User Interface design really matters
Picture this ... you are just getting your day started, when suddenly this message pops up on your mobile phone. What do you do? I don’t know about you, but I would be slightly panicked. That’s what happened Saturday morning in Hawaii.
There’s was a tweet sent out to let people know it was a false alarm, but I highly doubt many people saw a tweet. It was 38 minutes before another message went out on cell phones, attempting to correct the information.
So, what happened? This is from the New York Times:
Someone hit the wrong thing on the computer? That is a User Interface (UI) issue! Design does matter, and it can impact more than usual the user of the technology.
This is from stackoverflow.com, and says it better than I could:
This Washington Post article further explains what happened in more detail.
As my friend Josh from Elevator Studios pointed out when we discussed this event: two options, right beside each other in a pull down menu ... and no checks? This was going to happen! It was not a matter of if it would happen .. just when. (You can email Josh for UI design help here)
Good design matters ... and it’s worth the invest of time and money! Done correctly, you can avoid situation like this one:
38 minutes after the initial alarm ..
To better design ...
~ Rick
A follow-up: https://kottke.org/18/01/bad-design-in-action-the-false-hawaiian-ballistic-missile-alert
©2018 Rick Cartwright