alt Hacker NewsJames Moylan, engineer behind arrow signaling which side to refuel a car, dies
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2020s UX "experts" would bury the entire instrument cluster under a hamburger menu if they could get away with it.
The fuel gauge would be moved three menus deep and thus impossible to find, then removed in subsequent model years when their telemetry data "proved" no one used it anymore.
Which is great for new cars. I drove a 78 Buick Riviera. Friends couldn’t figure out how to fill it up. Because the gas cap was behind the license plate in the back!
Is the side to fill up evenly balanced between cars in average? I imagine there is value to make it close to 50/50 to simplify the logistics at the gas station. I was thinking car manufacturers perhaps had agreed so that some brands do it one way and some do it another
I prefer the pump that is on the side of the petrol cap, but filling up from either side absolutely works for me in the uk, there isn't a "wrong side"
On cars without the arrow they often follow the convention where the gas filler handle is depicted on the same side of the gas icon as the filler door is in the car.
Anybody else get confused by whether the arrow represents where the car should be or the pump?
I'm from the UK and had honestly not heard of the arrow.
I've checked my Toyota Yaris, and it's there!
I was like 20 when I learned about this trick. Before then I'd only driven a few vehicles, and I just knew which side of the car the gas tank opening was on. A friend mentioned it when we were going to fill up a car a borrowed car and I asked which side it was on.
I've since met many adults who were unaware of this trick. It's like the real-world analog of an insufficiently discoverable UI functionality.
I had no idea till this moment that’s what the arrow was for…
Who knew? I always thought this was a UX lore, and it was subsequently debunked.
“Moylan arrow”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_gauge#Moylan_arrow
https://www.vermeulenfh.com/obituaries/james-moylan-2/#!/Obi...
One of the many patron saints of engineers!
If he so believed in it, may his arrow be pointing up! :)
One of my previous cars didn't have the signaling arrow and I missed it instantly. Such a subtle great idea.
Wow! I just used this a few days ago when I rented a U-Haul van. Such a great user interface element.
A couple of other links:
https://www.jalopnik.com/2061179/inventor-little-arrow-what-...
It's a convenient little invention but "the fact that there wasn't a simple way to know which side of a vehicle the gas tank was located on" is not quite true.
Usually, if the vehicle is of Japanese or British origin, the cap is on the left, otherwise it is on the right.
Source: I’ve driven dozens of different vehicle models all over Europe for decades. This rule always worked well enough for me.
Why would you not just always put it on the driver's side, since they're the most likely to be doing the refueling?
My Dad explained to me what this symbol meant when I got my first car. We went to get gas, and I had no idea that I pulled up on the wrong side of the pump. He indicated that the symbol told you which side of the car the gas tank was on.
It was a 1994 Ford Taurus.
That's funny, I know someone that's fairly famous in the product development world that claimed to be the inventor of the gas pump arrow. Weird thing to lie about.
What a letter. Clear, concise, just chef's kiss. I love that little indicator.
I only knew it because someone talked about that. Very useful. RIP.
I use his arrow all the time. I'm also a Ford Truck Fan. RIP James.
You can do a while lifetimes work, and yet sometimes it's a tiny action like this which can have the biggest benefit to mankind.
Just think how many billions of times someone has avoided pulling up to the wrong side of the pump because of this arrow - literal lifetimes of effort saved.