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Vancouver PD website features Quick Escape button that wipes itself from history

vpd.ca

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Re: Vancouver PD website features Quick Escape button that wipes itself from history

#141

Post by hluska »

vasco wrote: post #92
tanbog100 wrote: post #60

I've implemented quick exit/escape buttons for a few organisations over the years and have spent a bit of time thinking about the limitations. This pattern is definitely better than most and it is refreshing seeing they put some resources into it. In my professional experience, organisations often chose the "a link to another site like google is fine" option to save money and time while still getting to boast about t…

Indeed this is mostly performative by the police because the user would switch apps, turn off the phone screen, or any other easier way as you describe.

So it works on desktop but it’s performative? I understand that it’s cool to be anti-police now but that’s some really strange reasoning.

Re: Vancouver PD website features Quick Escape button that wipes itself from history

#142

Post by brookst »

ninalanyon wrote: post #101
brookst wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason I tap shift when thinking. Sticky Keys is my bane.

You can turn it off.

Yes but you have to remember to turn it off later, when you’re not concentrating hard.

Re: Vancouver PD website features Quick Escape button that wipes itself from history

#143

Post by derekdahmer »

lysace wrote: post #28
transitorykris wrote: post #4

Brilliant feature, well done Vancouver PD. A very serious boss mode. Lotus 1-2-3 wouldn't look quite right here but weather.ca is plausible.

This feature has a long and storied history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_key

When I was a little kid I was playing a DOS submarine game which had a Boss Key.

All I knew was the button makes it quit the game so my 6 year old interpretation was that it must be something you press when you get to the final boss and are too scared?

One day I played for an hour straight trying to get to the boss part of the game but it never came.

Re: Vancouver PD website features Quick Escape button that wipes itself from history

#144

Post by phillipseamore »

dinkelberg wrote: post #114
tanbog100 wrote: post #60

I've implemented quick exit/escape buttons for a few organisations over the years and have spent a bit of time thinking about the limitations. This pattern is definitely better than most and it is refreshing seeing they put some resources into it. In my professional experience, organisations often chose the "a link to another site like google is fine" option to save money and time while still getting to boast about t…

It doesn't seem to work in Safari on iPhone correctly. When I click on the Back button (from weather.gc.ca), it goes back to the Vancouver PD site. Therefore I do not think that it is built well. The other site someone mentioned ( https://www.thetrevorproject.org/ ) doesn't have that issue.

They use window.location.replace(URL)

Re: Vancouver PD website features Quick Escape button that wipes itself from history

#148

Post by skoskie »

I built something similar at https://ictsos.org, which is a human trafficking nonprofit.

But in testing, I found that history deletion was not possible everywhere. I opted to open a new tab with a harmless google search, so that the history would not exist in that tab. Meanwhile, the original tab is also redirected to a new page.

I'm going to investigate what the UK site did to look for any potential improvements I can make.

Re: Vancouver PD website features Quick Escape button that wipes itself from history

#150

Post by sublinear »

OJFord wrote: post #93
sublinear wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quickly press the power button 5 times if you have an android phone and see what happens. This has got to be the absolutely worst idea ever and it's enabled by default!

It asks you in first-time set up if you want it. 'Yes' might be the default selected option, but it's not like opting out requires you knowing about it and going looking for it.

Do you really have faith this would be disabled by choice if you tried it on a random android phone? If they haven't already disabled it in rage after finding it on accident, I'm pretty sure that person would be terrified upon you making them aware. The first-time setup process isn't consistent across devices and never will be.

You can try to argue this down and reason about it all you want, but it's still a bad default regardless of how it's presented to the user. It's also bad design because it conflicts with similar defaults such as the shortcut to open the camera (press power button twice), silencing an incoming call (press once), etc. People may also press multiple times when the phone seems unresponsive.

You'd expect the resurgence of bad defaults to be motivated by marketing or something, but this one is just outright stupidity.

There's a part of me that is fairly convinced this was added as an afterthought after much internal whining by someone at google with a checklist insisting that android must support some easily accessible emergency feature. This was then deliberately chosen to make the feature look bad, and the users are victims of office politics.

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