Design and Sabotage
Here’s the temperature control from my fridge:
Which way makes it colder inside? Do “min” and “max” refer to temperature or to the amount of work done to reduce the temperature?
Also note how the numbers on the dial increase in the opposite direction to the min/max labels. All in all, a well-designed control if your goal is to confuse people and sabotage their food.
For a while I’ve been having trouble with food in my fridge freezing, and I decided to do something about it – only I found I’m not sure what to do. Knowing engineers, my guess is that 9 is coldest, but it really should be warmest – or the dial should just be labelled “colder” and “warmer” instead of using numbers.
The user manual may or may not reveal the answer, but I don’t have it.
