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Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me of "the designer's curse." I often find myself getting pissed when something is designed poorly. It used to be poorly designed software and websites, but now it's anything.

Like, for example, when I buy something, pull the sticker off, and it leaves a thick residue that won't come off. Or, when I'm in a car without any indication of which side the gas tank is on.

My significant other makes fun of me for this. "Who thought doing THIS was a good idea? Do they buy their own f*ing products?" I'll say. Meanwhile, he has a non-founder view of life, "Meh, it's like that because it's like that."

He's clearly more zen than I am.

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After taking an HCI course and reading The Design of Everyday Things, I also notice poorly designed things quite often.

BTW, there's a free course based off that book starting this fall: https://www.udacity.com/course/design101.

This might not be the best place to mention this, but here goes anyway: I started reading The Design of Everyday Things, but I've been disappointed so far. To be fair, I'm only 50 pages in, but I haven't read anything mind blowing in any way yet. The book so far has been a compendium of author's anecdotes regarding poorly designed things/systems/manuals/etc. I certainly agree with what he says, absolutely. At the same time though, it doesn't keep my attention because it just seems like story after story, no logical foundation that he's building for creating a well-designed product.

Here's to hoping it gets better!

That and the Mythical Man Month were duds for me. I never understood why they were so highly regarded amongst engineers.

They aren't duds. The problem is that they are so influential that every newcomer already knows whats they say, just by virtue of learning their trade after the books were written.

TV Tropes (!) of all places has a great explanation, applied to comedy: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny

I feel the same way about Code Complete. I tried to read it but just couldn't force myself to as much of it seemed obvious. Maybe back in the day it was as amazing as people say.

Have you gotten to affordances yet? I recall that being the major "foundational" takeaway for me (i.e., affordances, via their physical form, communicate to a user what actions can, cannot, must, or must not be taken).

Remember this was written in the eighties, Norman's discourse on mental models was transformative not just within the field of IT, but the entire field of psychology. Before psychologists thought people used logic to make inferences about the world, but after Normans work it became apparent that people developed detailed mental models on how the world works.

I went through a period of pretty unproductive time when I was so mad at how crappy things were designed that I couldn't use them to make progress against my projects. That is a bad place to be.

I don't recall being in a car w no indication of which side the gas tank was on. Usually a little arrow indicates it next to the gauge.

Yes, that's what I'm referring to.

I use a service called Car2Go quite often which rents Smart cars exclusively. For some reason they decided not to include the little arrow.

http://0.tqn.com/d/cars/1/0/6/9/1/ag_08fortwo_speedo.jpg

Not that it's your fault they didn't include the arrow, but when you rent a car, you want to walk completely around it anyway before driving away. Otherwise they may try to stick you with pre-existing damage that wasn't noticed the last time the car was turned in.

(I've heard it's a good idea to shoot a video of the walkaround with your phone, but that seems OTT.)

I have never rented a car where the rental person didn't do this with me. Nobody is going to remember what side the gas tank is on though a week later when you fill it up.

I've never rented a car where the rental person was even near the car when I walked it. And I rent cars every few days...maybe the lack of personal attention is an airport thing.

I usually take a few pictures, but video should work, too.

I thought you were supposed to take the pictures after you scratch the car, so that you can "prove" that the damage was there before you picked it up.

My point being, what are photos or videos supposed to prove. If the car is damaged before you pick it up, and there's some reason that you are still taking it, then you should get the agency to sign something attesting to it.

Oh, that's only if there's a borderline case. I.e. if there's something you didn't really see when checking yourself (nor remember), but can find in the pictures later, if necessary.

The nozzle of the gas pump is on the right side. That's your indicator that the tank filler is on that side of the car.

No, I don't think that is true in general. I think the nozzle is almost always on the right side. Unless there is an arrow, the designer probably neglected to explicitly indicate anything.

Or maybe it's an indicator that the car should pull up to a pump that has the nozzle on the right, meaning the car has its tank on the left.

what if it's not on the left or right. something to think about

Even without an arrow, the tank is always on the same side where the filling pistol is on the picture next to the fuel gauge. It's on the right in yours.

Not in my car :) I think that was an urban legend that went viral over email in the early 2000s and is still kicking around.

I have a 1994 Toyota Corolla. It doesn't have an indicator.

It's funny, I've been telling people about the arrow as an indicator and how it was on every car... until I realized that it wasn't on my own car... Which is actually the only car I have noticed it missing on.

