Consumers have become increasingly dependant on electrical products to fulfil tasks which used to be performed manually. The majority of household goods are reliant on resources such as water, electricity and gas for power.

Dick Van Hoff's Tyranny of the Plug series questions consumers reliance on electricity to power household devices and their lack of reflection on where the power comes from.

The tyranny of the plug kitchen appliances, which include a blender, a mixer, and lemon squeezer, are not powered by electricity but by human energy. The user has to put in some effort to make them work. To operate the mixer, for example, the handle must be continuously rotated; to blend, the user must pull on the cord which turns the blade.

This case study was sourced from the Design Boom blog: http://www.designboom.com/snapshots/milan03/dickvanhoff.html