That's just a contrived hook, and it's wrong on top of that.
If you're driving a bike you'll know this: 2/3rds of your brake power comes from the front wheel, if you're in a turn and you need your front wheel brake that badly you are in big trouble. Most likely you'll end up on the pavement.
Turning and braking are done separately, and during emergency evasive maneuvers (the lorry pulling out) signaling is the least of your worries.
The sequence normally is:
- check your lanes
- indicate your turn
- wait for a bit to get the rest of the traffic to notice your turn signal
- meanwhile, reduce speed and shift down if appropriate
- make your move
So what if one bike brand does it different than others ? Bike users - unlike web visitors - are adaptable creatures, they know their bikes inside out.
Under normal circumstances, one should not brake and turn. But neither should cage drivers turn left in front of you. Or merge into your lane. Or run yellow lights. This stuff happens on the road, and this why so many riders get hurt.
To think that the normal sequence of events is the only one worth designing for is naive.
The post was about how to consider the human context when designing, and used the bike as an example. Any design decision that could delay a rider's reaction time to the primary brake is a bad idea, regardless of how familiar you are with your bike or how adaptable you may be.
Sure, but there is no proof that the design of the bike really is worse, just his personal preference.
When designing websites there is a good case to be made for sticking to the familiar (unless you want to make a point) but to use motor cycle design (especially BMW, one of the most renowned bike brands on the planet with a lot more design credit than the author) as an example is poorly chosen.
The whole idea is that you have the thumb of your right hand pretty much in that spot anyway, so no reaction time is lost, rather the opposite, you don't have to make that awkward reset motion with your left hand in order to switch off the blinkers after having made a right hand turn.
BTW: Cars blinkers don't reset when changing lanes. There's also that joke about solving the problem of indicating left and forgetting about it. The solution is that if you haven't turned left after 15 seconds, the car automatically turns left.
- indicate your turn while your hand is off the brake lever, the Mack truck ahead of you suddenly stops.
But I'll give you this: the main objection to it is the emotional "not rightness of it", rather than the factual likelihood * severity of the scenario. I bet the blogger is still riding that bike.
That's just a contrived hook, and it's wrong on top of that.
If you're driving a bike you'll know this: 2/3rds of your brake power comes from the front wheel, if you're in a turn and you need your front wheel brake that badly you are in big trouble. Most likely you'll end up on the pavement.
Turning and braking are done separately, and during emergency evasive maneuvers (the lorry pulling out) signaling is the least of your worries.
The sequence normally is:
- check your lanes
- indicate your turn
- wait for a bit to get the rest of the traffic to notice your turn signal
- meanwhile, reduce speed and shift down if appropriate
- make your move
So what if one bike brand does it different than others ? Bike users - unlike web visitors - are adaptable creatures, they know their bikes inside out.