I purchased this as an easy reminder whether the dishwasher had been run or was still being loaded. You would think that it would be pointless, but it really has been a help. I am one of those people who washes my dishes before I put them in the dishwasher. Yeah, I know there is no reason to do that. Dishwashers are miracle machines. They can clean anything. Don't waste your time and hot water doing what the machine is made to do.Despite the debate over rinsing dishes, I still choose to basically clean my dishes before I put them in the dishwasher. Because of this, more than once we have had to run a load a second time because someone added dirty dishes to a load that had been run. Sadly, we have also unloaded rinsed dishes and put them away, because we didn’t realize they hadn’t been washed. To remedy this, we bought a sign.We started out with a round Dirty/Clean sign that was all one color. It was a bit more effort to rotate the sign and, being all one color, it was not easily read at a distance. It also had to be physically taken off of the face of the dishwasher to turn it—more effort, more fingerprints on the surface. We quickly realized this was not going to work. Soon after, we bought this sign to replace the original one.This sign magnetically sticks to the face of the dishwasher, just like many others. The thing that I like about it is that it is an easy slide left/right to change from clean to dirty and back. I don't have to fumble to pull it off the dishwasher and put it back with the dirty side up, or the clean side up. I don't care if the dishwasher is empty as some signs show. I don’t care that it is running. The little light tells me that without a sign. If the dishes are dirty, I can add to the load. If they are clean, I can unload as soon as the load is finished. When I am ready to run, add soap, turn on the power, hit start, close the door and in the same motion, slide from dirty to clean. 2 hours and 34 minutes later I can slide the sign to dirty and unload. Magic!I really like the simplicity of this system. The red/green colors make it very easy to know what you are dealing with. Yeah, maybe the colors don't match anything else in the kitchen, but I am okay with that. They are effective. Now, if we can get everyone to remember to change the sign when they run or empty the machine. Someday there will be a machine for that.