by "For Sweden" (rallybeetle)
Published 12/19/2017 at 11:58
by "For Sweden" (rallybeetle)
Published 12/19/2017 at 11:58
Tags: Design
; Smart
; Smart Car
; Norman Door
; Human Factors
STARS: 12
In human factors and industrial design, the Norman Door is a door with an operation not immediately obvious to the user. Think of a door with explicit PUSH or PULL labels, or any door where you could not open it on the first try. The content farm Vox has an excellent video on the phenomenon.
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
I think the Smart’s fuel cap and air intakes have replaced the Norman Door as the standard of bad industrial design. Literally anything would improve the current design. Make the air intake any color other than black. Make it a different shape. Move it literally anywhere else. All of these would keep the intake from being a twin of the fuel door.
But you should be smart enough to not put fuel in the intake!
Look at this intake.
Have you ever seen another air intake, or any other port on a car, requiring the label “NO FUEL?” If you need to explicitly tell someone to not put fuel in a port, or how to operate a door, it is bad design and the designers should feel bad.
"Wacko" (wacko--)
12/19/2017 at 12:11, STARS: 3
the black capon the front fender is storage, and it says no fuel on it too.
"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
12/19/2017 at 12:12, STARS: 2
This is true in your favorite realm as well “content”: the more you have to expressly say for your audience to understand whats going on, the worse your editing and story skills are.
"For Sweden" (rallybeetle)
12/19/2017 at 12:12, STARS: 3
[screams and sobs]
"Wacko" (wacko--)
12/19/2017 at 12:14, STARS: 5
you are forgetting that we live in an age that coffee cups need warning hot labels on them.
"For Sweden" (rallybeetle)
12/19/2017 at 12:17, STARS: 2
That doesn’t tell you how to operate the coffee cup.
"For Sweden" (rallybeetle)
12/19/2017 at 12:20, STARS: 6
So that is why bad movies have the actors explicitly state their feelings...
"benjrblant" (benjblant)
12/19/2017 at 12:23, STARS: 1
I couldn’t agree with you more.
"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
12/19/2017 at 12:23, STARS: 5
Yup and it makes me feel so....so angry!
"Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street." (demon-xanth)
12/19/2017 at 12:23, STARS: 7
1972 Porsche 911:
"For Sweden" (rallybeetle)
12/19/2017 at 12:24, STARS: 6
The Germans are at it again!
"Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street." (demon-xanth)
12/19/2017 at 12:31, STARS: 3
Fun fact: my dad and uncle had a boat burn down at a dock because someone who was using it tried to put gas in it, but used the sump vent on the deck rail.
"diplodicus" (diplodicus)
12/19/2017 at 12:32, STARS: 2
They should have put it on the roof!
"Cash Rewards" (cashrewards)
12/19/2017 at 12:33, STARS: 0
I have read the entirety of ANSI standard HE75 relating to human factors and yeah, that is poor human factors design. Considering the fact that the car is let out to the wild (consumers) with no training, and the consequences would be fairly bad, this is really bad design.
"Urambo Tauro" (urambotauro)
12/19/2017 at 12:34, STARS: 0
I don’t want to discredit the truth that people need to be familiar with how to use their own stuff. But I really hate it when an inferior design is pushed forward just for the sake of being different.
Should a gas cap/door stand out at all? For the most part, manufacturers have tried to hide them behind license plates or body-colored doors. I can think of some rather beautiful exceptions, though, like those ornamental chrome caps you saw on some ’60s cars.
But in a case like the Smart here, that body panel’s not really big enough to need a contrasting black circle to break it up a little. Yeah, maybe it is a little satisfying to have some kind of circle for the air inlet just to make the car symmetrical with the fuel filler, but why bother having something stand out at all?
"Urambo Tauro" (urambotauro)
12/19/2017 at 12:40, STARS: 1
See, those OIL labels aren’t even enough to clarify what that filler port is for. At first glance, I wasn’t sure if it was for the motor oil, or if you’re supposed to add oil to the fuel like on a two-stroke engine .
"HPoz - I like Honda Fits and I cannot lie" (hpoz54)
12/19/2017 at 12:53, STARS: 2
Also the NO FUEL marking isn’t even that clearly visible!
"If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent" (essextee)
12/19/2017 at 12:56, STARS: 3
My fuel door is a Norman door. It’s completely flush with the body and doesn’t pop from inside the car. Instead, it’s designed like a lever and you push in on the front edge to open it.
"Sir Halffast" (Sir_Halffast)
12/19/2017 at 12:56, STARS: 5
Weird. They misspelled 710.
"functionoverfashion" (functionoverfashion)
12/19/2017 at 12:59, STARS: 0
I know a girl who put a bunch of fuel into one of the rod holders, thus straight into the bilge of a boat.... they did catch it and it did not catch fire, thankfully.
"Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street." (demon-xanth)
12/19/2017 at 13:00, STARS: 3
Pull up to a standard full service station, and guess where they are likely to stick the filler nozzle?
"functionoverfashion" (functionoverfashion)
12/19/2017 at 13:01, STARS: 0
On mine you have to press on the back edge, then release to get it to pop out.
I think I’ve had a rental car with a fuel door like yours, because I remember taking a long time to figure that out.
"Jayhawk Jake" (jayhawkjake)
12/19/2017 at 13:08, STARS: 3
Not that you’ve done it here, but I always find it a bit funny when people blame the “warning: hot” label on that one McDonald’s story, implying that it was just some dumb woman that spilled some coffee on her lap and sued McDonald’s for her stupidity when in reality, McDonald’s lost that lawsuit because their coffee was unreasonably hot and she was genuinely seriously injured as a result.
