How to figure out what the dishwasher needs

[Jonathan Perez]

My tenant says that her dishwasher doesn't dry and something else about the laundry washer.... I am going to attempt to fix it myself and would like some tips on how I should go about this. I was thinking that the very FIRST THING I should do is run a test cycle to see exactly where it's going wrong. And then after that maybe google searching whatever it is that's wrong to see if a specific part may need to be replaced.... May be a dumb question but I've never done ANY kind of handyman work but I'm about to learn it...