On Toasters
Random musings while spooling up with a cup of joe.
A toaster is designed to warm up your slice of bread at a temperature high enough to turn it to progressive degrees of brown. In contrast to a pan, or an oven, it takes less time, and is hands off. Without cheap timing tech, the mechanical slider was a decent approach.
Which is why this gets the job done:
But from an information design perspective, the knob is a failure to think through what exactly a toaster does. It doesn’t just brown. It browns to spec. Sure, you can try a few times, figure out which number you like, and stick to it.
Or you can have an elegant solution:
- Replace the slide/pop it with a timer that is calibrated to each member of the household’s preference.
- Go horizontal, with a sliding mechanism that delivers your toast away from the heat.
- Make it transparent so that you can see your progress:
-Shlok
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