Think your front line doesn't affect your bottom line? Nations should take a closer look at what happens at their borders - this is the first major touchpoint with a "national brand". And the impression left is not always good. Here are three stories.
Sheremetyevo International Airport, Moscow
Last week, I was in Moscow. It took three uniformed folks to let me out of the country. Curiously, the passport (and photo) that got me a visa and into the country, suddenly became suspicious when the time came to leave.
The young woman officiating spent several minutes staring at me and my passport. She then pushed a button (a signal that things were clearly amiss). Her colleague came over. They both stared at me. They stared at my passport. They stared at me some more. I removed my glasses (on request). I tried to resemble my photo (on my own initiative). I showed them other photo IDs (on request). I gave them my entire wallet (on my own initiative) The photo IDs included an 30-year-old Danish work permit, which they finally accepted as proof of my identity (sigh, if only the rest of the world thought I looked 30 years younger). Only when a third border officer came over and told the two younger officials that this was absurd, was I finally allowed to pass. (Although I don't speak Russian, when someone says someone else is full of shit, I recognize the international signs)
The whole seance took over 10 minutes - which is really long when only one passport lane is open and the people waiting behind you are starting to wonder what crime you have committed.
That is the Russian Federation. Western Europeans aren't surprised by this kind of nonsense as it fits the otherwise outdated stereotype. But let me share two more stories with you. And mind you, I am simply too old to take much crap from anybody unless they actually point a gun at me (and even then, I'm pretty cool, for example when poked with the business end of a Kalishnikov in East Berlin - but that's another story. Buy me a beer sometime...
Miami International Airport (aka "Wilcox Field")
Let's move on to the United States. I gathered my entire extended family and brought them to Miami last February to celebrate my Mom's 90th birthday. After we had cleared passport control, I was walking several meters in front of the rest of the family as we approached baggage claim. As anyone who has entered the United States knows, you have to show the stamped customs form to a bored official sitting on a chair before you can leave the first immigration area. Here's the conversation that followed:
U.S. customs official: Hold on there, buddy.
Me: Sure. What's the problem?
U.S. Customs official: This paper says you're travelling with a bunch of people. Where are they?
Me: They're right there (pointing)
U.S. Customs official: (angry) They need to be with you at all times.
Me: (cautiously). Er...they are. They're right there (my wife and son-in-law were now standing next to me. The others were only steps away). We have children with us. They walk slowly.
U.S. Customs official: That's not my problem. Don't move.
Me: I'm not going anywhere. Relax. They're right there.
U.S. Customs official: Don't you give me that backtalk! You stand over there! Right now! And shut your goddamn face.
Me: (no words. I stand in my appointed corner. The family regroups)
U.S. Customs official: You people come to our country and think you can tell us what to do. Well, believe me, sonny, this isn't the way we do things over here. I'll tell you when you can go.
Me: (I wait for over a minute, receive more verbal lashings, and then flash my U.S. passport): "Sonny" yourself. I assure you, I am NOT "you people". You screwed with the wrong American Citizen and you can't scare me. And if this is the way you greet visitors to our country, the Customs and Immigration Service had better find your replacement FAST. Now you let us pass - and I want your name and badge number NOW.
(I filed an official complaint against Officer Delgado. I was told action was taken. On behalf of the United States of America, I apologize to all visitors who also met this idiot.)
Kastrup Airport, Copenhagen
Fast forward to last Wednesday in Copenhagen Airport on my way to the United Kingdom.
The Danish official takes my passport, casually flips to the very last page, and plants a stamp. I roll my eyes. He reacts:
Danish policeman (in English): So what's your problem?
Me (in Danish): You just cost me two trips to my embassy - which is about 4 hours of my time!
Danish policeman: Huh?
Me (in Danish): You just stamped the very last page in my passport. Now I have to go to my embassy and have extra pages glued in if I want to travel to most countries in Asia. For instance, the Russian Federation requires two consecutive blank pages if I want a visa. You just screwed up my passport.
Danish policeman (in Danish): You should have told me before.
Me: It's not my job to teach you your job. Passport control officers around the world know how to stamp a passport. There are even instructions printed in the EU passport.
Danish policeman: This is an American passport. The stamp is just a fucking souvenir for you people (verbatim translation: "en skide souvenir for jer amerikaner").
Me: This isn't a souvenir shop. You are authorizing travel documents.
