The improved ones still seem really vague to me
Laundry symbols make no sense
61–70 of 237 posts
Re: Laundry symbols make no sense
#62Oh you think laundry is bad...let me introduce you to the bane of my apprenticeship...
Welding symbols:
Re: Laundry symbols make no sense
#63I think the big mistake here is to assume that the original symbols were the right way of representing the information needed at all.
A clear number for temperature on its own, followed by a separate symbol for a machine or a hand would be clearer than piling one onto another.
Re: Laundry symbols make no sense
#64Within a second of seeing the 'improved' ones I spot what is, to my mind at least, an immediate failure - the detail resolution is far too small. It doesn'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. I have no idea even looking on my screen here what the difference between the first three is supp…
I came here to make the same point you did. The originals are superior, largely because their open design will remain legible after significant deterioration. The slight increase in obviousness of the redesign is not worth the loss in legibility. I still don’t know what most of the new symbols are supposed to mean.
Also, I missed a link to a legend for the original design, for which the author’s animated version does not compensate.
Re: Laundry symbols make no sense
#65Some of these are better (the bleach one being the most obvious) but most of them are worse or neutral. If I don't know what a line under the washing machine means, how am I supposed to know what the 2nd button means. The line is at least more visible. It's similar for the iron. Maybe dots as temperature isn't obvious, but it's about as clear as the thermometer, is easy to read, and matches the icons on the iron itse…
I think the dots / temp gauge should be combined here. 1 dot / 2 dots / 3 dots. The temperature gauge is hard to tell how full/empty it is which the dots help with, and single dots make it difficult to remember whether left or right means low or high.
I don't follow your single dots argument? There's no right or left, one dot = low? Plus, as the OP says, irons use the exact same dot count, so nothing else is needed.
Re: Laundry symbols make no sense
#66Within a second of seeing the 'improved' ones I spot what is, to my mind at least, an immediate failure - the detail resolution is far too small. It doesn'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. I have no idea even looking on my screen here what the difference between the first three is supp…
I think they are a lot more intuitive than the old ones, but I'd need to look up some stuff. I don't know what's the difference between normal, perm press and delicate for example. Or why the 3 knobs on the washing machine should represent it The flask for bleach, and the drying symbols are much clearer though. The detail in some is a bit too high for some clothing tags, I'd agree on that.
Speaking of bleach though - when was the last time anyone here used bleach while washing clothes? I have never in my entire life done so.
Re: Laundry symbols make no sense
#67For me the biggest problem with laundry symbols is that they're often printed so small that after a few washes they become too blurry to recognize. Also, while I can feel with my hand whether water is "cold," "warm," or "hot." I honestly have no idea what the actual temperature of the water in my washer is in degrees Celsius. Furthermore, I live in the US (which is not where any of my clothes are made), so there's th…
> Also, while I can feel with my hand whether water is "cold," "warm," or "hot." I honestly have no idea what the actual temperature of the water in my washer is in degrees Celsius. The explicit temperatures are for machine washing, don't you just... set the washing temperature to whatever you want? If you're washing by hand, it's unlikely that you're washing above 40C, and that's if you like hurting yourself: at 50C…
My US market washing machine has settings for "hot", "warm", and "cold", but if there's a way to set temperature to a number, it is not intuitive and I am not aware of it (it may exist this is a 'digital' machine!). If it did have a way to set a wash temp to an arbitrary number, it would presumably be in F not C!
I think this is typical for US washing machines?
Do (eg) European washing machines instead typically have you set wash temp to an arbitrary number of °C?
Re: Laundry symbols make no sense
#68Speaking of bad design, who thought it was a good idea to blink the labels in the animation, immediately after saying half of people asked knew none of the symbols?
Downvote and move on from low quality posts
Re: Laundry symbols make no sense
#69Hot take (or cold, delicate take with color-safe bleach if you prefer): if you have to pay attention to the laundry symbols, skip it and buy something else. Find durable clothes that are acceptably fashionable and forget about the laundry headache.
Re: Laundry symbols make no sense
#70The new ones are just as inscrutable as the old ones. How on earth am I supposed to know a washing machine with the middle button of three dark means "permanent press" and the right button of three means "delicate" without looking it up? The new "natural dry" looks like it means "safe for high heat". "Do not bleach" looks more like "do not use detergent".
Frankly I think symbols that give you no impression at all are better than symbols that give you the wrong impression.