CSCI1300 Critique 4 — Microwave
In an effort to make our dorm room feel a bit more like home, my roommate and I have been spending a considerable amount of time foraging for dorm furnishings on the Brown Buying and Selling Facebook page. We were lucky enough to score a microwave from another student for free! It’s the perfect size to sit right on top of my mini-fridge, and it’s incredibly convenient for making morning oatmeal or late-night ramen without having to go all the way down to the first-floor kitchen from my seventh-floor suite. However, I’ve started having a few issues with the controls.
This microwave has the usual number pad with numbers 0–9 to the right of the door, which allows the user to enter the amount of time for which they want their food to cook. It also has built-in settings for common microwavable foods — popcorn, pizza, frozen vegetables, and more. Additionally, the start button has an secondary function of adding 30 seconds to the clock, which is convenient for quick reheating or for adding more time when something seems undercooked.
Though this is all pretty standard on first glance, the functions start to get confusing when you start using them. On the number pad, the numbers 1–6 are encircled by a line labeled “Express Cook.” When any of these buttons are pressed, the microwave automatically starts cooking for that many minutes. If a user wants to set a time that isn’t an integer number of minutes or some multiple of 30 second intervals, or if they want to enter a time that uses the numbers 7, 8, 9, or 0, they must first press a small “time cook” button to the left of the number pad, then enter in the cooking time they desire. This is incredibly frustrating for me, especially when I want to reheat something, as my default cooking time for reheating leftovers is 45 seconds. I would appreciate being able to directly input the exact cooking time I want without needing to press any extra buttons.
I think this microwave was designed this way to simplify the microwaving process for users. By creating this “express cook” feature, the user now only has to press one button to start cooking, rather than a series of buttons to input the cooking time and then the start button. The designers likely imagined that most users would generally only cook for an integer number of minutes or 30 second intervals, thus designing it this way increases efficiency and accessibility for these users. However, this may not be as learnable, as it may confuse and even irritate some users who have never encountered an “express cook” feature like this.
I think that the best solution to this problem is to default to allowing users to input the exact cooking time they want, rather than defaulting to “express cook” mode. I think this is more intuitive for users, and also more closely matches their mental model. The number pad looks very similar to that of a cell phone, so users likely have a mental model that encourages them to enter a cooking time just like they would a phone number. I do think the express feature is helpful in some cases, but I think it would be better if it wasn’t the default setting. Instead, I think it would be best if it is somewhat like the “time cook” setting now, where the user presses an “express cook” button and then a number to start cooking for that number of minutes.
