5 ms·

> there should be no trouble at all for a driver to understand, when seeing the full rear of the car, which direction is being indicated. This response from Mi

by argomo 5y ago

> there should be no trouble at all for a driver to understand, when seeing the full rear of the car, which direction is being indicated. This response from Mini presumes drivers have the luxury of using "system 2" logical/analytical reasoning in a hectic realtime environment where they must most rely on "system 1" intuitive reasoning. There needs to be a name for this type design fallacy, because it's not the first time I've seen it.

thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
>> when seeing the full rear of the car, I suppose the Mini designers have never driven in fog, poor lighting, storms, or at night? (When you might not see the full rear of the car) Imagine if you can only see the car's taillights and you see a blinking arrow move the opposite way it points. What would you think you saw? Or better yet, if one of the taillights is out, what would a driver behind the Mini think?
- lostlogin 5y ago
  > Imagine if you can only see the car's taillights and you see a blinking arrow move the opposite way it points. What would you think you saw? If conditions were that bad and you saw a ‘normal’ indicator flash it would be a 50/50 guess which way it was going. That’s better I suppose but hardly good.
  - bruce343434 5y ago
    Now it's a 0/0 guess because you wrongly guess the arrow to point in the direction.
  - sellyme 5y ago
    I'd say 90/10. The positioning of the light in relation to the road is usually going to be a very good heuristic. However if that light was a freaking arrow I'm going to think "oh, it must be one of those 10% of cases, it's a good thing that indicator was designed so well" shortly before I'm killed.
- frutiger 5y ago
  > I suppose the Mini designers have never driven in fog, poor lighting, storms, or at night? (When you might not see the full rear of the car) The full rear of the car is still illuminated.
  - frutiger 5y ago
    The comment above is clearly controversial, I can't think of driving at night behind a car and not seeing both rear lights, and usually illuminated license plate and illumination coming from the rear window pane. Overall that gives me a full sense of the width of the car. The indicator light would be relatively to the left/right of the car, and typically would look like a single bulb due to distance and diffraction.
    - thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
      >> I can't think of driving at night behind a car and not seeing both rear lights, and usually illuminated license plate and illumination coming from the rear window pane. Have you ever driven in a snowstorm at night? (I am not being facetious, there are terrible snowstorms in the winter where I live due to lake-effect snow. Your mileage may vary depending on where you live.) Visibility is terrible in a nighttime snowstorm. Reflective surfaces are covered with snow. Lights can be partially or completely covered so that only a faint glow is visible. Anything that leads to confusion, such as a backward-pointing arrow turn signal light, could cause confusion that might lead to accidents. It might not confuse some drivers, but it only takes one confused driver to cause a road accident.
      - frutiger 5y ago
        > Have you ever driven in a snowstorm at night? (I am not being facetious, there are terrible snowstorms in the winter where I live due to lake-effect snow. Your mileage may vary depending on where you live.) Yes, once or twice. The general recommendation is NOT to drive during a snow storm. For those that must drive during a snow storm probably aren't driving these Minis. After all, most cars are not designed for every possible climate/severe weather scenario, I don't see why Minis should be held to a higher regard.
cf100clunk 5y ago
MINI: "Motoring Isn't Navigationally Intuitive."
Veen 5y ago
The article's writer agrees with Mini. After several hundred words of mockery they conclude with: "I don’t actually think the design is going to really confuse people...I don’t really think these are actually hurting anyone."
yongjik 5y ago
Don't know the name of the fallacy, but there's a book aptly titled "Don't make me think", which talks about exactly this problem (for web design). Thing like turn signals shouldn't make you think - it must be automatically, instantly recognizable in every possible way.
- robocat 5y ago
  Stroop effect “In psychology, the Stroop effect is the delay in reaction time between congruent and incongruent stimuli.” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28661817 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28661817
harshalizee 5y ago
Stroop Effect is pretty much this exact fallacy you mentioned. This inadvertently increases cognitive load on the drivers around leading to mistakes.

by argomo 5y ago

thesuperbigfrog 5y ago

>> when seeing the full rear of the car, I suppose the Mini designers have never driven in fog, poor lighting, storms, or at night? (When you might not see the full rear of the car) Imagine if you can only see the car's taillights and you see a blinking arrow move the opposite way it points. What would you think you saw? Or better yet, if one of the taillights is out, what would a driver behind the Mini think?

lostlogin 5y ago
> Imagine if you can only see the car's taillights and you see a blinking arrow move the opposite way it points. What would you think you saw? If conditions were that bad and you saw a ‘normal’ indicator flash it would be a 50/50 guess which way it was going. That’s better I suppose but hardly good.
- bruce343434 5y ago
  Now it's a 0/0 guess because you wrongly guess the arrow to point in the direction.
- sellyme 5y ago
  I'd say 90/10. The positioning of the light in relation to the road is usually going to be a very good heuristic. However if that light was a freaking arrow I'm going to think "oh, it must be one of those 10% of cases, it's a good thing that indicator was designed so well" shortly before I'm killed.
frutiger 5y ago
> I suppose the Mini designers have never driven in fog, poor lighting, storms, or at night? (When you might not see the full rear of the car) The full rear of the car is still illuminated.
- frutiger 5y ago
  The comment above is clearly controversial, I can't think of driving at night behind a car and not seeing both rear lights, and usually illuminated license plate and illumination coming from the rear window pane. Overall that gives me a full sense of the width of the car. The indicator light would be relatively to the left/right of the car, and typically would look like a single bulb due to distance and diffraction.
  - thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
    >> I can't think of driving at night behind a car and not seeing both rear lights, and usually illuminated license plate and illumination coming from the rear window pane. Have you ever driven in a snowstorm at night? (I am not being facetious, there are terrible snowstorms in the winter where I live due to lake-effect snow. Your mileage may vary depending on where you live.) Visibility is terrible in a nighttime snowstorm. Reflective surfaces are covered with snow. Lights can be partially or completely covered so that only a faint glow is visible. Anything that leads to confusion, such as a backward-pointing arrow turn signal light, could cause confusion that might lead to accidents. It might not confuse some drivers, but it only takes one confused driver to cause a road accident.
    - frutiger 5y ago
      > Have you ever driven in a snowstorm at night? (I am not being facetious, there are terrible snowstorms in the winter where I live due to lake-effect snow. Your mileage may vary depending on where you live.) Yes, once or twice. The general recommendation is NOT to drive during a snow storm. For those that must drive during a snow storm probably aren't driving these Minis. After all, most cars are not designed for every possible climate/severe weather scenario, I don't see why Minis should be held to a higher regard.

cf100clunk 5y ago

MINI: "Motoring Isn't Navigationally Intuitive."

Veen 5y ago

The article's writer agrees with Mini. After several hundred words of mockery they conclude with: "I don’t actually think the design is going to really confuse people...I don’t really think these are actually hurting anyone."

yongjik 5y ago

Don't know the name of the fallacy, but there's a book aptly titled "Don't make me think", which talks about exactly this problem (for web design). Thing like turn signals shouldn't make you think - it must be automatically, instantly recognizable in every possible way.

robocat 5y ago
Stroop effect “In psychology, the Stroop effect is the delay in reaction time between congruent and incongruent stimuli.” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28661817 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28661817

harshalizee 5y ago

Stroop Effect is pretty much this exact fallacy you mentioned. This inadvertently increases cognitive load on the drivers around leading to mistakes.