Stove Top Almost Burns down Home

       A few weeks ago, I almost burnt my house down while trying to make tea. I turned the stove on using the knob in which I thought coordinated to the correct burner. I went upstairs to fold my laundry and continued to listen for the whistle of the tea pot. A few minutes later, I remembered that I was trying to make tea, but didn't hear the whistle. I came downstairs to find a burner that was bright red and the tea pot sitting on a different burner; luckily, my house did not burn down. There were two pieces of feedback/lack of feedback in the above story. The thing that lacked feedback, is the tea pot; if the tea pot was boiling, there would be a feedback of a whistling sound. One piece of feedback that allowed me to know which burner was on was the redness of the burner. Unfortunately, there wasn't a type of feedback to tell me that I turned on the wrong burner.
       If this stove was better designed, the risk of fire would be reduced. There are many problems with the layout of the stove. The knobs that turn on the burners are on the other side of the stove, meaning that when you reach to turn the burner off, you could potentially get burnt by a tall pot or light your shirt on fire. Another problem with this system is that the diagram of the knobs does not signify whether the burner being turned on is a large or small one. Also, the knobs give a signifier of "front" and "rear" to the user; however, how are you supposed to know what is the front of the stove and what is the back when the knobs are on the back of the stove, not the front? While the knobs do afford the mapping of the burners, there are many ways in which this stove could be improved.
       According to Norman, many stoves have bad mapping. The mapping of my stove was different than the ones that Norman used for examples; in fact, my stove actually may be the most natural of all the examples he provided. However, one way this stove could be improved is by signifying whether a knob turns on a large or small burner, instead of just showing four dots with one filled in. In order to make the stove "fire proof," companies could put a constraint on a stove that would not allow a burner to get hot unless there was weight applied to the burner. Also, the stove could use colored lights next to each burner to signify what burner is on and which ones are off.