Simplicity Lesson From A Microwave Oven

Yesterday, I went to use the microwave oven in my office break room, and I again got annoyed because the display was stuck on 14 seconds.

Someone had heated something, and then pressed the 'stop' button before the timer hit 0:00.  Now, I was forced to press 'reset'.  Then, I could insert my lunch, press 'cook', and set the timer.

It is annoying, because my microwave at home just has 'cook', 'start' and 'stop' buttons.  There is no 'reset' button.  If you press 'stop' before the timer runs out, the microwave stops and the timer goes to 0:00.

This is a minor point, but is an example of complexity and trade-offs.  The office microwave lets you stop the microwave, check your food, and resume without having to re-enter a time.  But the trade-off is that the number of buttons are increased from three to four, and you have an extra operational state where the oven is off, but the timer is already set, and you have to press 'reset' before you can cook something new.

I would rather have the simplicity of press 'cook', set a time, press 'start' and, if you have to stop the oven before time expires, press 'stop' and the oven is reset back to 0:00.  There is no extra state - the oven state is the same whether 'stop' was pushed, or the timer expired.