Scale-ability: Wait gain

My wife has a weigh scale in our bathroom that's pretty neat. You enter your sex and height and it gives you back your weight and estimated percentage of body fat.

Believe it or not, my problem with this device is not with the numbers that it gives me (although they could be better). My problem is how difficult the thing is to use. There are only two buttons on the face which looks nice and simple. But simple only works in product design if the experience is as simple as it looks.

Here's what I have to do to use my wife's scale:

• Push Set (default choice is "Adult")
• Push Set to choose Adult
  
• Toggle the arrow button twice to show "Male"
• Push Set to choose Male
• Hit the arrow button 19 times (or hold it down and wait for fast-forward) to enter my height (the default height is 4 feet, 4 inches!)
• Hit Set
• Jump on, hold still and wait.

Ugh. I think I lost weight (and patience) doing all that.

This scale is only used by my wife and me. Our sexes and heights don't change. Yet we have to re-enter them every time as if we've never used the scale before.

Your website's visitors can get equally frustrated if you repeatedly ask them to give you the same information. User experience expectations have risen greatly over the last few years. Customers expect you to know and remember them.