This hits home for me since I just finished reading The Design of Everyday Things. The two improvements that Jason suggests can be traced back to some core design principles that Donald Norman lays out in his book:
1. An indicator to inform the user of the object's current state. Based on the comments in the original post, it seems that the dishwasher actually does have an indicator light but for some reason it was accidentally covered up.
2. A forcing function, which is meant to constrain user actions in order to prevent error and/or guide the user toward the intended behavior.
1. An indicator to inform the user of the object's current state. Based on the comments in the original post, it seems that the dishwasher actually does have an indicator light but for some reason it was accidentally covered up.
2. A forcing function, which is meant to constrain user actions in order to prevent error and/or guide the user toward the intended behavior.