Design flaws in everyday things: Samsung washer and dryer

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Doing laundry is the worst. It involves weekly interactions with two appliances — the washer and dryer. Even though these appliances have come a long way in terms of their technology and custom modes, most suffer from poorly designed controls.

Product: Samsung Washer and Dryer

(I am specifying the company because this is the product I currently use. However, in my experience, many washers and dryers have the same design flaws.)

Samsung Washer and Dryer in my Apartment

Task Analysis

(simplified concerning the present problem.)

1. The user opens the appliance door to load the laundry.
2. The user closes the appliance door.
3. The user selects a preset mode (e.g., bedding, delicates, quick-dry, etc.) by rotating the rotary selector.
4. The user selects the washing/drying temperature by pressing a designated button until the light next to the desired setting lights up.
5. The user selects the dry/spin level by pressing a designated button until the light next to the desired setting lights up.
6. The user starts the washing/drying cycle.

Problem

The controls to select a preset mode and temperature/spin/dry level have the following problems:

a. The washer and dryer in most apartments are stacked. Consequentially, for a user standing on the ground and looking up, the selector itself occludes the modes labeled on top of it. Moreover, the user is unsure about the selected setting because the light indicator is also occluded.

It is difficult to infer the position of the selector for the machine placed on top

b. It is unintuitive for the user to map a rotary selector to arbitrary. washing/drying modes. A rotary knob is typically used to increase or decrease an analog value — the temperature, volume, heat setting on a stovetop, etc.