In my family, this is my primary responsibility (it just so landed that way) and to be honest, it's not really that hard. I didn't even grow up with one and found it trivial to identify the things that the article says:

- find the spray arms and make sure they can hit the dirty surface

- ensure no bowl is concave up against gravity (water will collect)

- ensure everything is stable

- nothing that can block meshes should be on the dish when it goes in

None of this requires intelligence. It just requires looking at the machine and figuring it out. Once a little bit of plastic broke on one of the trays and it blocked the drain and it was trivial to figure out: see that water is stagnant, google the error code, attempt force drain, then reach for the drain filter and remove the clog. Ultimately, it's just a machine. The intake comes from the same water as the sink and the egress is above the garbage disposal.

Apart from that I just make sure all the things are active when it's ready to go: pod in the tray, rinse-aid in that section.

We have one of the quiet ones, which is nice, but also is a bit annoying since the only way to know if it is active is if it is displaying a red light on the floor. I'd prefer a front LED display. And I prefer just turning it off to run it.

My wife loads it haphazardly, and I load it a certain way but neither she nor I have any trouble with outcomes because while it may be complex functioning, the user awareness is restricted to those few levers.

The one annoyance is that we have these bowl dishes and they don't stand up like flat dishes. I'm sure there is an alternative tray holder that can do those but I haven't gotten around to replacing.