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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

#51

Post by joshstrange »

ghaff wrote: post #33
joshstrange wrote: post #25

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.

More like when you delete/rename a github repo and they make you type our the repo name. I'm thinking of having to type something like "MISSILE INCOMING SEND ALERT" or similar.

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

#52

Post by fredley »

whatever_dude wrote: post #19

It'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…

If a system has critical safety components (using, or misusing the system could harm or kill people), all parts of it should be treated as such. This applies to hospital equipment, missile warning systems, cars, etc. Things like security and reliability rightly get a lot of attention, but UX is just as critical, as this event shows. There are plenty of case studies of poor UX on hospital equipment killing people[1]. When will people learn?

[1]: https://medium.com/tragic-design/how-bad-ux-killed-jenny-ef9...

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

#54

Post by Joe-Z »

agumonkey wrote: post #43
whatever_dude wrote: post #19

It'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…

what would you call regular re-evaluation of a system ? hygiene ?

I think we use different words in different contexts: Refactoring, Maintenance come to mind for software engineering.

Don't know what the equivalent in the graphics design world would be.

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

#55

Post by joshstrange »

jonlucc wrote: post #50
ourmandave wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...would be a scary looking alert confirmation dialog If I had a bitcoin for every time someone clicked through the confirm dialog without looking...

I'd suggest it only go on the dire warnings; don't have a confirmation on the drill alerts, but yeah, it's not a perfect fix.

Something that comes to mind is Skyrim's legendary skill confirmation. When you go to reset a skill it prompts you twice if you really want to do it and the second confirmation has the yes/no switched and the default on no so if you are just clicking through it's easy to not reset the skill. You have to read and know what you are doing. But also, yes, the drill shouldn't prompt so it stands out when it does prompt.

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

#56

Post by maxerickson »

joshstrange wrote: post #25

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…

That's an interesting thing to be annoyed about given that a faster way to send out the false alarm notification is one of the mitigations they have put in place.

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

#57

Post by fredley »

Joe-Z wrote: post #54
agumonkey wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what would you call regular re-evaluation of a system ? hygiene ?

I think we use different words in different contexts: Refactoring, Maintenance come to mind for software engineering. Don't know what the equivalent in the graphics design world would be.

This is not graphic design, it is UX. Graphic design is a component of UX, sometimes, but not here necessarily. Simply reordering the list, and giving it a hierarchy makes it much easier to see what to do: https://twitter.com/iamlucamilan/status/953201356545974272

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

#58

Post by itronitron »

whatever_dude wrote: post #19

It'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…

I think a big problem is that people that don't have a lot of experience with design treat design decisions as subjective and arbitrary when in fact there is a lot of science to back up certain design choices (human vision, cognitive psychology, and not A/B testing.) As a result the approval process for any design, whether the initial or a redesign, gets stuck on the desks of various people that either don't feel qualified or don't see the point in the design.

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

#59

Post by maxerickson »

ghaff wrote: post #33
joshstrange wrote: post #25

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.

Maybe the system could make them stand up and walk over to a button/key and activate it to send a real notification.

Of course they then need a way to test the button...

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

#60

Post by ghaff »

Pulcinella wrote: post #44
ghaff wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

I think I have read some research in healthcare field that such confirmations aren’t s helpful as you would think. One reason of course is a combination of alarm fatigue and the fact that software has trained people to just always click yes when an annoying pop up appears. Another is that people will think the have already clicked the correct thing button. So it’s less “Oh a confirmation box has appeared, let me conf…

That's fair. Typing something out helps somewhat with the confirmation reflex problem. (Essentially hitting OK or typing Y as almost a single motion with the original selection.) But you're right that, if you think you've selected the right thing especially in a high pressure situation under time pressure, you may well not read through the warning but just take whatever action is required to confirm.
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