Permadeath and laundry

By Kristofer Palmvik ·
  • User Experience Design

Wash, rinse, reset. I just got game over on the washing machine.

Permadeath is a game mechanic concept, meaning that when you lose, you have to restart the game from the beginning.

You might recognize permadeath from classic arcade games, like Pac-Man and Space invaders. 👾 🕹️

No continues. No save points. No undo.

GAME OVER. PLAY AGAIN?

The washing machine in our current Airbnb also incorporates permadeath as a part of its design.

Everyone here has experienced it at least once by now.

It works like this:

🤩 You press the “on / off” button to wake up the machine.

🤔 You go through the more or less complicated process of setting the program, temperature etc.

🤦 You try to start the washing cycle, but accidentally press the “on / off” button again instead of the intended “start / pause” button.

This turns off the machine.

This resets all your settings.

GAME OVER. PLAY AGAIN?

Another example of the same concept is the <input type="reset"> button in HTML forms.

When clicking on a reset button, everything you have entered in the form is reset to the default state. Everything you have typed is forever lost.

GAME OVER. PLAY AGAIN?

It used to be a common practice to put a reset button next to the submit button in a form.

Nowadays it is a strong recommendation to not use it at all:

You should usually avoid including reset buttons in your forms. They're rarely useful, and are instead more likely to frustrate users who click them by mistake - MDN

You probably don’t want to frustrate anyone using your product.

You probably don’t want them to feel like it’s game over.

Unless you are actually creating an arcade game.

Permadeath and laundry was first published 2023‑12‑20