Danish policeman: Move on. People are waiting...sir. (and under his breath, "Røvhul")
Caveat Dania
Dear Danish Passport Control Policeman. I have your number - number 9. You haven't heard the end of this.
Lesson learned
Pay heed: idiots in positions of authority can create an incredible amount of bad will. All businesses and institutions should keep this in mind when planning customer-service initiatives. Your front line relates directly to your bottom line!
Typical pages from my passport as normally stamped by officials, following the best practice of filling up the passport from the front.
Very last page of my passport, incorrectly stamped by bored official who couldn't give a damn about his job.
The Danish appliance retailer, Punkt 1, has just released an ad that sums up the problems of the online industry in 31 seconds and two boobs (or four, depending on how you define "boob").
Summary: Are you confused by the offers for cheap appliances? Look here. Pris = Price (i.e. low price). Prut = Haggle (name your own price). WWW = WWW.
"Confused? I know what you're feeling. Come down to Punkt 1, we make sure you go home with the right product at the right price."
Curiously, after having characterized competing media/techniques as something from a cheap sideshow, Punkt 1 immediately offers vacuum cleaners at a 20% discount (Spar = Save). Uh...and you claim you don't belong to ANY of these groups? Hypocrites!
But there are three more serious problems. All of them relate to the portrayal of the web as an air-headed bimbo.
First, the clear suggestion is that the web is merely a sexually driven con game, which it certainly is not. Searches on Google for business-to-business and business-to-consumer information now outnumber searches for porn.
Second, the advertising agency that produced this crap apparently believes this (and the Punkt 1 marketing team bought into this goofy concept). In general, ad agencies steadfastly refuse to accept the dynamics of online communication and do their best to twist electronic media until it looks like print. Sorry, things don't work that way.
Third, the Danish business community continues to ignore the fact that the WWW is now the number one source of business intelligence. Stick that in your marketing mix and smoke it.
Two days ago, I heard from a well-rounded business executive that "we see our website as our subsidiary in cyberspace." Yikes. I wrote this 11 years ago in
Practical Information Architecture. This notion has been out of date for at least six years. Today, your website needs to be an integral part of your business plan. Think, are your telephones your subsidiary in the communications infrastructure? Hardly!
Punkt 1, you should be ashamed of yourselves for promoting these various myths. You are harming your business (when I bought my expensive dishwasher a few months ago, I didn't even visit Punkt 1 because your site was so lousy). By espousing this uninformed attitude, you are actually harming Denmark's GNP (Gross National Product). And I won't even go into the matter of sexism.
Friends of the user-experience community: we will never grow and mature until our potential clients understand that crap like this particular advertisement are ultimately not in anyone's interest.
Punkt 1, for what it cost you to produce this abomination, you could have put together a website that actually built your brand and contributed actively to your bottom line. Rethink your strategy. There is money to be made.
Contrary to popular belief, Apple Computer didn't invent gesticular interfaces. Take a look at this short clip from the Warner Bros. Vitaphone production
Gold Diggers of 1935 (at the 27 minute mark of the movie). Choreographer Busby Berkeley seems to have figured out some key movements back in 1935.
In this scene, tenor Dick Powell is taking poor-little-rich-girl Gloria Stuart shopping in the basement arcade of a swanky new hotel. I apologize in advance for the quality; I simply used my camera to record my iPad in a decidedly analog fashion. (Don't even ask why this movie is in my iPad to begin with).
Notice, too, the graphic incorporation of metadata. Each department is coupled with the name of the woman in charge. For example, in "Lingerie", we find "Annette". Pretty sophisticated "menu" considering that this footage predates the birth of the web by 65 years.
If you want to see the entire number, here's a link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=076OAOvEMJI&feature=related
The discussion at FatDUX this morning focused on Nescafé. And which spoons each of us used to make coffee (note to self: we have a perfectly good, very expensive coffee maker. Why are folks drinking this instant crap?)
It seems that coffee measures are not standardized. They're not even close. In various drawers, I found no fewer than six different measuring "instruments". And their capacities ranged from less than 1 gram to over 10 grams. No wonder our morning coffee ranges from dishwater to mud.
Here's what we have:
From left to right, we have a very expensive coffee spoon from Georg Jensen designed by Arne Jacobsen, followed by a more traditional silver teaspoon. Next, we have a miniature scoop. The wire-handled measuring spoon is an Ole Palsby design from his Eva Trio series of kitchen utensils. Finally, there is a black plastic scoop that came with a bag of coffee, and a smaller, white plastic scoop that came with some tea.
