Because they delivered it to my flat and then set up the
washing machine for us and then left a telephone number that
we can call for help. It is the same situation with the
refrigerator. Therefore I do not really need to read
the manuals. 

I will say that the quality of washing machines and fridges 
and the industrial design are generally quite okay. 
Reliability (after the warranty period) is another thing.
The Europeans are better off with at least 2 years 
warranty. In the rest of the world, one year is the
norm for consumer electronics field and people need to
pay quite a lot for extended warranty. Philips is good
to extend this to the rest of the world for quite some
of its product.

I read he manuals for the DVD, TV and Microwave ovens.
They can be tricky to set up so I am tasked by my
wife to maintain them. I am also tasked to maintain
all the PCs, printers and PDAs. She takes care of the 
washing machine and the fridge and I think she already
read the manuals. ;-)

For the industrial design or usability side, I think
PCs are one of the worst. Mouse and keyboard are
really badly designed but I do not know how to fix it yet.
The power cord and cables behind the desktops are really 
ugly. And often the manuals are not so useful. I feel
amazed why I stay in front of such a badly designed
product for so long, at work and after work, ...

Regards,
Xiaofan

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter 
Sent: Friday, October 07, 2005 3:58 AM
To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
Subject: RE: [EE] Industrial design of electronics product

On Thu, 6 Oct 2005, Chen Xiao Fan wrote:

> My washing machine is front-loaded type (European brand) and
> indeed there are lots of stuff on top. What is the problem?
> They seems to be much more rugged than the top loaded
> model from Japanese/Korea vendors. I have not yet read
> the manual to be honest because it works right out of the
> box.

Did you remove the bolts that hold the drum fixed during transport ?
;-) ;-) ;-)

Maybe you should look at the manual a little anyway, even if you removed 
the bolts.

Peter

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