3 ms·

I don't know which one is more bizzare here - the story itself, or the barrage of "this is due to bad UX" comments in this thread. So I guess if this warship f

I don't know which one is more bizzare here - the story itself, or the barrage of "this is due to bad UX" comments in this thread. So I guess if this warship fired all its rockets away, "due to bad UX", and destroyed a small nation, I guess the comments would also be about a bad UX. Oh crumbs, the "check status" button was so close to the "start armageddon" button. Perhaps we should submit a meek complaint to Microsoft or something. "Commander Alfredo J. Sanchez, "noticed the Helmsman (the watchstander steering the ship) having difficulty maintaining course while also adjusting the throttles for speed control."" So... we gave the control of a warship to some guy that... has some difficulty navigating through the straits that like 1M of ships go through every day, without problems. Mind you, this is the navy that is supposed to be highly trained to deal with real-world issues such as naval blockades, pirates, and even wars. It does not make sense at all. Allegedly there were some cuts to funding for navy. Maybe someone is trying to make a point. I do not know, this is just unexplainable. Certainly nothing to do with just "bad UX"

dx034 9y ago
I think that's the real point. The ship in question is by far not the largest and should be more agile than most ships that go through these waters. How can ferries and tankers easily master this every day and the Navy is not? If they cannot figure out how to solve a situation like this within 2 minutes, how would they react to enemy fire or being attacked by another ship?
- greedo 9y ago
  Seamanship in the USN has been on a downward slope for over a decade due to changes in training methodology. Qualification standards have slipped, and I'm sure that officers have slipped through the cracks who in previous generations would have had to recycle through the training programs. The 7th Fleet has huge issues right now.
FabHK 9y ago
The problem is that you can't "fix" humans. They'll make mistakes. Aviation is as safe as it is precisely because it moved past the "pilot error! that guy just made a mistake, how can one be so stupid" attitude evinced in your comment. You have to look at the entire accident chain, and at the entire system, including training, supervision, redundancy, and, indeed, UX.
- mjevans 9y ago
  Good UI makes the effort of doing the 'right thing' very little, and the effort of doing the 'bad thing' as costly as possible. Design (in my opinion) is planning out what good and bad things are for a given tool and determining how to express that through the UI.
  - PuffinBlue 9y ago
    > Design (in my opinion) is planning out what good and bad things are for a given tool and determining how to express that through the UI. I disagree with the premise you have that the designer deciding what is good and bad is the whole or even the right story. I think I might agree with the implication that a system should make doing cognitively difficult/safety critical things easy but there is no possible way to plan for all eventualities, that's why we have 'intelligent' controllers in ultimate charge. One day we might have artificial intelligence in charge but we're not there yet. So instead of the goal of good UX being the designer planning out what is good and bad, it is much better to design a system that reduces cognitive load but presents information about the current state of the system in the most obvious and intuitive way possible. It should do everything it can to make sure the operator understands the current state of the system. In terms of operating complex physical systems like ships and aircraft the ultimate goal of designing control systems is to simultaneously take as much of the burden off the operator as possible but present all information needed in order to bring the system back to an _understood_ state as rapidly as possible following deviation from that state. This is the only way to maintain _control_. It's reasonable to try and make it difficult to get to a state that is 'uncontrolled'. But it's imperative that more credence is given to getting a system back to an understood state once the controller finds them self in one that's not understood. It may get to this state in a way the designer didn't plan for, so getting out of it has to be incredibly quick and easy. Personally, I put more stock in getting the system in an understood state than a controlled one as from there it's easier to return to control. Without understanding the state of the system it's easy to make further mistakes.

dx034 9y ago

I think that's the real point. The ship in question is by far not the largest and should be more agile than most ships that go through these waters. How can ferries and tankers easily master this every day and the Navy is not? If they cannot figure out how to solve a situation like this within 2 minutes, how would they react to enemy fire or being attacked by another ship?

greedo 9y ago
Seamanship in the USN has been on a downward slope for over a decade due to changes in training methodology. Qualification standards have slipped, and I'm sure that officers have slipped through the cracks who in previous generations would have had to recycle through the training programs. The 7th Fleet has huge issues right now.

FabHK 9y ago

The problem is that you can't "fix" humans. They'll make mistakes. Aviation is as safe as it is precisely because it moved past the "pilot error! that guy just made a mistake, how can one be so stupid" attitude evinced in your comment. You have to look at the entire accident chain, and at the entire system, including training, supervision, redundancy, and, indeed, UX.

mjevans 9y ago
Good UI makes the effort of doing the 'right thing' very little, and the effort of doing the 'bad thing' as costly as possible. Design (in my opinion) is planning out what good and bad things are for a given tool and determining how to express that through the UI.
- PuffinBlue 9y ago
  > Design (in my opinion) is planning out what good and bad things are for a given tool and determining how to express that through the UI. I disagree with the premise you have that the designer deciding what is good and bad is the whole or even the right story. I think I might agree with the implication that a system should make doing cognitively difficult/safety critical things easy but there is no possible way to plan for all eventualities, that's why we have 'intelligent' controllers in ultimate charge. One day we might have artificial intelligence in charge but we're not there yet. So instead of the goal of good UX being the designer planning out what is good and bad, it is much better to design a system that reduces cognitive load but presents information about the current state of the system in the most obvious and intuitive way possible. It should do everything it can to make sure the operator understands the current state of the system. In terms of operating complex physical systems like ships and aircraft the ultimate goal of designing control systems is to simultaneously take as much of the burden off the operator as possible but present all information needed in order to bring the system back to an _understood_ state as rapidly as possible following deviation from that state. This is the only way to maintain _control_. It's reasonable to try and make it difficult to get to a state that is 'uncontrolled'. But it's imperative that more credence is given to getting a system back to an understood state once the controller finds them self in one that's not understood. It may get to this state in a way the designer didn't plan for, so getting out of it has to be incredibly quick and easy. Personally, I put more stock in getting the system in an understood state than a controlled one as from there it's easier to return to control. Without understanding the state of the system it's easy to make further mistakes.