If you have never seen the tire swing cartoon, might I suggest you take a few minutes to look at it. Simply search on tire swing cartoon and several copies of it will pop up.

So far, I have not found a person who didn’t laugh at it, maybe a few times. I can’t imagine a person not finding himself in agreement the concept behind the cartoon.

Regardless, all engineers need to have a copy of it nearby for frequent references. It is an excelent reminder that it is very easy to over design things. The tendency is to have all kinds of dials, knobs, button and lights. I can’t say how many buttons my microwave has. It makes me put my reading glasses on everytime I heat a frozen dinner.

Wait a minute. Those instructions on the frozen dinners are really small. I guess I already need 3x magnification before operating the appliance.

Regardless, I do need to keep my microwave instruction manual handy. Lots of buttons on that thing. Still, mostly, I just use a few of them. Some, I have yet to touch.

It does remind me of my first radar oven, as it was called back then. It had a dial for the timer. One button for starting it and one button to open the door. We wore that thing out. Set the time and press start. Really simple.

Oh how I miss those days of simplicity. Certainly a couple of features would be nice, but I see no need for more than a dial and a few buttons. I see no need tolerating a blinking clock, which must be set every time the lights blink. I already have four othed clocks I must change at least twice a year.

I suppose those design engineers like trying to impress us customers… and the boss. However, I am much more impressed with ease of operation.

I do understand why people are so impressed with all the features and buttons, but while they are still pressing buttons my dinner would already be cooking. This is especially if they need to referance the instructions.

My little question: When is the last time those engineers really communicated with a customer. Wait a minute. Do they ever use the stuff they design? It does make me wonder.

Side note: The extra power is nice. That original radar oven had but 700 watts. It meant, sometimes I did do some toe tapping while I waited.