First time using oven

This afternoon, when I was struggling what I still can publish for this October blog my friend invited me to her house to make mini cupcakes. This was my first time to make mini cupcakes as my house does not have oven. Thus,I accepted my friend's spontaneous invitation. And, I was really happy that she had invited me when I saw her oven.

This was the oven. A new oven her mother has just bought three months ago.








What interested me was this! Look at the image below.

Looking from top to bottom, you can see that the top button was to adjust the temperature of the oven; the bottom button was to adjust the time to use to bake or make something; then how about the middle button?


What do you think the middle button is made for?  


























Actually, the middle button was used to adjust according to the food that you want to bake. For example, if you want to bake cake or make pizza, you need to turn the button clockwise (the button can only be turned in clockwise direction!) to the picture that has a fan in it. However, how do I know to operate the middle button? My friend asked her mother for the answer, and in fact her mother knew the operation of the middle button was because of experience. In other word, her mother had gone through many trials and errors, and that trials and errors gave her the knowledge of how to operate the button.

And fortunately this unclear middle button gave me the idea to write this post!

From the image above, (from top to bottom) the top and bottom buttons have clear and visible instructions on how to use the object. For example, when we want to adjust the time of 10 minutes to make mini cupcakes, we could clearly see that there was a timer icon beside the bottom button, which directly gave us the message that this button is to adjust the time to make things. However, the middle button did not convey such direct message to us. We could guess that the middle button is about heat, but how can people who are not experienced in baking know that if the food they are making needs a fan to heat the food. Preece, Rogers and Sharp (2002) stated that visible functions are more likely to allow the users to know how to use; however, when functions are not visible for users to understand, it makes users more difficult to know how to use. 

Thus, I think that the designer of the oven can try to make something similar to the image 1b for users to easily understand how to use the middle button. For example, if the users want to make pizza or bake cake, they can just turn the button clockwise to the pizza icon or cake icon. 

Image 1a: The Actual

Image 1b: My Suggestion

In conclusion, if the oven has the same function as image 1b, don't you think that it will be much better for all of us as we will not overheat our food, and the food will not burn due to the heat?

PS: Since earlier I mentioned that I went to my friend's house to make mini cupcakes, here is the cupcakes that we have made. They were delicious, in fact!

Reference: 
Preece, J., Rogers, Y., & Sharp, H. (2002), Interaction design: beyond Human-Computer Interaction, New York: Wiley, p.21