Let's see what they can hold (the first number is heaping, the second is level), measured with real, ground coffee, not the instant crap.
Jacobsen <1 gram (<1 gram)
Traditional 3 grams (1 gram)
Scoop 4 grams (3 grams)
Palsby 9 grams (8 grams)
Black plastic 10 grams (7 grams)
White plastic 4 grams (< 1 gram)
The directions on our instant coffee suggest "one heaping spoonful per cup".
Hmm. How many different cup sizes do we have...?
How this relates to interaction design
In the field of interaction design, we know that standardization often improves usability, although it can stifle creativity and innovation in the hands of pedantic rule-followers. Could it be that we should be chosing our standards with greater care? That there are some generic patterns that benefit from standardization and "best practice" whereas there are others areas that should be avoided if they impinge on artistic value?
Take for example, the Ole Palsby measuring spoon above. It holds more coffee than almost all the other devices. In terms of volume, it doesn't equate to any of my standardized cooking measuring spoons (teaspoon, tablespoon etc.). So where did this design originate? Did Palsby pull the size out of thin air? In truth, he could have chosen a more reasonable size without compromising his design. I wish he had - my wife insists on using one scoop per cup, plus "one for the pot". When made with this scoop, her coffee can be used to patch bicycle tires.
On the other hand, Arne Jacobsen's spoon was designed for stirring, not measuring. To change this design would also mean changing its basic function, which would be wrong from an artistic point of view (and a usability POV as well).
So, what do YOU think should be standardized? And why? Does anyone have standardized rules for standardization? If so, I hope you'll share them here.
OK. Here’s the deal. You’re shipwrecked on some desert island. Lots of coconuts, fish, and other food - plus a magic spring that spouts water, beer, wine, cocktails, and Coca-Cola. There is also a power outlet for your iPad.
Alas, your iPad has very limited memory and there is no wireless. So which 10 movies would you want to view over and over again until you’re rescued? Here’s my list:
Footlight Parade (1933)
Casablanca (1942)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Some Like it Hot (1959)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
The Godfather (1972)
The Right Stuff (1983)
Good Night, and Good Luck ( 2005)
Believe me, I have a zillion movies I’d like on this list. But honestly, if you really had to narrow it to 10, what would they be?
We're gearing up for our annual FatDUX barbeque. Naturally, hot dogs will be on the menu along with lots of other goodies. The problem is, Danish hot-dog buns don't let you load up with chili, cheese, relish, onions, sauerkraut, and all the other stuff you get on your dog at
Nathan's Famous on Coney Island and other hot-dog stands of reknown.
So, as the good user-experience designers we are, we decided to do some user research.
Upon investigation, it turns out that
Wikipedia actually has an
article about hot-dog buns. Let us share some of the more interesting facts:
"A hot dog bun is a type of soft bun shaped specifically to contain a hot dog. There are two basic types: top-loading, which is popular in New England, and side-loading, preferred in the South and Midwest United States.
The advantages to a top loader are that it holds the hot dog securely and fits nicely into little three-sided paper boxes. Top loaders are generally baked side by side and torn apart as needed, leaving a flat side surface for grilling.
Side loaders tend to be doughier, so are more likely to successfully sop up all the juices from chili or sauerkraut without falling apart."
Now here in Denmark, I've never seen anything except side-loaders (Gosh, who knew there was a technical term for this). That is until yesterday when I discovered the "Grab Dog" form-fitting hot-dog holder from the Danish bakery, Paaskebrød. An innovative solution? Absolutely. But a good solution?
We'll let the photos speak for themselves:
Typical Danish hot dog bun cracks at the hinge when opened.
Grab dog attempts to solve the broken hinge problem
Grab dog attempts to solve the broken hinge problem
The Grab Dog bun. Not easy to toast and fairly dry to begin with.
Grab Dog works OK with standard hot dogs (er, where did these standards come from?
But larger hot dogs cause bun to crack.
User testing at FatDUX. Our Business Development Director, Stine Ringvig, was not pleased with the dried out Grab Dog that quickly fell apart during her lunch.
On-site ethnographic research at our local ecological hot-dog stand.
Dennis shows us how Danish hot dogs are traditionally served.
