At Bosch, we approach laundry with the same enthusiasm as dishwashing, cooking, food preservation and a host of other household activities that play an essential role in daily life at home. It’s the very reason we dedicate countless hours of tireless research to understanding how our appliances can simplify these activities, including laundry.
When it comes to laundry, this research has led to a number of ergonomic innovations designed to transform laundry from an annoying chore to an easier, more comfortable household activity. Chief among these ergonomic design improvements is preventing consumers from having to bend down at an uncomfortable angle to load and unload the washer and dryer. With stackable compact units featuring an integrated handle that can be grabbed at multiple angles, the washer and dryer units can be accessed from a neutral standing position. The result is less bending and leaning to find that sweet spot on the door. Also, if your home’s laundry space is not conducive to stacking, the front door handle makes it easier to open and close in a side by side configuration without having to bend or lean over.
Along with comfort, functionality is a key component of ergonomic design. Through the course of our research, we observed that it wasn’t just loading and unloading that pushed laundry to the bottom of homeowners’ to-do lists. For many consumers, the placement and angle of the display screen proved challenging to read or understand without leaning over. To address this, Bosch tested a variety of screen display shapes and configurations to ensure that our display provides the optimal viewing angle from the neutral standing position, making it more comfortable than ever to select the proper wash or dry cycle.
As you’ve probably noticed by now, purposeful, functional design is a guiding force behind the Bosch brand – form and function, as we like to say. And oftentimes, the smallest details can make the biggest impact on how a consumer interacts with and experiences a product. On our laundry units, this includes a purposefully designed control panel. We opted to place the center knob (pictured below) in the middle of the control panel, allowing you to move from left to right by selecting a cycle first, and then the additional options second. This progression from left to right is more natural – like reading a book, and won’t have you working backwards or starting over when trying to find the speed setting or gentlest drying cycle.
When designing an appliance, our design teams always try to put themselves in the shoes of our customers. This allows us to better understand how the appliances function as part of your daily life, and identify ways we can improve ergonomic function. We truly enjoy hearing your feedback, so be sure to share a review of your Bosch appliance. Real-time feedback and information is critical to our evolving design process, and the feedback allows us to continue to deliver a lineup of award winning appliances that make your life simpler.