Smarter Appliances

Our office shares several appliances that were clearly designed without considering the real-world need to communicate their status to multiple users.

The first example is a coffee pot that is used when we are hosting clients or expecting usability participants. The catch is that this isn’t a daily event. That leaves people in my office guessing about the age of the coffee that they may find in the pot. The workaround that sprung up to help out is a simple sticky-note with the day and time the coffee was made.

The other example in my office is the dishwasher. We have a similar problem here, leaving us guessing if the dishes inside are clean and dirty. A sticky-note has come to the rescue here for us too. There are even aftermarket products available that will adhere magnetically to your dishwasher, allowing you to manually indicate the status of the dishes inside.

Clearly both of these appliances work just fine if they are used by one user who can remember the status of the system. They were probably tested in the usability labs and test kitchens of their manufacturers with one user at a time with great results. However, the reality is that real life outside the lab is different. These appliances are often shared. Even when they aren’t, a single user most spent mental energy to keep track of the status. Why not incorporate these status mechanisms in the design of the product?