Danish hot dogs come with the bun on the side, not as a single culinary unit.
Ecological bun from Korvbröds Bagarn in Sweden is delicious and doesn't crack!
I'm a pack rat. I admit it. My wife, coworkers, casual acquaintances, and even strangers on the street tell me to throw stuff out. But I never do.
So, here I am cleaning up in the FatDUX Copenhagen server room. Loads of artifacts from my previous lives.
Basically, what you see here is every mobile phone and every laptop I've owned since the early 90's. We'll take the laptops first, starting in the back row, moving to the front, left to right:
MacBook 160. The very first MacBook. Good machine. I wrote two books on it. This was one of the very first MacBooks in Denmark, purchased in the fall of 1992 in the U.S. Keyboard converted to Danish about a year later.
Powerbook G3. The so-called "Wall Street" model without a USB port. Very inconvenient, but the machine did serve me well for a couple of years. About 1997.
Acer TravelMate 350. Fantastic machine, fast, lightweight, but a crappy keyboard for touch-typists. This is what happens when hunt-and-peck engineers try and squeeze the three Danish letters (a, ø, å) onto a small piece of keyboard real estate. Note the optional wireless card sticking out the left-hand side. About 2001.
Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook P7010. The best computer I've had. Bar none. But the hard-disk died and my supporter cost me EUR600 before concluding that the machine could not be fixed. About 2005. So that led to...
Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook P7230. The upgraded version (2007) of the previous machine. But not without some quirks. In the meantime, I did manage to get the old hard-disk replaced on the P7010, so I'll probably go back to the older machine.
Apple iPad 64GB 3G. Wonderful for sharing photos, listening to music, and surfing the net. I do like it, but not for serious work that requires typing. Also seriously lousy presentation capability. The FS P7230 is still the workhorse that follows me to conferences. Summer 2010.
And now to the phones:
Motorola "brick" - about 1990. Very clunky, but a real "gee-wow" piece of kit back when everything else in the world was wired. Very
Gordon Gekko. Actually, the correct name for this is a "CommNet 2000, ultra Classic by Motorola". Today, it really IS an ultra classic. I can't remember, but I think this might have been an NMT telephone rather than for the GSM network.
Motorola Micro Tac 5200. World's first flip-phone. The antenna is actually a placebo - it does nothing at all! About 1994. This was the first dual-band phone. "TAC" stood for "Total Area Coverage".
Ericsson GH 174. Really heavy piece of crap. Never liked this much - but it was a company phone so it wasn't my decision. About 1994. I can't remember why we got this phone, which was actually an out-of-date model by the time I got it.
Nokia 2110. Absolutely one of the best phones I've ever owned. And a true classic in terms of keyboard layout. This phone set the standard for much that followed. About 1994-5. I switched to a Nokia 3210 in 1999, but I forgot to include it when I took the photo.
Motorola Timeport. My first tri-band telephone that enabled me to work in the USA. Very sexy blue screen, but an unfathomable menu structure. Summer 2000.
Sony Ericsson T68i. Notice the natty clip-on camera. This was my first telephone with a color display. Very poor resolution (101x80 with 256 colours), but hey, color was incredibly neat back around 2002. And it had Bluetooth! I also owned the earlier Ericsson T68 (prior to the merger with Sony).
Nokia 6670. Still one of my favorite phones, despite the early S60 operating system, which qualifies it as one of the very first smartphones. Never got caught in your pocket thanks to the rounded corners. And the 1.0 megapixel camera was pretty good, too. Good MS Office integration. About 2004.
Nokia E70. Another great phone. With the advent of SMS, this phone was great as the keyboard unfolds like two wings on either side of the screen for really fast QWERTY input. Summer 2006.
Apple iPhone 1st generation. We bought a bunch of these in the U.S. and jailbroke them. Fantastic bragging rights back when no one else in Europe had them. I gave this one away to one of our art directors because I was constantly looking for somewhere to charge it, which drove me crazy. My friends at Apple told me, "Eric, you know better than to buy the first generation of any of our products..." Even so, three years later, the unit is still in service. Summer 2007
Nokia E71. Although the Symbian 60 operating system is still difficult to work with, this phone basically did all of those great phone things that I needed - like making phone calls. And it almost never needed to be recharged. Spring 2009
HTC Desire. This is an Android 2.1 smartphone. Devours power like I devour marshmallows. I'm constantly looking for a power outlet. But it can do a lot of stuff when it feels like it. (FatDUXling Andrea Resmini tells me to turn off the Wi-Fi to conserve energy). Unfortunately, European data-transfer rates are crazy, so I'm forced to turn off pretty much everything most of the time. For example, if I just leave the phone on for a day, it will download about 93 MB of data. I don't know where this data comes from or where it goes, but it's a lot. And when I go to the United States, 1 MB costs about USD 10. So, at a potential cost of USD 930 a day, this thing scares me to death each time it beeps. So much for smartphones. Spring, 2010.
