[kgermino]

Some 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 itself.

[kergonath]

> the bleach one being the most obvious

It’s really not. It looks like an Erlenmeyer flask, which could contain anything (“use detergent”? “Use additives”? There are lots of things that come up in bottles in my laundry room).

I found the ones about drying to be better, probably because the original ones were way too abstract.

> If I don't know what a line under the washing machine means, how am I supposed to know what the 2nd button means.

Exactly! I don’t know what pushing the 2nd button on my washing machine does, either. Hell, my washing machine does not have anything that looks like the buttons of the symbols. And good luck trying to guess which one of the three buttons is filled after 5 washes, when the presence of one or two lines will still be clear.

[Izkata]

The washing machines in my building have the buttons in a 2x2 grid (the 4th being a "small load" toggle for reduced water usage), so it has no relation to anything here either.

[mrcartmeneses]

The dots on the iron are blatantly obvious for anyone that’s used an iron or is about to use an iron because they are marked on the iron’s temperature control. That’s the beauty of standards. Similarly a lot of the symbols are marked on your washer or dryer

[fhars]

To me it looks like neither you nor the designer have ever used an iron on their clothes. Every iron I have ever seen had one, two and three dot markings at the appropriate positions on the temperature dial.

Or does that just happen on European irons?

[kgermino]

No that happens here (US) too. That’s what I was referring to when I said it “matches the icons on the iron itself” but it’s not a very clear sentence.

[plorkyeran]

My iron does not have a temperature dial (it has digital controls) and none of the settings have any dots or anything that resembles the tag icons in any way.

[latortuga]

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.

[joosters]

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.

[bigtones]

The original dry-clean and do not dry-clean ones are the most confusing for me. A plain circle is somehow meant to represent dry-cleaning ?

[Izkata]

Compare to the other symbols in that set: a square refers to the drying process, with the contents being how to dry it. A circle instead of a square means no drying process, so it shouldn't get wet in the first place - hence dry-cleaning.

At least that's how I see it, it could also just have been the last obvious symbol remaining after square/triangle were taken.

[bombcar]

Since dry-cleaning isn't "dry" (it still uses liquids, just not water) it should be a simple drop of water symbol with the universal "NO" bar across it like this: https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/blue-drop-or-droplet-of-w...

[mook]

That makes "do not dry clean" difficult, since it'll effectively be a double negative.

(I do think the circle is difficult, but that's probably because I don't typically wear clothes that one would think about dry cleaning)

[bombcar]

Then you'd just have a drop, but true, there are three states - dry clean ok, dry clean bad, dry clean mandatory (where the first is do either, but that could be indicated with no symbol at all).

[jwilk]

How do you tell a drop of water apart from a drop non-water liquid?

[Schroedingersat]

The bleach one slightly reduces front loaded friction (ie. don't need to learn it) at the expense of being less legible, harder to print cleanly, less robust to fading and uglier. The others don't even really have the first benefit.

Which is exactly in line with 'good' ui design in software. So goal achieved, I guess.

[nephrite]

I haven't used an iron for ages, but old irons used dots for temperature, so the old icon represents what you would see on an actual iron.