Airing Out Dirty Laundry
Every time I used my dryer, I followed the same routine of a quick tap on the Power symbol, a twist of the physical dial to pick my setting, and then repeatedly jamming my finger onto the Start/Pause area until it finally played a chime and began the cycle. I had done this for years, assuming the button was just deteriorating and needed a few tries and harder presses to register.
Earlier this month, I discovered that the machine wasn’t faulty at all; it was me. I read the small print and realized that the Start/Pause button actually required a press and hold to begin the cycle. This was surprising because the Power button had no similar requirements. It always responded instantly with a chime and illuminated the display, while the Start button remained silent until the machine successfully started. Requiring different actions for the buttons was inconsistent and misleading, especially since both were identical in shape and appearance.
The issue came down to poor affordances, the visual or physical cues that tell users how something should be used. The two buttons looked and felt the same, so they naturally afforded the same kind of interaction, a simple press. There was nothing on the touch area to suggest that it needed to be held down, and the large amount of marketing text and fine print on the machine made it easy to miss the small label beneath it. My mental model, or internal understanding of how the interaction would work, told me that tapping a touch area or button should be enough. That assumption, built from years of using appliances, devices, and even the other buttons on the same machine, made the experience frustrating when the dryer didn’t behave as expected. That incorrect mental model was reinforced each time the dryer eventually started after repeated taps, whether it was because I held it longer while pressing harder or tapped it quickly enough for the machine to interpret it as a hold.
From a usability standpoint, this interaction wasn’t efficient or satisfying. It wasted time, encouraged incorrect and annoying actions, and often made me question whether the button was working at all. The problem wasn’t in the hardware, it was in the design.
I believe a small tweak could fix this interaction. Adding a light or sound as soon as the Start button is pressed would give immediate feedback and confirm that the action was registered. Furthermore, changing the button to function like the Power button (activating with a single press) would align the design with the user’s mental model and make the experience smoother.