When I was a boy scout we were taught to take off our pants, tie knots in them and fill them with air either by blowing or by throwing them over and down on the water. You can create a makshift life jacket this way. Wet fabric can hold air. It isn't perfect, you have to keep refilling air as it leaks but it does work. I was in a swimming pool and not high seas so not sure how effective it would be in that situation. Definitely better than just treading water though.
Sortie en mer – A trip out to sea
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Re: Sortie en mer – A trip out to sea
#32So, let's see... autoplay, splash screen, a video with no navigation controls. That site's UX sucks in a big way, so why is it #2 on HN?
The UX of this app is quite innovative and immersive.
You are applying heuristics that are true for man websites, but don't apply here. I would say this is more like a simple video game. It would make no sense for example to have navigation control over this video. That is the point, you can't just rewind to before the accident occurred.
Re: Sortie en mer – A trip out to sea
#33So, let's see... autoplay, splash screen, a video with no navigation controls. That site's UX sucks in a big way, so why is it #2 on HN?
Because sometimes quality content in buried underneath a bad user experience.
EDIT: Not that I actually think its a bad UI. But either way its not always about the UI.
Re: Sortie en mer – A trip out to sea
#34Develop as part of an interactive experience by the agency CLM BBDO for yachtwear manufacturer Guy Cotten and released on Apr 24, 2014. The goal is to remind people to buy and wear lifejackets.
Definitely convinced me. I figured life jackets on boats are what seatbelts are to cars. It's a small thing you probably should put on.
Re: Sortie en mer – A trip out to sea
#35Re: Sortie en mer – A trip out to sea
#36Very nicely done, technically. And the marketing message is both true and useful: Swimming at sea is surprisingly hard, and life jackets make a huge difference. I was once a very strong swimmer, and back then, I tried swimming 60 feet to shore in water with choppy, 6-inch waves. I wound up repeatedly inhaling water and choking. To combat this, I tried to keep my head high above the water, which was exhausting. After…
The peripheral vasoconstriction is part of a reflex known as the mammalian dive reflex in which your heart actually slows down, rather than work harder, as soon as your face touches cold water. Muscle cramping is a direct result in the decrease in cardiac output. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalian_diving_reflex
Another thing to note about mammalian diving reflex is that the nasal cavity is especially susceptible to triggering it. Which is why it's important to hold ones nose when jumping in the water to abandon ship, regardless of how silly it may look. And at this point you don't need a life jacket, you need an immersion suit.
Re: Sortie en mer – A trip out to sea
#37So, let's see... autoplay, splash screen, a video with no navigation controls. That site's UX sucks in a big way, so why is it #2 on HN?
Well probably because that's a very creative way to spread their marketing message. And because it is very well done technically as well: stitching video segments in an order that depends on user action, without any visible transition, means they put a lot of work on that.
So I don't think general UX/video guidelines apply in this case, even if they're valid for most cases for online video.
Sure, they should probably have used an adaptive bitrate video for users with poor connection, because here they can't pause and let the video prebuffer for a while. Other than that this is pretty impressive
Re: Sortie en mer – A trip out to sea
#38Very nicely done, technically. And the marketing message is both true and useful: Swimming at sea is surprisingly hard, and life jackets make a huge difference. I was once a very strong swimmer, and back then, I tried swimming 60 feet to shore in water with choppy, 6-inch waves. I wound up repeatedly inhaling water and choking. To combat this, I tried to keep my head high above the water, which was exhausting. After…
> Similarly, cold water will shut me down frighteningly fast—even with a wetsuit and lifejacket, I've been stunned into near immobility after less than a minute of swimming. As someone who routinely goes swimming in a hole cut in ice with the water temperature typically around 1C, this sounds weird. I suppose it's a reaction you can teach your body to not have?
You can acclimatise to it but cold shock response is a very real thing. The first minute is the most important - you're lucky to survive long enough to die of hypothermia.
Re: Sortie en mer – A trip out to sea
#39Having a competent crew helps too.
I'm in the Royal Navy. We practice a man overboard every time we sail and we critique each one. We even restrict movement on the upper deck after dark. We're professional sailors who live at sea - if you take a yacht out with a friend and you haven't been to sea since last summer you need to practice your man overboard drills.
Re: Sortie en mer – A trip out to sea
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Life jacket is good, but in higher seas one of the main problems (assuming the crew remaining on board is actually competent) is visibility - consider investing into something like a dan buoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMGWk6s9G4k
Better visibility is helpful but even that doesn't do much in rough conditions or at night. Many of us scuba divers now carry Nautilus radios which include a GPS receiver and 2-way VHF marine radio with distress beacon. I bring mine whenever I go out on the ocean, even when I'm not diving. http://www.nautiluslifeline.com/nautilus_lifeline
DSC (digital selective calling), which that radio uses to transmit distress signals with coordinates, is an excellent but sadly under-used technology. Everyone should be equipped with it and be familiar with all the menus and options on their transceivers, and regularly test that the equipment is working by making routine calls. The problem with DSC is that the transceivers are really badly designed and downright user-hostile. The receiver usually gets a loud horn going of in their ears which only trains a reflex to reach for the silence button. It's pretty much only used for tests, and before anyone dares initiate a DSC call they call the receiving ship in advance the old-fashioned way, or they will get yelled at. When the whole point of DSC is that you merely enter the recipient's MMSI number, open a channel and just speak, without cluttering up channel 16 which is should be left for distress traffic only. Think Uhura in Star Trek. This is a huge risk to safety of life at sea that the industry urgently needs to deal with. But yes, do carry the equipment and do use it in an emergency, because it does work and it frees up yours and your rescuers' workload to worry about more important things than trying to get your coordinates across by voice.
I would also suggest getting a SART and an EPIRB. A SART is a radar beacon, which shows up as a distinctive pattern on surrounding ships' radar displays, and requires no special receiving equipment. An EPIRB is a beacon that is locatable by satellite, so that's the fastest and most reliable way to get the attention of a rescue control centre. These three technologies are part of the GMDSS (Global Maritime Distress and Safety System), which means commercial ships and emergency services are by law required to carry and use equipment to receive their signals.