The story is so often used as an example of people blaming everyone but themselves, when the truth is it wasn’t her fault.
"functionoverfashion" (functionoverfashion)
12/19/2017 at 13:08, STARS: 3
I’ve never heard the term Norman door, but I’m familiar with the concept.
You’d appreciate what we did to my fridge one year in college. It was a regular full-sized fridge against one wall in the kitchen of our house, but the door opened away from the wall. So you had to walk over to the far side, open it, then bring food out and around the door and over to the counter. So two of us had the bright idea to switch the hinge, because it was stupidly easy so why not? But then we didn’t switch the handles.
It was amazing. We had parties with 100+ people in and around our house, and we could have a fridge full of beer and pizza and yet no one would touch it because they thought the fridge was locked. Pull the handle, nothing happens, walk away. Every damn time. Usually after a party the right side (with the handles) was pulled out from the wall a bit from so many people yanking on it unsuccessfully. But anyone who knew about it could just walk up to the OTHER DAMN SIDE and pull on the door itself, viola!
I did this to my office fridge one day (well, April 1st) and it was well received, but the Powers That Be made me change switch the handles, too, after about a week.
"XJDano" (xjdano)
12/19/2017 at 13:13, STARS: 0
XJ cherokees are like that.
"Wacko" (wacko--)
12/19/2017 at 13:17, STARS: 1
i just see it as coffee should be expected to be hot, just like an exacto blade is expected to be sharp.
"user314" (user314)
12/19/2017 at 13:17, STARS: 1
"Shift24" (the-nope)
12/19/2017 at 13:20, STARS: 1
But its more complicated than just reverse action or adapt after the first attempt. She had to pry the cap off, then stick the nozzle in where it says no fuel, and with the screen the pump probably wouldnt go the whole way. That’s 3 things that indicate that something is wrong.
Also VOX brought up it that if other people get wrong its a bad design. I have heard never any one else doing this. So I’m with SMART on this, engineers know consumers are stupid and there are steps to engineer out the human element. But sometimes the human element is unavoidable
"Mercedes Streeter" (smart)
12/19/2017 at 13:26, STARS: 0
Literally anything would improve the current design.
Except the design you’re referring to is two generations old (1998-2007) and the vast majority of smart owners (likely 99.9%) are intelligent enough to tell the difference between a vent and a door.
"lone_liberal" (token-liberal)
12/19/2017 at 13:26, STARS: 1
My wife’s G37 is like that. When we took a trip to Oregon, where you’re not allowed to pump your own gas, it confused multiple attendants.
"Klaus Schmoll" (klausschmoll)
12/19/2017 at 13:29, STARS: 1
I had a fridge like that as well. Up until I let my parents live in my appartment while I was on vacation. Took two days until my dad got completely fed up with it and flipped the handle.
When I got back it took me a couple days to adapt to it. My brain had to re-learn how to open it after it had been “wrong” for years.
"Mercedes Streeter" (smart)
12/19/2017 at 13:44, STARS: 1
I’ve been in the smart community for 10 years and extensively studied all three generations. I’ve seen maybe a max of 5 instances of this, and the owners promptly never made the mistake again. This instance is the first time someone was stupid enough to pry the intake off.
"Mercedes Streeter" (smart)
12/19/2017 at 13:49, STARS: 2
So, my problem with this is that we’re talking about cars that were produced from 1998 to 2007. The recorded instances of this happening are extremely few and far in between. It’s supposedly a horrible design, but took over a decade for someone to really get catastrophically wrong.
The pictures to not do it justice, but the vent and the fuel door are visibly entirely different things. In person, the vent looks like it has a fan under it, the fuel door looks exactly like a fuel door. It has a lip and everything.
And now for our intake
Regardless, it’s sort of an irrelevant conversation anyway considering the vehicle is two generations out of date, with each newer generation making the vent even more obviously a vent.
"Urambo Tauro" (urambotauro)
12/19/2017 at 14:06, STARS: 0
Yeah, to be fair, it seems to me that accidental use of the intake hole would only happen in a perfect storm of someone being totally unfamiliar with the car, and not paying attention to what they were doing. That’s a problem in and of itself, but I’m still glad that Smart saw a need to change the design for subsequent generations.
"Shift24" (the-nope)
12/19/2017 at 14:28, STARS: 1
And not to be cynical or mean about it, but if you analysis the numbers roughly 100K smart cars have been sold in the US and if only lets just say 10 total have accidentally put the gas on the wrong side. So worst case thats a chance that 0.01% of the time some one would attempt to put the fuel in the wrong spot on a car and 0.001% that one of those cars would catch fire. Nothing is perfect but thats pretty darn close.
"punkgoose17" (punkgoose17)
12/19/2017 at 14:44, STARS: 1
One expects coffee to be 160-180F not 210F. If I buy McDonalds coffee it takes almost an hour to cool to drinking temperature (120-140F).
"Sir Halffast" (Sir_Halffast)
12/19/2017 at 15:19, STARS: 0
Yeah, but I bet it doesn’t feed more-or-less straight into the engine’s combustion chamber either.
"Stef Schrader" (stefschrader)
12/19/2017 at 15:46, STARS: 0
YEP. Reminded me of that right away. Only lasted one year, IIRC, because so many people accidentally put gas in the oil hole.
"SpeedSix" (speedsix)
12/19/2017 at 17:48, STARS: 0
You are tearing me apart!