the button once, it only showed “12:00” on the display but I can do nothing to set the time. Several minutes later, I found that the clock did go on, however, it is still useless because it's impossible for me to set the time.
“Timer” is used for countdown function. After pressing “TIMER” button, you can input a time period, say, “1”“2”“0”“0” for 12 minutes directly.
“Auto Defrost” is another function that I used quite often. Pressing the button once is for meat and the display will show “def1”. Pressing the button twice is for poultry and the display will demonstrate “def2”, and the tried time is for fish. After adjusting the power level by selecting the food to defrost, you need to input the weight of the food in numbers. For example, “3”“5” means 3.5, and “1”“2”“4” will make the display show 12.4 in the screen. However, what really confused me is the unit of weight. Is it kilogram or is it pound? I had no clue at all.
Below these, is the Number section, including 10 numbers and 3 function buttons. The 3 functions are “TIME” and “POWER”.
The number buttons not only help enter time periods for other sections, but also can directly set time to work. The function of “TIME”, according to my observation, should be stopping current setting period (any of them) and back to the direct-time-input state.
I think the function of “POWER” should be power adjustment. Based on the existing conceptual model，you should keep pressing this grey button some times in order to shift among different power levels. However, It has only one power level -- “PWR H1”. I don't know why this button is here if it cannot work properly. Or maybe it actually can do its job, but since me (user) cannot find out how to make it work, it's useless.
Last 3 buttons——“STOP/CLEAR” “START” and “ADD MINUTE”.
You can press “STOP/CLEAR” to pause and press it again to quit current job and reset the display. If you only pause the operation without resetting the time, you cannot switch to other working modes such as Quick Touch or Auto Defrost to start a new task.
“START” is simply to tell the microwave oven to start operation after everything is been set up.
“ADD MINUTE” has 2 functions: one is to add 1 minute during any operation; the other is to start a one-minute operation when the machine is idle.
2. GOODS and BADS
1 Design
Pros:
- Buttons that are frequently used are large and eye-catching.
- Layout of the panel is quite reasonable. “START” button is close to number buttons, making it very convenient for most frequent use.
- After operations, the microwave oven alerts users by ringing and the display shows END. Only after you open the oven and take out your food, display will go back to standby state.
- Some feedback is good and fast. You can see every operation from the monitor as long as it works.
Cons:
- Some number showed on display in Quick Touch mode and Auto Defrost mode. Because of lacking unit of weight, I cannot understand what the screen shows if I didn't read the users manual. When feedback is fast but difficult to understand, it is no better than having no feedback at all.
2 Mapping
Mapping in this microwave oven is quite accurate I think.
3 Use of Language
Pros:
- Mainly use nouns, making it concise and easy to understand even for a foreigner.
4 Access for Elderly
Pros:
- Good use of colors. Words are bright and clear.
Cons:
- Users need to press the button hard to be effective, which not easy for some old people.
5 Access for Disabled
Pressing each button will result in sounds that can let people know that their manipulation is effective. However, since the sounds are all the same, it is impossible to judge whether one pressed the wrong button or not.
Besides, the whole interface is a flat panel and buttons are not sticking out of it, therefore, people cannot figure out which button they are pressing by touching.
3. MORE THINKING
1 Add A Remote Control?
One of my friends suggested to me that maybe we can add a remote control for a microwave oven after observing the control panel, but I think it's not a good idea because the other part of microwave oven is not considered. Due to the physical constraint that we have to put the food into the microwave oven by ourselves, there is no necessary to assign a remote control to a microwave oven.
2 Microwave Oven at My Home
I found this picture on the Internet. It has exactly the same User Interface as the one at my home.
As you can see, this old-style microwave oven has only two knobs to control.
The knob above is used to adjust the power level and the sequence in the picture is from low to high is: Low Defrost, Mid Low, Mid, Mid High and High.
The knob below is used to set running time. You can see from the picture that the time period ranges from 0 to 30 minutes.
These two microwave oven together can perfectly match to the development curve of products, that is, the interface changes from simple to complex before becoming simple again. So I think in the future, the user interface of microwave is going to become simpler. Same for wash machines.
In my opinion, the modern digital one and the old-style one are both good products depending on the user group. Some people are just using microwave oven to heat regular food, they may prefer the old-style one since it is very simple to use and is cheaper than the digital one. But other people may like the above one much more, because it provides more powerful functions.
Actually, designs of many other products are likewise. Different kinds of the same product can attract different user groups. For example, automobiles of the same brand will develop several different models from low end to high end to satisfy various needs and thus extend their market.
3 What Software Industry Can Learn
The software industry can also draw a lesson from this, especially for today’s market in China.
Chinese software consumers are just beginning to raise the awareness of copyrights. However, they often recoil on the high price. It is not that the software is not worth the price, but that most users cannot make full use of all the tricky functions provided by the software. Thus, they will naturally deem the price is too high. For instance, if Windows can issue an even simpler version with lower price, an increasingly number of people will buy it. In fact, many software is operating in this way. For ordinary home users, they only provide very basic functions for free. If people want to enjoy more functions, they need to buy an advanced version or pay registration fee to become a member.
4. IMPROVEMENT
Here is a new panel I designed, based on the first one.
I think it has following advantages:
- Basically, user's sequence of pressing buttons is from top to bottom
- Feedback is close to operations, e.g. Auto Defrost & Power
- Delete “TIME” and “ADD MINUTE” buttons, merge these two functions to “STOP/CLEAR” and “START/ADD 1 MIN” buttons respectively.
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