find, analyze, and document an example of bad design in your everyday life

The Microwave Oven

Most of the American Kitchens do not have much space to keep the oven to bake the dishes occasionally as well as having a separate microwave oven to heat edibles more quickly and easily . Most of the time people prefer having a single Microwave oven to avoid accommodation problem . Microwave is essential electronic device today . Its use and sometimes overuse is common almost everywhere in the world . Microwave oven provides dielectric heating system using electromagnetic waves to do heating process more rapid . Besides , convention microwave oven , other type of [banner_entry_middle]

br microwave oven is called `convection microwave oven ‘ which is actually a combination of microwave and convection oven

1 . The Problem

There are two problems that I have faced while using microwaves

1 . Every microwave has a Control (circuit ) panel to adjust amount of heat , duration of heating and several other options depending to its brand . However , almost all the microwave ovens that are available today have modified buttons . These buttons are flat and are covered with the sticker sort of thin plastic sheet

After some time of the use , these buttons start doing malfunctioning like hardening on press , dislocate and even very common problem that I found on a very small verbal interview with people . It is found in almost 70 of cases , according to my own research

Obviously it is never recommended to repair an oven yourself (Consumer Product safety alert . This means you need fuel for the car , time and effort and money for repairing these buttons every time you face problem with . So , incase if the problem keep arriving there will be a time when you will start looking for an alternative solution

2 . Other problem with these buttons is that it seems these are corrosive and destroy the look of microwave on frequent use . So after three months microwave looks like as if it is a year old

2 . Design Principles

According to the problem which is stated above , there are at least two `good design principals ‘ violated which are discussed under sub headings 2 .1 and 2 .2

2 .1 A Good Conceptual Model

According Norman , A designer should provide the precise and explanatory conceptual model for the user , so that a user may detect consistency in the presentation of operations and results . It is utmost responsibility of the designer to give a logical and consistent image of the system (Norman , 1998 ,

.53 . However , in this case , when you are particular about your chicken to be medium brown and suddenly `Stop button ‘ stops working , the plug is high enough and you can reach it without a chair meanwhile the chicken is overdone , then it is definitely not a problem of `Intelligent design

2 .2 Visibility

By just looking at the buttons , even if they are corrosive , it can not be predicted that weather it will be working the next moment or not . It is just like trial method , a user will keep trying till finally it fails . Since , problem cannot be determined… [banner_entry_footer]