Manuals
Hey Ariston.
With Henry's diagram above, take a 3 second look at it and then switch to another browser page. Now tell me what "P4" means. Now, come back to it an hour later without looking and tell me what "P6" means.
I guarantee you won't remember, unless you have a great memory.
Any machine, regardless of whatever it is, should be designed so that you wouldn't ever have to look at the manual or refer to an instruction card or "Cheat Sheet".
It's fortunate that a lot of Euro-style machines actually have a guide which is located on the soap dispenser, but this is a major shortcoming IMHO.
With modern technology, I don't see any reason why a machine can't be designed in such a way where anyone can take a look at it and just use it without having to memorize or learn anything.
Here's the control panel to my old GE front loader.
So, imagine for example, you needed to wash something with these settings:
Extra Large Load
Delicate Wash Speed, Normal Spin Speed
Warm Wash Temperature, Cold Rinse Temperature
Extended Spin
Extra Length Permanent Press Cycle
Imagine that you flew from Dublin to my City, Calgary.. You are standing in front of this machine for the very first time in your life and I gave you the instructions above.
I'll bet you a dinner that you not only will know exactly what to do to get this machine started, but there wasn't any need to read the manual.
