World Peace? What World Peace?

' Beautiful women walking down the ramp in their swimsuits...you think world peace would be on anyone's mind...' - top of the mind candid reply from a participant of this year's Femina Miss India on being asked what she thinks about world peace.

Yeah baby, if I was the judge, my award certainly would have gone to you.

Washing Machine Usability

The studio apt. where I live in, has this 'fully loaded' washing machine that can do anything and everything you can think of related with washing clothes. You might ask - what's the big deal in washing clothes? All you need is a soap, water and - clothes! But then this machine comes with all those modes of washing different types of clothes (silk, cotton, polyster,etc) at different settings, various wash modes (depending upon how soiled is your clothes), water modes (to conserve water & use it effectively), various RPMs for various wash types..blah blah. Ok, so I was impressed. But now comes the big question - how should I operate it.
Unlike the previous generation washing machines, which just had 2 knobs to select timer and drain water - here was a machine that had a 'mini instrument' panel full of small buttons & various flashing LEDs.

I took out the Instructional Manual and started reading it carefully. 15 mins of 'chatofying' the book and and I still couldn't figure from where do I have to operate the water tap! I checked the washing machine and couldn't figure the point from water pipe had to be plugged in or the draining pipe outlet. Finally I figured out that the water inlet & outlet pipes were already attached to the machine - though there was no 'knob' to turn it on/off. Ok, so this is Uk and perhaps here machines are already attached to the water outlets but shouldn't the manual have instructions for 1st timer users about these things or is it just assumed that people might be knowing about it. What if a person moves into a new house and wants to install the machine? How will he know about these things? The manual should have had instructions about plumbing or how the machine has to be installed -right to details of fixing it to water/drainage outlet. This way, I would have come to know that there is no need to seat about the water outlet. Anyway, this was just the begining. The next part, selecting which clothes type. There were pre-defined clothes type and I selected 'cottons'. The instructional manual was well documented in the remaining steps and after 5-6 steps, I selected the START button and voila - the machine started! But hey, hang on! What's this? For my 'cottons' selection & even wich 'quick wash' option selection, the machine calcuated that it will take 2hrs 45 mins to wash my 9 shirts!!! Quickly I checked the manual. I did not wanted to waste 3 hrs in washing some stupid 9 shirts. The process had started and I realised that if I cancel any pre-defined programme, I have to start the process all over again with the already 'pre-defined' wash modes.

Why couldn't the machine come with a 'customised' wash mode option too? An option where I even select wash time period instead of letting the machine doing it for me. What I felt really missing from the machine was the option of letting the user to customise his washing choice as per his preference. Comparatively, I felt the 1st generation (manual/semi automatic) washing machine was much easier to use (you don't need manual to use those 2 knobs of setting timer & draining water). Ofcourse once you get a hang of a fully automatic loaded gizmo like the one I used, you do start liking it but is it really helping me in any way to make my washing more effective than the 1st gen machines. Those in favor might say that you don't have to worry about anything - put the clothes in and do your other work and come back only to dry clothes but what about the electricity consumption? I spent 3 hrs of electricity (and water) to wash 9 shirts which I could have done in less than 40 mins in semi-automatic washing machine.

Its good that you have a product that promises to 'automate' or ease out the way you have been performing certain tasks but shouldn't we let the user take control of the product instead of the other way around?