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The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

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Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#171

Post by moojd »

tarmstrong wrote: post #144

This is a great teaching moment for anyone who works in UX or observability, but it's worth keeping in mind that the FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (who operate the Emergency Alert Service (EAS)) has a yearly operating budget of around $17MM this year. The system itself was launched in 1997. This is a legacy software (and hardware!) system with a relatively small budget and number of employees that…

I once got contracted to integrate with a large government web app that was created with some sort of legacy SPA generator. The app was written in .NET and the js on the page would render the views from specs it would get over XHR from the .NET app. It positioned everything on the page absolutely and everything was styled with inline styles. The people who manage it were quoting outrageous numbers to do the simplest style changes because it was so hard to work in. Very few improvements ever got made because the money was just not there in the budget to pay these ridiculous quotes.

Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#172

Post by naravara »

rmc wrote: post #163
Daycrawler wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also jet pilots have years of training whereas users are presented to "intuitive" interfaces where they have no reason not to push every button just to test them out.

I really hope the people who are looking for intercontinental missles have some training.

This isn't the guy looking for it, this is the guy running the emergency alert system. It's likely to be a contractor who gets meagre pay, limited benefits, and no job security as the contract probably turns over to a new vendor every 2 or 3 years.

The "training" they have is, if anything, an MS word document with a bunch of screenshots or a flash animation showing each of the functions that the contract required the developer to build in.

Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#173

Post by logfromblammo »

pc86 wrote: post #131
zimpenfish wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a forward thinking developer saying "hey should we at least have colored buttons Accessibility becomes an issue for colourblind people then.

Not necessarily. Colorblind doesn't mean "everything is grey" it means you have trouble distinguishing between between a few, usually fairly specific colors. There are plenty of color schemes out that that are perfectly fine for colorblind folks, especially when you only need 2-3 distinct colors.

Black, blue, yellow, and white is usually a safe palette. Yellow-and-black diagonal striping is a fairly clear "exercise caution" indicator.

Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#175

Post by naravara »

crispyambulance wrote: post #61
whatever_dude wrote: post #19

It's easy to see how this is bad, and I bet dozens of designers are now creating alternatives for their dribble and Twitter appreciation, but the problem is probably what led to this, not this specifically. I can see it: a contractor started with a link that triggers a push notification, then someone requested another link, then another, then it grew from there, never having the ability to stop and rethink this from…

It looks like quite a normal UI from an "internal" government or enterprise application point of view. In this case, the citizens of Hawaii paid for the bad system design with 48 minutes of existential horror. But these kinds of mistakes happens ALL THE TIME with "enterprise applications." Oracle has similar horrendous UX for their EBS (Enterprise Business Suite), so does SAP, Siemens, etc. People regularly make cost…

>It looks like quite a normal UI from an "internal" government or enterprise application point of view.

The "normal" for enterprise and especially government software is dogshit though.

It's because the people doing the procurement are not the people actually using the thing day to day. They treat UX and design as extravagances in the face of spec-sheets and slick marketing decks.

Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#176

Post by andrepd »

djaychela wrote: post #11
andrepd wrote: post #9

Yikes. Now consider this: this is the design for the missile warning system. It is possible, even likely, that some missile launch system has similar catastrophic UI. How we've not wiped ourselves off by accident so far is a miracle.

I take it you've read Command and Control [1]? A great, if worrying read on exactly that subject. It's luck, not judgement that something really terrible hasn't happened yet. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(book)

I can't say I have. It seems an interesting read though. Thanks for the suggestion!

Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#177

Post by robotsonic »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #116
whatever_dude wrote: post #19

It's easy to see how this is bad, and I bet dozens of designers are now creating alternatives for their dribble and Twitter appreciation, but the problem is probably what led to this, not this specifically. I can see it: a contractor started with a link that triggers a push notification, then someone requested another link, then another, then it grew from there, never having the ability to stop and rethink this from…

I feel like it was absolutely a money issue. In my experience it's a matter of going "well, we'd like to redesign the screen for $x, but we could throw another link on there for a quarter of $x", and the user will always go with the cheaper option. You can't just say "No, we need to go with the more expensive option" because that makes the client unhappy, and we don't want that, and if you only go with the more expen…

I don't buy the 'it costs too much' excuse. How much does it cost to go:

   Testing 
  ...
   FOR REAL 
  ...
It's not perfect, but at least the test alerts and the real alerts are not mixed together.

Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#178

Post by MicroBerto »

For those of you who don't believe a single thing we're being told about this situation -- including this screenshot -- just know that you're not alone.

You don't need to question the narrative publicly like some of us do, but it's always good to keep an open mind about everything we're told, and sadly, that means considering the possibility that there have been more lies than truths told since Saturday.

Hopefully someday we'll get the real story, but I have a very hard time believing that this is it.

Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#179

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #116
whatever_dude wrote: post #19

It's easy to see how this is bad, and I bet dozens of designers are now creating alternatives for their dribble and Twitter appreciation, but the problem is probably what led to this, not this specifically. I can see it: a contractor started with a link that triggers a push notification, then someone requested another link, then another, then it grew from there, never having the ability to stop and rethink this from…

I feel like it was absolutely a money issue. In my experience it's a matter of going "well, we'd like to redesign the screen for $x, but we could throw another link on there for a quarter of $x", and the user will always go with the cheaper option. You can't just say "No, we need to go with the more expensive option" because that makes the client unhappy, and we don't want that, and if you only go with the more expen…

A failure to correctly price the difference between cost and value, in other words.

I'd be very surprised if the ultimate cost of this mistake isn't far higher than the added cost of adding an "Are you really sure?" confirmation option.

This is why you don't let accountants make cost decisions in a vacuum. Of course if you're counting beans, the cheapest option is best.

In reality-based accounting, the hidden costs, consequential costs, potential damages, and costs of failure guarantee that cheapest is risky if you're lucky, and suicidally expensive if you're not.

The GAP are not designed to analyse those costs, so stupid decisions are made, avoidable consequences occur, and ultimately money is wasted, not saved.

We're seeing the same thing in the UK now where a huge government services contractor has gone bust.

In the UK it's policy to give government contracts to the lowest bidder. This makes perfect sense, if you're clueless and have no idea what you're doing.

In other countries it's policy to offer contracts to the second or third cheapest bidder, because this encourages bidders to to put in estimates that mean they're more likely to finish the job without cutting corners, more likely to include realistic margins to keep their business afloat, and more likely to estimate unexpected costs realistically.

The UK's policy has completely failed to save money. It's going to cost hundreds of millions of pounds in direct costs, and probably more than a billion in consequential losses around the rest of the economy, to deal with the fallout from a wholly avoidable corporate drama.

Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#180

Post by Cthulhu_ »

cstross wrote: post #126
sjs382 wrote: post #114

https://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…

> consider the warning signage deployed around high tension electrical substations, and the consequences of ignoring it or failing to understand its significance.

"not only will it kill you, it will hurt the whole time you are dying"

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