Most dificult standard: TEMPERATURE KNOBS. The famous C and F.
Up to today I have to guess the temperatures when I'm reading american recipes or using american ovens. I have some dificulty to even understand some threads where people say they wash a load at 100 and something degrees F. as all my life my natural reference was Celsius. (ok, I know how to calculate, but it's not an automatic action. I have to stop and use my brain to convert F to C or C to F.
I'd love a global washing machine with the universal "Cold" sign or a blue mark for cold, an yellow mark for warm and a red mark or a flame for hot.
Same happens with taps. H and C in english, F and C in spanish, F and Q in portuguese. what a mess! Isn't easier to have a blue and a red dot? Even chinese people would understant the blue is cold and the red is hot. (I china was even worse. The taps had the hot and cold information written in CHINESE! I can speak chinese but i'm not fluent and also I don't know how to read or write... (well everybody know this information is unuseful as we can simply open the tap and feel the water temperature, but it's annoying when we can't understand simple information.
Other wierd thing I saw in China: Elevators.
Even retarded people know that the upper button is to call the elevator when we want to go up and the down button to go down. Internationally, the signs are the obvious arrows.
Well, some elevators in china have the buttons side by side and without the arrows. What should I do? Well, after some time I discovered the left is up and the right is down. It wasn't a big thing at all but I would feel more comfortable if I could understand it immediatelly. a simple arrow or even the position of the buttons would be much more efficient.
The point is. for some things globalization is great. signs that can be understood at any language are great, but some companies try to create new signs and they are completelly ununderstandable. The problem isn't the lack or a word, but the lack of information or the excess of creativity.
That's the reason the international signs are there for. Everybody would recognize a handicaped sign (wheelchair) in NY or Paris or Sao Paulo or Beirut or Hong Kong.
Everybody understands the "STOP" traffic signs everywhere in the world, even if inside it it's written "pare" or "Alto" Why they don't use the same sign on appliances everywhere? Everybody would understand a button with that sign is supposed to stop or cancel the operation.
The only sign i see almost all manufacturers sharing is the "power" sign (circle with a bar). computers, cell phones, cars, washing machines, everything uses it. Simple, isn't it?
The most ridiculous signs I've ever seen were in a chinese OEM washing machine sold in paraguay... the wool cycle had a "sheep" sign... I took a few months wondering what the hell was that ridiculous animal until I discover it that was a sheep, and a few more seconds to connect the information "sheep produces wool... WOOL CYCLE!" (of course you can imagine how loud were my laughs). And before you ask, No, I'm not blonde! Don't ask me what sign the same machine had to identify the spin only. That was easy to guess, but even more funny........ Ferris wheel, duh
www.slate.com
haahhaha but please never take my "900W" microwave away nor my "60°C to 90°C" wash 
