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Frigidaire Stove and Oven

At Least it Can Cook Food

The Technology: The Frigidaire stove/oven combination in my kitchen serves its intended purpose relatively well. The stove on the top cooks food, and the oven below it opens to the front, while the design of a combined stove and oven saves space. However, some aspects of its design are stronger than others.

Evaluation: First, the aesthetic appeal of the stove/oven is strong for its time. The front and sides of the oven are a glossy white, taking advantage of the ties between the color white and positive concepts such as safety and cleanliness- both desirable qualities to be reminded of when interacting with a potentially dangerous appliance that regularly comes in contact with food. While the white oven would ordinarily highlight any spills or scratches, the surface of the stove shows forgiveness. The stove surface is metal and easily wipe-able in order to hide spills and facilitate cleanup. The stove and oven design also makes use of constraints to limit the user’s possible actions and, consequently, user error. The round burner coils, which are made of different material than the rest of the stove, serve as psychological constraints to determine where the user can place a pot or pan to be heated. And the markings on the stove and oven dials serve as psychological constraints to determine how the user can adjust the knobs to change the temperature setting.

     However, the stove/oven’s designer also made some basic and obvious mistakes. The design demonstrates a lapse in safety- there is no indication that a burner is still hot and thus no mechanism in place to warn users against burning themselves. While a light indicates when the oven is heating, there is no auditory feedback that the light has turned off, which means that users who are multitasking may not know that the oven has heated. The oven indicator light may signify that the oven is on, but the stove dials fall short when it comes to visibility. The textual labels for which stove dial controls which burner are simply engraved into the metal below each dial, making it impossible to read without leaning over the stove. Additionally, the dials are marked in white paint that is easily chipped, and as the paint on my dials has chipped, there is no clear indication of the burner’s setting on some of the dials. The burners and their corresponding dials also exhibit a lack of natural mapping. Instead of mimicking the position of the burners on the stove, the stove dials are placed in a row above the stove in the following order, from left to right: left front, left rear, right rear, and right front. This means that the user has to check that they have selected the correct dial each time they turn a burner on or off.  Lastly, the panel beneath the oven door is a false affordance. It appears to be a pullout storage drawer, which is commonly found in some ovens. However, it is not actually a drawer and cannot be removed, despite my lengthy effort to pull it out (and anticipation of dead insects inside).

Improvements: The stove and oven can be improved greatly with a few small changes. First, it should have some indication (perhaps a light) to indicate that the burner is still hot. A buzzer should sound when the oven light goes off in order to let users know that the oven is ready without requiring them to check it frequently. The dials for the stove burners should be naturally mapped, perhaps placed next to each burner or arranged in a corner of the stove in the same way that the burners are arranged. The dials should be labeled with a paint that is chip-resistant. The stove’s secret drawer, which is not a drawer at all, should either be removed or replaced with a real drawer.

Should people use it? No. Its main virtues are basic functionality and strong aesthetics, and its aesthetics can still be considered dated. It would be easy to find a combined stove/oven that has the same positive aspects and few or none of the design mistakes.

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