This fumble just shows once again how ux design continues to be lacking in 80% of the world apps - the ones used inside companies
https://medium.com/@goncaloveiga/what-hawaiis-emergency-aler...
The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
121–130 of 375 posts
Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
An ICBM will land about 30 minutes after it launches. At those kinds of timescales, every delay you put in somebody's path to issue the warning, even a few seconds, is going to be a cost measured in lives. How many people are you willing to kill to reduce the risk of a false alarm?
> An ICBM will land about 30 minutes after it launches. At those kinds of timescales, every delay you put in somebody's path to issue the warning, even a few seconds, is going to be a cost measured in lives. Actually, considering that timescale and all the variables involved in detection and tracking a few seconds is less than the margin of error for predicting the warhead's arrival. While the goal should obviously b…
Since this was a false alarm, how many people died? What was the damage? I've yet to hear of any details like that.
Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
#123Why is the a manual UI to send out an incoming missile alert. Surely the alert should be sent automatically when the anti-missile system is engaged?
Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
#124While we are bikeshedding this, let's give some thought to the possibility of sending a test message when a real one is called for - and in the tsunami warning system as well, as I certainly hope it has more real events than does the nuclear missile one.
Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
#125This is going to be in every single UI class curriculum, from now until earth‘s destruction in nuclear armageddon.
And everyone required to sit through the mandatory class will be zoned out and not even absorb the facts that aren't in the 10 question quiz at the end of the section.
Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
#126https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-opposite-of-fitts-law/ In the cockpit of every jet fighter is a brightly painted lever that, when pulled, fires a small rocket engine underneath the pilot's seat, blowing the pilot, still in his seat, out of the aircraft to parachute safely to earth. Ejector seat levers can only be used once, and their consequences are significant and irreversible. Applications must have ejector seat…
To underline this, here's what happens when something goes wrong with an ejector seat:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-37475298
We probably won't ever know how many people died as a direct result of the Hawaii BMD mis-alert, but I'd be surprised if the number was non-zero (think in terms of car crashes, stress-aggravated cerebrovascular accidents, and so on).
Similarly, consider the warning signage deployed around high tension electrical substations, and the consequences of ignoring it or failing to understand its significance.
The point is, in these types of situation bad design can kill, and we need to design accordingly and unambiguously.
Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
#127I bet it works in ie6. Is this design horrible? yes. Is this out of the ordinary? Absolutely not. This is very common UX for systems designed 5+ years ago and there are still systems designed today that look like this. This is an alert system, now picture your surgeon or air traffic control using something like this...
> Is this out of the ordinary? Absolutely not.
I have not seen UI where there is something that appears to be a link that spans an entire line but it is actually several separate links.
Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
#128They should have added the captcha's with the store fronts. That alert would never get triggered unless it were truly needed. It would be 15 minutes late though every time
Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
#129Why is the a manual UI to send out an incoming missile alert. Surely the alert should be sent automatically when the anti-missile system is engaged?
> Surely the alert should be sent automatically when the anti-missile system is engaged?
This is a civilian system. Detection and anti-ballistic missile systems are military, specifically NORAD and the MDA. I agree that NORAD should have an API, though I suspect integrating it with civil defense systems will result in more such mistakes in the short run.
Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
#130The thing that annoys me most about this situation is people complaining about how long it took to send out the "Sorry, there was no missile" message. Just as I expected these were hard-coded messages that were sent out by a button (link) click and not a free-form text area. There are many (good) reasons you want your program set up this way (let's ignore the rest of the terrible UI/UX for now). It makes complete sen…
...would be a scary looking alert confirmation dialog If I had a bitcoin for every time someone clicked through the confirm dialog without looking...
In the this case nuclear alert it should be a big red button with a locked cover - do we know how many people died in the panic due to traffic accidents, heart attacks etcetera