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Comment by hpaavola | Hacker News Reader

https://johnlewis.scene7.com/is/image/JohnLewis/233182566?$p... One knob for time, other for power. All other UIs feel just wrong after using this. Microwaves usea to have this kind of UI when those came to market.

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This is almost a good design, but there's a potentially dangerous flaw. Although it's not obvious in the picture, the dials have skeuomorphic fake machining marks. These marks can make reflected light look like lines radiating from the center. And the indicator mark is only a shallow depression, which is low contrast under some lighting conditions. The reflections on the fake machining marks can camouflage the indicator mark and make it hard to see. If you mostly use the microwave on full power, that's what you'll expect to see, so it's easy to miss it if the power setting is actually lower. This could result in food being heated less than you expect. It might be warmed instead of cooked, resulting in fast bacteria growth.

This can easily be fixed by coloring the indicator mark with a black permanent marker.

oh c'mon... there's an LCD/OLED display showing the time clearly. This is so much better than ANY alternative that any critique is nitpicking. (Though, to be honest, I have a very old white with black marks microwave that avoids the problems you mention... but it also had an ugly design that doesn't fit most modern kitchens :P)

Translated to web, you're basically saying "all websites should use a high contrast serif font at >16pt. to avoid people committing dangerous mistakes when reading instructions online" :)

The display shows only the time. The power setting is shown by the indentation on the lower dial. This can be hard to see under some lighting conditions, specifically because it's designed to trick people into thinking it's made of metal.

The analogy is more like web pages using scanned images of hand writing, which I'd also say is bad design.

FWIW here's a perfect microwave. I bought it around year 2000 I think. https://imgur.com/JMaM70x

Agreed. The newer Samsung is an inferior cost-reduced version of this design. The old version is better because the time can be set purely by muscle memory. The new version uses a rotary encoder, where you need multiple turns to set a time. The required back-and-forth movement of the hand is too complex for muscle memory. The rotary encoder skips steps if you move it too fast. The time dial does not move as it counts down, so you're forced to read the display to check the remaining time instead of just glancing at the dial.

The only real improvement is the replacement of the door opening button with a more intuitive door handle.

> The only real improvement is the replacement of the door opening button with a more intuitive door handle.

Actually, it's not an improvement. A door opening button is easy to operate with one hand; a handle needs two in order not to shift the microwave. At least all the microwaves I've seen have doors requiring noticeable amount of force to open. My guess is it's to avoid the situation in which a large dish rotating inside pushes on the doors and opens it.

I can open my own as well as family members' microwaves' doors by the handle with one hand just fine, without shifting it. The trick is a snappy tug.

The last time I bought a Microwave (about four years ago) I remember specifically looking for two knobs just like this. I remember the first microwave I used in the nineties and it worked similarly - just like an oven (also two knobs normally) everyone knew how to operate it almost instantly.

The one I eventually found was also the cheapest one and almost the only one. The more expensive models were usually designed around a button interface and had plenty of features like thawing, grill, and so on. Of course all these extra features amount to little more than switching the magnetron on and off according to a programme. Go figure...

My mom (who has since taken over it) was very confused about the one second delay between adjusting the time and the microwave starting (just like the linked one there was no start button). She had obviously been accustomed to pressing buttons to get it to operate how she wanted. Which just maybe goes to prove that what is "simple design" is not necessarily the simplest interface but the interface most aligned to the users' previous expectations on how this particular item should work.

This is not bad, but has one problem. How many watts I have to use to heat up my dinner? Watts are not a natural thing that any human knows how to relate to any experience. Of course, with some trial or guidance, I could figure it out. But even then watts are useless for me - I just know 600w means "dinner", but it could as well say "37 zzq" and be as useful as "600 w".

And how do you choose if you want the integrated heating coil (after all, it also doubles as oven) to run?

And at what temperature?

And if you want to cook in stages?

We have at home a programmable one from the 1980s. We constantly use it for stuff like "unfreeze 2 hours, then microwave 1 minute at 800W, then heat at 230C for 20 minutes, then keep warm at 40C"

I find it interesting it's time per gram. Does it have a scale inside?

Combined with the easy-to-understand knobs, this does sound much better.

It's not "per gram", it's an dual function dial, used for both time and weight. If the lower dial is switched to defrost mode (2nd position) then the upper dial is switched to weight input. There is no scale inside.

The label means "time or grams", where "grams" only applies for defrosting.

Defrosting x grams typically takes y seconds, which is just a table lookup.

As defrosting most typically involves leftovers (rather than pre-packaged meals or ingredients), you will probably only know their weight, not how long it will take to defrost off the top of your head.

I think a small improvement to the design would be to use words (COOK TIME / DEFROST GRAMS), with the "DEFROST GRAMS" text colored to match the defrost option on the bottom (which should also use the word, "DEFROST"). This would let you figure out what the dial does without having to think as much about it.

You could also change the screen backlight color in DEFROST mode to reinforce the mode change.

> As defrosting most typically involves leftovers (rather than pre-packaged meals or ingredients), you will probably only know their weight, not how long it will take to defrost off the top of your head.

How would one know that? Do people routinely put leftovers on a scale before putting them into a microwave?

How do you start it though?

It starts automatically a few seconds after entering a time.

A second after you stop dialing the time

As best I can measure it, it's slightly over 1.5 seconds, although I suppose there may be multiple firmware versions out there with different timing.

I have an older, non-digital one but it has the same UI.

The Microwave starts when you close the door.

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