Now, that I've showed it to you, I've really got to get rid of this crap...
Over the years, I've personally written over 30 mission and vision statements for clients throughout Europe. As internal documents, these are incredibly important. We (management and I) invest a lot of energy in defining the business position and the strategy that will help achieve this. But, to be honest (and despite the current fashion), these mission/vision documents don't really stand up very well when companies broadcast them on a website. An internal tool is just that - internal.
Vision statements are particularly dangerous. Like watching two people make out in a darkened cinema, the better the content, the more distasteful it is to an outside observer:
"We're going to be number one in our market by...[action item]."
The more effective the action item, the less likely it is that you'll want to broadcast this information to your competition.
"Don't write naughty words on walls if you can't spell"
The "boilerplate" text printed on the rear cover of a brochure, or the front of a website is equally political. Enthusiastic sales reps and other unskilled laborers think that adding useless adjectives and overworked buzzwords will improve the message.
I just looked through some of the strategic mission/vision stuff I've written the past 10 years or so. Curiously, the text that was screwed around with the least, often belongs to the companies that have done the best.
As a public service, I have glued together some of the blather and buzz I've witnessed into a single, universal boilerplate.
About [the company]
Headquartered in [someplace], we are leaders in [something]. Since [sometime], our client-centric core competencies have represented the highest standards of quality and reliability, coupled with service that truly delights. We align our customers’ needs with current best-practice usage paradigms and thus enable people to seamlessly leverage their abilities and maximize their efficiency in a truly proactive manner. Our ongoing commitment to sustainable innovation ensures that we will remain the preferred supplier for our clients around the [world, region, country, neighborhood, wherever].
Use it with my blessing. It's free and could save you thousands of euros in short term copywriting fees. But hey, no one reads this anyway...or do they?
My two cents...
1. “There is no definition, so we can make up our own.”
No. The definitions are there, although the details may differ. User experience (UX) deals with how people interact with stuff – it represents the sum of their reactions and subjective perceptions. So, don’t go off on your own until you’ve bothered to do a simple search on Google. If nothing else, it will keep you from making a complete fool of yourself by confusing UX with usability.
2. “If the experts disagree, then the discipline isn’t really mature.”
No. Experts disagree in all fields. Doctors argue about the best treatments. So do designers. If you’re looking for a “mature” field, stick to horseback riding, which hasn’t changed much the past couple of hundred years. Instead, consider that most fields are “evolving”. User experience is one of these.
3. “User experience is only about computers and stuff.”
No. User experience is all around us. Eat a freshly picked strawberry. That’s a user experience, too. The problem seems to stem from the word “user”, which turns up in “user-friendly” and other computer-worldly clichés. But until we find a better word, it will have to do.
4. “If it’s on a screen, it must have something to do with IT.”
No. Just because a book is printed on paper, it doesn’t mean Tolstoy was working for the lumber industry. Granted, computers may be involved. But in the online world, UX focuses on what goes
on the screen and less on how it got there.
5. “User experience is a subset of [some other discipline]”
No. User experience is the umbrella under which many other highly structured activities take place – from information architecture to service management to graphic design to usability evaluation. If you put UX on equal (or lessor) footing with other disciplines, it’s easy to ignore it in favour of something more tangible – yet the forest continues to exist even if you only focus on the trees. And like a real umbrella, you'll first notice you’ve lost UX when it starts to rain.
Got a myth to add to the list? Post a comment - the floor is yours.
I counted the number of dishwashers I have personally purchased over the past 25 years.
Five.
Two of them have been great. Three of them have been lousy. The last one I bought (about two months ago) is the worst of the lot. You’d think I’d learn to choose a good one, but this just hasn’t happened.
