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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

#31
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.

Relevant Far Side comic: https://i.imgur.com/AosYvGn.jpg

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

#33

The 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…

>maybe have to type a confirmation string

Having to type out YES or some phrase is a fairly common "Are you really sure you want to do this??" sort of thing. I gather they're also looking at requiring a second person's confirmation which, if practical and very unlikely to make it impossible to send any message, seems reasonable as well.

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

#34
post #5

Probably the worst UX design (considering the context and the stakes) I've ever seen. How could multiple people accept this as the interface? Put it on a separate page! Have an explicit confirmation dialog, or 3 of them. At the very least maybe it's own section with some padding... Ridiculous.

An ICBM will land about 30 minutes after it launches. At those kinds of timescales, every delay you put in somebody's path to issue the warning, even a few seconds, is going to be a cost measured in lives.

How many people are you willing to kill to reduce the risk of a false alarm?

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

#35

The 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…

...would be a scary looking alert confirmation dialog

If I had a bitcoin for every time someone clicked through the confirm dialog without looking...

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

#36
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.

Relevant Far Side comic: https://i.imgur.com/AosYvGn.jpg

Man I miss the Far Side

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

#38

The 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…

[deleted]

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

#39
post #5

Probably the worst UX design (considering the context and the stakes) I've ever seen. How could multiple people accept this as the interface? Put it on a separate page! Have an explicit confirmation dialog, or 3 of them. At the very least maybe it's own section with some padding... Ridiculous.

An ICBM will land about 30 minutes after it launches. At those kinds of timescales, every delay you put in somebody's path to issue the warning, even a few seconds, is going to be a cost measured in lives. How many people are you willing to kill to reduce the risk of a false alarm?

That's true. But somewhere between one click or "Alexa, send the nuclear warning alert" and having multiple people confirm the message with some complex procedure, there's probably a reasonable medium. False alarms also have significant risk, including encouraging people to ignore a real alarm whether for tsunamis or missile attacks.

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

#40
The WaPo reports it was from an interface with a drop-down menu.

“Around 8:05 a.m., the Hawaii emergency employee initiated the internal test, according to a timeline released by the state. From a drop-down menu on a computer program, he saw two options: “Test missile alert” and “Missile alert.” He was supposed to choose the former; as much of the world now knows, he chose the latter, an initiation of a real-life missile alert.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/01/1...

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