I kind of agree that’s ugly and can be way better, but I don’t see how you can make the confusion. One says drill, the other doesn’t. The guy should just get fired.
The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
301–310 of 375 posts
Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
#302It'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…
Somewhat controversially, I wonder if that existential horror was really so bad. I can think of worse ways to spend 48 minutes that contemplating the reality of your mortality, the fact that you could very well be dead at any moment with no warning whatsoever. It makes you re-evaluate your priorities, maybe makes you stop putting off the life changes you were thinking about that seemed like they could wait until next year.
These 48 minutes may well have changed a whole bunch of people's lives for the better, in the long term.
Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
#303This 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…
Not mixing drills and real alerts in one list costs just two headings.
Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know. The interface could be better, but a different interface wouldn't necessarily stop someone who's confused from sending the wrong alert. How many times do you see a dialog box and click "yes" without even reading it? I do it all the time, and it's usually fine... except sometimes I think "wait, what did I just agree to!?" Someone under pressure to get that drill going can easily make the same mistakes, n…
> How many times do you see a dialog box and click "yes" without even reading it? A simple fix would be to use a tried and true method that's been effective for decades. Have different popups that read Type "REAL WORLD" to send this alert. and Type "DRILL" to send this alert.
This would be good. Takes 15 min to code this in and you dont have to go redesign a bunch of stuff like some on here are suggesting. Obviously they dont care what it looks like. Fine. But safeguard for such a monumental action they should have had.
Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
#305The 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…
I really don't get all the high levels of excuse in this thread. Think about the victims here: think about putting your (terrified) kid a storm drain. Really think about it, let the feelings about it sink in.
The only correct solution is to fire the person involved, as the next guy will look closer. Yeah maybe not fair, but when working with landmines you have to pay attention - and it is politically much more feasible than redesigning the system.
However I also object to that system in the first place, since it doesn't matter where you hide if a nuke falls close to you, and you probably don't want to survive.
Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
#306The 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…
What was stopping them from sending the "This is a drill" message?
Thinking about it. Also quite possible that the system could only handle so many messages a second.
But regardless of excuses it should never take that long to send that message. You are going to have people with PTSD for years over this.
I wished the state would be sued by every single person in the state -- I am sure than both the guy who clicked the link and the UI would be gone presto. Probably some sovereign immunity that stops that though.
Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
#307UI crudeness is one thing. What I wonder about is whether those links generate HTTP GET-requests. Links do so by default. If so, just need internal web spider or overzealous web browser prefetcher, and one day Hawaii might have a lot of false alerts going on... GET-requests are not supposed to have side effects, like alerting a whole state. When you have side effects, HTTP verb should be something else, like POST. Of…
You're assuming a lot here. This might not even be an HTML page. It used to be fairly common in Windows UIs to have underlined blue clickable text in native applications.
If you're referring to "HTMLHelp" help applications they actually were HTML pages, under native chrome. If you can think of any other usages in non-browser UIs where links where used to navigate would love to see them for nostalgia's sake.
Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
#308https://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…
Formatting the quote like this makes it too wide to be readable on my phone without repeatedly scrolling right then left. Even in landscape mode the first line ends with the "b" of "brightly painted". A lot of people format quotes with italics, as in this example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7485333 HN formatting documentation: https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc
You really have to wonder why HN doesn't just fix their mobile CSS.
Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
#309For 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 so…
Are you suggesting that there may have been a real attack but it's being kept quiet (by idk, the Deep State, lizard people, round-earth conspiracists, etc?)
Clearly not. He is suggesting that the alert was not send in error, but that requires no more than somebody clicking it and further that he doesn't trust the government (in would call anything else imprudent).
I can see a bunch of reasons for clicking that link, from just for fun to wanting more money to fix the UI to the more sinister of wanting to keep the populous scared so that they are more likely to support a war in the future.
No reason to bring lizard people into this.
Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday
#310What stands out to me the most is lack of standard naming conventions... > 1. TEST Message >> DRILL - PACOM (CDW) - STATE ONLY >>> Amber Alter DEMO TEST Design aside, a standard naming convention would have gone a long way.
And that's likely one of the only things that could be easily fixed, too. The ordering of those links likely isn't changeable without going into the guts of some upstream monster system (preventing those categorized redesigns that some have suggested). But a simple text label change would seem to be easier.