[Flimm]

I would highly recommend reading some UX classics such as:

- The Inmate Are Running The Asylum by Alan Cooper

- The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman

(and I'm sure there are many more good resources that are recent than that.)

It'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'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.

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's perfectly legitimate to spot their difficulties, and to pursue better UX relentlessly, with testing with real users. That's what separates a good (UX) designer from an engineer who produces something that fits their mindset but not the mindset of actual users.

[readthenotes1]

They aren't well-known, at least according to the article.

I myself recognize that I've seen a few of them, but since they are as cryptic as Egyptian hieroglyphs to me, I ignore them.

[iforgotpassword]

They aren't well known, but they're an international standard. Getting everyone to switch to a new system will take a huge effort. As others said above, there are just so many symbols that I dare to claim it is impossible to come up with a symbol set that is self explanatory, or easy to memorize. As soon as you're in doubt about any symbol, you'd have to look it up, and then it doesn't matter whether you need to look up one or three.

I only know the one for temperature, the "no dryer" one, "wash by hand" and "no spin-dry". But like you, I don't give a shit. I wash everything at 60 (underwear, bed sheets, towels) or 40 (everything else) °C with spin-dry at 1400rpm.[*] Some pieces might wear faster, but so be it. I guess the vast majority of people does it that way.

[*] Ok ok, except wool or cashmere, or a suit. But this is something I just learned from my mom at young age, not by researching any symbols.