What I want from a dishwasher
I figure a good dishwasher should do four things:
- hold a lot of dishes
- wash dishes
- dry dishes
- not break dishes
As someone in the user-experience industry, I don’t think this is an unreasonable set of basic requirements.
“Easy to use” is also a good quality. I’ll get back to that.
Usability testing in real life
My mom had an old GE dishwasher which served her faithfully for over 30 years. When it broke a couple of years ago, I bought a new GE for her. But she insisted the dishes didn’t get clean. So I investigated the next time I returned for a visit. It seems you have to slam the door shut much harder than a 90-year-old is able. Honestly, I practically had to kick it shut myself. In other words, the machine never actually washed the dishes because my mother lacks the strength to shut the damned door.
Lesson One: Make sure you can actually start the machine.
The decline of civilization
In 1985, I bought my very first dishwasher for myself. A Bauknecht. Good German machine. Very quiet (39dB). And it was a dream to operate. It did everything you’d want a dishwasher to do. The first time I used it, I was convinced that every dish in the world deserved a ride in this wonderful contraption.
Ten years later, it died. Don’t know why. Just did.
I bought a new Bauknecht. Twice as expensive. There were several icons on the panel I never did figure out. Although touted as having the lowest noise level on the market, it was a lot noisier than the unit it replaced. In-depth interviews with my dishes indicated that they were satisfied with the quality of the washing, but not ecstatic.
Lesson Two: Don’t believe the brochure.
New house, new dishwasher
A year later, my wife and I sold our flat and moved to a house where we immediately started remodelling the kitchen. And we bought a Danish-made dishwasher from Vølund – completely hidden front panel, very elegant.
The Vølund was brilliant. The best machine yet. Easy to load, intuitive affordances (e.g. I could figure out where to put stuff inside the beast), great results. In fact, the only minus was that any Martini glass placed in the front-left corner of the upper rack would ALWAYS crack.
Two months ago, our Vølund died after 14 years of faithful service. Again, no particular reason, the dear thing just stopped working. Weeks passed before I could bring myself to let someone take it to the dump.
The trip to the store was a...trip
My wife and I liked the invisibility of our old Vølund (fully hidden front panel). So down we went to the local appliance store to find a replacement. Sadly, Vølund doesn't make dishwashers anymore.
Why does a dishwasher WITHOUT a cabinet cost more than one WITH a cabinet? By a factor of about 25%? Price moves up to around EUR 600 for the cheapest “integrated” model.
“Ohh. You don’t want to buy that one. It has a nasty cheap plastic pan at the bottom. You really want a full-stainless
washing chamber,” said the helpful salesman. Add another EUR 200 (and a new expression to my growing "I know all the cool technical stuff" vocabulary).
Lesson Three: stainless is better than plastic (I guess…)
LG – “Life’s Good” – for someone else
We briefly considered Miele, but I had worked in an ad agency that went through Miele dishwashers at the rate of one every three years (as we were doing their advertising, we felt obligated to use their products). So, in search of genuine quality, my wife and I decided on an LG from Korea. It cost on the wrong side of EUR 1000 but, hey, it was top of the line. Only problem, it doesn’t really do any of the stuff a dishwasher should do.
“Low noise level” says the brochure. But this is noiser than that 1985 Bauknecht.
“Saves energy.” Only if you don’t use it. The “eco” program doesn’t get the dishes clean. The “auto” program takes hours and hours to complete unless you want to dry stuff by hand.
Lesson Four: see Lesson Two.
Affordances…meh
The insides are arranged so that it holds lots of dishes, but I wish LG would send me a photo showing me how they intended the various 21st-century racks and shelves and baskets to be used. I can’t figure it out. In practice, it holds about 20% fewer items than my dear old Vølund. I'm seriously wondering if Korean dishes have a very different shape than Danish dishes.
Glasses break. All kinds of glasses. In many different locations within the machine. That’s why Martini glasses get washed by hand these days. Always. Think about it: I just spent EUR 1000 on a device that is now making me wash glasses by hand!
When this contraption runs, it smells like there’s some plastic burning. I’m afraid to run it at night or when we’re leaving the house. The smell makes me nervous, even though the installer says this is “normal”. Does that mean all my other dishwashers have been “abnormal”? Just asking…
Back in 1985, I just went out and bought my Bauknecht. And it was great. Today, there are too many choices, too many controls, too many decisions to make.
All I want is clean dishes. Is that really too much to ask?