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Comment by Natsu | Hacker News Reader

Grandma had a terrible time using the microwave. I eventually found out that there are microwaves that have only two dials, one for power on top, which we left alone, then the bottom one was time. Knowing how far a quarter turn of the dial was in minutes allowed her to still cook things when she wanted to.

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My microwave has an on button that immediately starts, with a 30 second timer, and if you press it while it's running it adds more time.

If someone is good with tactile stuff the dial might be better though.

Part of the problem with the flat buttons you touch is that you can't really tell where they are. A dial was much easier for her to understand than trying to manage to remember where a dozen buttons are and what order they're in.

We got the microwave with the dial after she accidentally microwaved something until it caused a fire in there which flooded the room with smoke and was so bad I had to simply throw it out.

If I wanted to use my stove, microwave or dishwasher (all flat buttons), I might try to put a little Sugru on the surface to outline the important ones like the +30 seconds button.

They have tactile stickers specifically for this kind of thing, I think they even have different textures a blind person can distinguish

We did that, but the old one didn't have a +30 second button and just had little sticky pads on every button, since you had to use numbers, which didn't make it clear what was what. And some things have 9 at the top, others put it at the bottom, so it's not that hard to forget.

Either way, a physical dial was much easier to use than trying to remember the layout of the number pad, which button is power/cancel/etc.

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