Redesigning Hawaii’s Emergency Alert System UI • Hacker News Board

Re: Redesigning Hawaii’s Emergency Alert System UI

#21

Post by scrumper » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 3:02 PM UTC

Why couldn't you just have the color scheme on the web page invert if you click one of the unusual, dangerous live alerts, so you're immediately very clear that you've selected a non-normal action?

So:

-- Business as usual --

1. Click test alert

2. Confirmation appears.

-- Nuclear attack or accidental click --

1a. Click live alert

2a. Invert colors

3a. Confirmation appears.

Doable entirely client-side, no need for extensive server-side changes which all these redesign ideas require. And the fact that the webpage background just turned black is clue that you've done something out of the ordinary, especially at shift change (so you don't just blindly hit the confirmation).

Re: Redesigning Hawaii’s Emergency Alert System UI

#22

Post by eagleal » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 3:33 PM UTC

While we all love pretty and overdesigned UIs, for it to be more 2018 friendly make sure to add 5MB of JavaScript and CSS dependencies and new features that only works on Chrome!

As others have noted though step-based flow is not really recommended on a mission-critical UI as you can't rely on user memory. Why not just show the choices sequentially without hiding anything through various generic message screens?

Alert type: [ test ] - live

Message: other1 - [ Kauai county only ] - other2

Confirm: Send test > Kauai county only?

Re: Redesigning Hawaii’s Emergency Alert System UI

#23

Post by jakozaur » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 4:32 PM UTC

TrueGeek wrote: post #7

Going the other way, on /r/ProgrammerHumor/ they're showing designs that are even worse than the original. https://gfycat.com/DevotedUnfortunateBongo https://gfycat.com/KindlyEverlastingGibbon https://gfycat.com/PepperyGoldenAfricanpiedkingfisher https://i.redd.it/ubnpsrzljla01.gif https://v.redd.it/8pcx6ymh0ha01 https://gfycat.com/QueasyGrandIriomotecat https://i.redd.it/y0a33r0ohja01.png https://gfycat.com/BadOrgan…

https://i.redd.it/ubnpsrzljla01.gif

is the best.

Re: Redesigning Hawaii’s Emergency Alert System UI

#24

Post by ghostbrainalpha » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 5:04 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #11

jmisavage wrote: post #6

It looks like it would help prevent the recent incident, but the confirmation screen at the end doesn't make it clear whether it's a test or a real thing. I know there was that big screen at the front, but if you're confirming something you need all the options presented again to double check.

There was a story of a nurse who was looking after a mother and her child in ICU. Child had many probes and alarms for alerting of change in condition. The alarms were going off constantly, but often times, the condition was not severe. Mother was not getting sleep. Nurse took pity on mother. She tried silencing alarms. The system had, i believe, seven warning screens warning against deactivation, all needed to be ac…

Did you know its actually a crime to sit in traffic and constantly honk your horn for no reason at all? That's because alerts are supposed to actually alert someone of something. By constantly sounding alerts for basically no reason, you are creating an unsafe environment, because REAL alerts will be ignored.

I've sat by those beds, and had alarms not stop for 12 hours straight. They don't get nurses to come by and check, they aren't alerting to anything important and they are completely ignored.

I believe the company should be sued, not for the GROSS negligence of the nurse unplugging every system, but for the minor negligence of designing a system where constant alerts that don't really mean anything or require any action can't be silenced.

Re: Redesigning Hawaii’s Emergency Alert System UI

#25

Post by mc32 » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #24

mc32 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a story of a nurse who was looking after a mother and her child in ICU. Child had many probes and alarms for alerting of change in condition. The alarms were going off constantly, but often times, the condition was not severe. Mother was not getting sleep. Nurse took pity on mother. She tried silencing alarms. The system had, i believe, seven warning screens warning against deactivation, all needed to be ac…

Did you know its actually a crime to sit in traffic and constantly honk your horn for no reason at all? That's because alerts are supposed to actually alert someone of something. By constantly sounding alerts for basically no reason, you are creating an unsafe environment, because REAL alerts will be ignored. I've sat by those beds, and had alarms not stop for 12 hours straight. They don't get nurses to come by and c…

The problem is she not only turned off the alarms and beeps in the patient room, but also all the notifications going to nurses' station and pagers, so when the real bad thing happened, no one got alerted.

Re: Redesigning Hawaii’s Emergency Alert System UI

#26

Post by majewsky » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 7:12 PM UTC

always_good wrote: post #19

CameronBanga wrote: post #3

We're going to see a multitude of design hot takes here over the next 10 days, but I think most of these designers are missing the problem. The interface that caused this failure isn't because the system lacked designers. This design was created by being handcuffed by bureaucracy, with no strong leadership in place to solve the problems that were caused.

No, the UI is just a limited problem and people enjoy taking their whack at it just like how developers like to test out their own abstractions. Neither a line of code nor a stroke of paint is going to solve bureaucratic issues. To suggest that everyone is unknowingly glancing past these issues except for you is a bit tacky, as if one is trying to score some me-too points.

It's not that. People are talking about the UI design because that's their area of self-efficacy. They are able to design a better UI, but they're not able to come up with a better bureaucracy.