<story><title>Laundry symbols make no sense</title><url>https://uxdesign.cc/laundry-symbols-make-no-sense-154a0c10dbe0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bbarnett</author><text>I really find the idea that &amp;quot;having to know, or lookup stuff&amp;quot;, as a problem, offensive.&lt;p&gt;Laundry is literally filled with things to know, outside of these symbols.  Household tasks are.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see labels on bleech bottles, saying not to mix it with vinegar or you could die.  Yet people have done that in the wash, so why not start there?&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s what each sane person should do, who actually takes time to look at tags.  (after all if you couldn&amp;#x27;t care less, and never look at tags, what&amp;#x27;s the point?)&lt;p&gt;Print a copy of the extended tag list out, and hang it in the laundry room at home.  I have a cabinet where I keep extra detergent, etc, so I taped it up on the inside of the door.&lt;p&gt;Problem sovled.&lt;p&gt;For a laundrymat, for your smartphone, download a properly formatted, for easy phone viewing version.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Done.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Non-problem, compared to expecting the entire planet to change.  We don&amp;#x27;t need another standard!!&lt;p&gt;All that would happen is I&amp;#x27;d have two standards to look at.</text></item><item><author>detritus</author><text>Within a second of seeing the &amp;#x27;improved&amp;#x27; ones I spot what is, to my mind at least, an immediate failure - the detail resolution is far too small. It doesn&amp;#x27;t account for the printing limitations on small fabric tags, never mind the ability of old fogeys such as myself to be able to squint that hard and actually read them.&lt;p&gt;I have no idea even looking on my screen here what the difference between the first three is supposed to be, and the numerals in the three thereafter are only legible because I&amp;#x27;m staring at a bright screen, not swearing into the void in my laundry room, trying to find a better light.&lt;p&gt;All that aside, I feel I&amp;#x27;d still have to look their new interpretations up. International visual vernacular .. doesn&amp;#x27;t really exist.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Flimm</author><text>I would highly recommend reading some UX classics such as:&lt;p&gt;- The Inmate Are Running The Asylum by Alan Cooper&lt;p&gt;- The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman&lt;p&gt;(and I&amp;#x27;m sure there are many more good resources that are recent than that.)&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s very easy as tech-savvy people like us to underestimate how hard technology, even conventions like laundry symbols, are. I personally have printed out a legend explaining the laundry symbols and put them near to my washing machine, but I&amp;#x27;m the only person I know who does that. Everyone else guesses or struggles to use laundry symbols correctly, or reads the text in English if it is provided.&lt;p&gt;Now, does that mean we should change all the laundry symbols just because one person shared a redesign on their blog? No. Changing something that is so well-established has significant downsides and risks. But I think it&amp;#x27;s perfectly legitimate to spot their difficulties, and to pursue better UX relentlessly, with testing with real users. That&amp;#x27;s what separates a good (UX) designer from an engineer who produces something that fits their mindset but not the mindset of actual users.</text></comment>
<story><title>Laundry symbols make no sense</title><url>https://uxdesign.cc/laundry-symbols-make-no-sense-154a0c10dbe0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bbarnett</author><text>I really find the idea that &amp;quot;having to know, or lookup stuff&amp;quot;, as a problem, offensive.&lt;p&gt;Laundry is literally filled with things to know, outside of these symbols.  Household tasks are.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see labels on bleech bottles, saying not to mix it with vinegar or you could die.  Yet people have done that in the wash, so why not start there?&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s what each sane person should do, who actually takes time to look at tags.  (after all if you couldn&amp;#x27;t care less, and never look at tags, what&amp;#x27;s the point?)&lt;p&gt;Print a copy of the extended tag list out, and hang it in the laundry room at home.  I have a cabinet where I keep extra detergent, etc, so I taped it up on the inside of the door.&lt;p&gt;Problem sovled.&lt;p&gt;For a laundrymat, for your smartphone, download a properly formatted, for easy phone viewing version.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Done.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Non-problem, compared to expecting the entire planet to change.  We don&amp;#x27;t need another standard!!&lt;p&gt;All that would happen is I&amp;#x27;d have two standards to look at.</text></item><item><author>detritus</author><text>Within a second of seeing the &amp;#x27;improved&amp;#x27; ones I spot what is, to my mind at least, an immediate failure - the detail resolution is far too small. It doesn&amp;#x27;t account for the printing limitations on small fabric tags, never mind the ability of old fogeys such as myself to be able to squint that hard and actually read them.&lt;p&gt;I have no idea even looking on my screen here what the difference between the first three is supposed to be, and the numerals in the three thereafter are only legible because I&amp;#x27;m staring at a bright screen, not swearing into the void in my laundry room, trying to find a better light.&lt;p&gt;All that aside, I feel I&amp;#x27;d still have to look their new interpretations up. International visual vernacular .. doesn&amp;#x27;t really exist.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>corrral</author><text>Are people seeing some huge benefits from paying attention to these symbols? I&amp;#x27;ve been, as the kids say, &amp;quot;adulting&amp;quot; for some time, and pay no attention to them. I couldn&amp;#x27;t draw a single one from memory. If you showed me one, I&amp;#x27;d only be able to guess at the meaning. All I do is not wash stuff that says &amp;quot;dry clean only&amp;quot; (it always just says it in text, I have no idea if there even &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; a symbol for that) and favor cooler water &amp;amp; cooler dry cycles. I air-dry anything wool (if it&amp;#x27;s not in the &amp;quot;dry clean only&amp;quot; category).&lt;p&gt;Color-safe detergents have been the norm since my very early adulthood. I remember ads for it when I was a kid but by the time I was buying detergent, &lt;i&gt;most&lt;/i&gt; detergent was color safe. I&amp;#x27;ve never even bothered to sort by color, aside from keeping raw denim away from everything else (on the rare occasions it&amp;#x27;s washed at all).&lt;p&gt;What am I missing out on? My family&amp;#x27;s clothes seem to last just fine. My wife pays even less attention to this stuff than I do, and everything seems OK.</text></comment>