What are you talking about? I have never been in a car that did have this little arrow. I just thought it was something you had to know.

(Now I'll have to check my car tomorrow morning to be sure I haven't just been ignoring it all this time.)

It became more common in the late 90s, 2000s. But it used to be a guessing game.

I'd rather all the manufacturers would just agree to a standard and put it one side.

I think the variance on sides is intentional, to balance traffic flow at gas stations.

(Imagine a gas station where most cars use the same entrance and have the tank on the same side. Half of the cars would need to do a U-Turn to use half of the tanks).

It doesn't matter which side the filler opening is on because the pump nozzles reach.

I have never seen anybody reach the hose over their car. Not sure why but I'd feel silly trying it. Like 'look at me I don't know which side I should have put the gas in'.

Wow. So that's what the little arrow is all about????

Most people never notice it. I rent a lot of cars and it is ALWAYS there. When I point it out to people I'm riding with, they always seem surprised.

One of the most zen states is when you can just say "it's like that because it's like that" for most things in you life, while celebrating the tiny examples of loving design that are less frequent, but equally as all around us. It's the other side of that coin, and it's pretty darn peaceful : )

I don't understand. You want an indication of which side the gas tank is on ?! Wouldn't it be the side where there's a flap/cover thing that you pop open prior to unscrewing the cap and pouring the gas ?

Edit: I had to leave the office, go downstairs, get in my car and check. Whatddya know, a little arrow next to the gauge, you learn something every day.

Yes, and it's helpful to know that before you park the car next to the pump on the wrong side.

This is most useful when you are renting or borrowing a car. If you don't check before you hop into the car, you need to physically exit the car and move it if you guessed incorrectly.

There's no real reason why you can't fill up a reasonably large car (I (in the UK) have a Ford Galaxy) on the 'wrong' side of the pumps. Sometimes you have to be a bit more careful about positioning, but most hoses are long enough.

Actually, one of my related pet peeves are all cars where the fuel fill cap is NOT on the driver side of the vehicle. It is always just a little bit easier to not scratch the side of your car on the giant concrete barriers that way.

Weird, my pet peeve is cars where the fuel fill cap is ON the driver side of the car, Since I'm used to driving the right side of the car closer to things on the side of the road I feel like I can position that side better.

Do manufacturers try to even out the number of cars with fill caps on either side? Imagine the chaos at gas stations if everyone had the cap on the same side of the car.

I'm pretty sure it would be a lot more orderly, actually. Everyone on the right side would move one way, everyone on the left side would move the other way, it would be perfect.

On all the cars that I have had, the fuel cap is on the drivers side of the country in which the car is designed. So depending on which side of the road they drive on in that country things move. Just a personal data point..

There's a little arrow which points left or right on the fuel gauge.

But not every car has that. I've been in a ~6-8 year old Honda Civic that lacked any indication as far as I could see.

"Or, when I'm in a car without any indication of which side the gas tank is on."

Very easy: most American cars have the gas tank on the left, most Asian/European cars have it on the right.

Wait, whats the definition of an Asian/European car. The manufacturer or the geographic location?

Cause I'm pretty sure Hondas and Toyotas have gas on the left.

Suzukis have them on the left too.

I'm shocked my Tesla Model S is lacking in this feature. Elon must have been asleep at the wheel.

Wait what? Since when does a tesla car have a gas tank or am I missing something?

I think that's the joke

In the UK, the balance is roughly 50/50, from a sample size of 100 (me going into streets and counting the cars). I did a simulation of petrol stations when I was at university, trying to work out optimal arrangements of pumps, so I needed to know if there was a bias towards the fuel cap being on a particular side of the car (there wasn't). This could be because in the UK our cars come from a wide-variety of places.

the "designer's curse" sounds like what I've heard it's like to have perfect (absolute) pitch: it can become difficult to enjoy music ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_pitch#Possible_problem... )

Oh those damn stickers. And every time I get a pair of scissors in that indestructible plastic...

Well, if it makes you feel any better, the iPhone will feel forever ruined for the post's author, since it's doesn't hit that "perfect" 3.5" screen size for one-handed use anymore.

It's one thing to notice things like this, it's another to get upset. It's not like whomever poorly designed or implemented whatever had a personal grudge against you.

> I'm in a car without any indication of which side the gas tank is on.

I absolutely hate it when they don't indicate which door on the fridge is a freezer. So annoying.

Seriously though, gas tank indicators make sense only in rental cars and most of them have aftermarket stickers that do just that.

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