Why I Hate Modern Tech Culture

 

A few years ago a Navy destroyer collided with a Liberian vessel, killing 10 U.S. sailors.  The cause? Bad user interface design at both the hardware and software levels.

Look at the big lever in the lower part of this image.  Extremely easy to use and, more importantly, difficult to misuse.  The current setting is clearly visible and easy to read, not just to the operator but to the other members of the bridge staff as well.

Now look at this abomination:

That, by the way, is on a touchscreen.  Why? Who thought this was a good idea?  A lot of things went wrong in that crash, but one of them was sleep-deprived Navy sailors accidentally swiping the wrong controls and not noticing they had done so.  This would never have happened with the nice, big lever in the first image above.

I’m a computer graphics software engineer.  I have to build user interfaces like this all the time.  It’s maddeningly difficult.  I have to hire UX designers (sadly that is not a talent I’ve been blessed with) and drum up users (preferably lots of users) to do user studies with.  I’m not talking theoretically here.  I’ve had very little success in my career designing user interfaces on my own.  This is the best I have ever done, and there is a very nice intern at the Blender Foundation this year whose job it is to rewrite it.

The obsession with touchscreens of recent tech culture doesn’t help either.  Think about your keyboard: it provides tactile feedback.  That big lever in the picture not only provides tactile feedback, but visual as well, from all angles.  Your car’s steering wheel is designed to transmit force from the road to the steering wheel so you can ‘feel’ how the car is steering.  Similarly, anti-lock brakes provides feedback when a car’s wheels start to lock up.

I could go on.  These devices are not primitive precursors to typing invisibly in the air or on a piece of glass.  The idea that every human device interaction can be made better with less touching and making it more Star Trek-like is absurd, and it has gotten people killed.

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  1. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    You think that’s rough?  Remember that, according to Star Trek: The Next Generation at least, the computer actually reads fingerprints from every control actuation and only allows authorized people to do things. *

    And when the computer goes out, or can’t read fingerprints for some reason, while the Klingons or Romulans or Dominion are attacking?

    Like Marcus Cole (Babylon 5) says “Crash, boom, burn!”

     

    (* which was probably a badly-conceived retcon for a single episode, so they could say it wasn’t the kid’s fault that his parents and everyone else on that ship died, but still…)

    • #1
  2. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Tech is hard.

    • #2
  3. KentForrester Coolidge
    KentForrester
    @KentForrester

    I finally figured out why I was making so many typing errors. I wasn’t getting feedback.  So I bought a keyboard with feedback.  That is, the keys click when I type and they depress maybe 3/16th of an inch.  I make far fewer errors now. 

    • #3
  4. Guruforhire Inactive
    Guruforhire
    @Guruforhire

    Compare the lincoln navigator interior and the cadillac escalade interior.

    Even in the cadillac promo video the user was confused.

    Its one of the reasons I choose the navigator.  It had touch screens where it made sense and nobs  and switches where they made sense.

    The cadillac interior is going to be dated and cheesy real quick.

    • #4
  5. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    KentForrester (View Comment):

    I finally figured out why I was making so many typing errors. I wasn’t getting feedback. So I bought a keyboard with feedback. That is, the keys click when I type and they depress maybe 3/16th of an inch. I make far fewer errors now.

    One reason why the classic IBM model M keyboards are desirable and collectible. 

     

    • #5
  6. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    KentForrester (View Comment):

    I finally figured out why I was making so many typing errors. I wasn’t getting feedback. So I bought a keyboard with feedback. That is, the keys click when I type and they depress maybe 3/16th of an inch. I make far fewer errors now.

    Why stop there? There’s a kit you can install on an old typewriter to convert it to a USB keyboard!

     

     

     

    • #6
  7. Mark Alexander Inactive
    Mark Alexander
    @MarkAlexander

    kedavis (View Comment):

    You think that’s rough? Remember that, according to Star Trek: The Next Generation at least, the computer actually reads fingerprints from every control actuation and only allows authorized people to do things. *

    And when the computer goes out, or can’t read fingerprints for some reason, while the Klingons or Romulans or Dominion are attacking?

    Like Marcus Cole (Babylon 5) says “Crash, boom, burn!”

     

    (* which was probably a badly-conceived retcon for a single episode, so they could say it wasn’t the kid’s fault that his parents and everyone else on that ship died, but still…)

    • #7
  8. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    I remember thinking that the original Star Trek control panels, with buttons, would not stand a violent ship movement in which Sulu would lurch against the control board, but at least the buttons took a specific downward pressure.  When the New Generation came on, I thought that it was far worse, computer techy nerd stuff with little real-world realism.  Someone mentioned that the ergonomics of controls were well-known and that for instance submarines deliberately used knobs and levers and wheels just so that they were knowable and usable under disorienting circumstances.

    It looks like this has changed in the surface fleet. Does anyone know if submarines have touch screens, or manual controls?

    By the way, I have a new (for me) iphone7, and it vibrates a “click” when a button is pushed, but I find this to be confusing and off-putting because the whole phone infinitesimally jumps in my hand rather than the button itself reacting like a pressure switch.

    • #8
  9. The Scarecrow Thatcher
    The Scarecrow
    @TheScarecrow

    KentForrester (View Comment):

    I finally figured out why I was making so many typing errors. I wasn’t getting feedback. So I bought a keyboard with feedback. That is, the keys click when I type and they depress maybe 3/16th of an inch. I make far fewer errors now.

    Funny that touch screens in an automobile would be legal.  You have to look at it, and concentrate, if only for a second or two, to make sure you have done everything right. It’s a few seconds you’re not looking at, or thinking about, the road.

    With normal mechanical controls you can reach down and do most things from muscle memory.

    • #9
  10. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    I understand that the control stick in the Airbus are not mechanically interlinked, so there is no physical feedback to one pilot as to what the other pilot is doing.  

    • #10
  11. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    See my post When Humans and Robots Communicate.

    • #11
  12. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    David Foster (View Comment):

    I understand that the control stick in the Airbus are not mechanically interlinked, so there is no physical feedback to one pilot as to what the other pilot is doing.

    I once had a transmission problem on my truck and the shift lever wouldn’t work.  I mentioned it to a friend and I said that the control wire must have broken.  And he said that the transmission lever was electronic and wasn’t connected to the transmission by any mechanical linkages, and what I had felt when I had used the shifter was a special resistance feature to simulate a mechanical linkage.  Huh.

    • #12
  13. Mark Camp Member
    Mark Camp
    @MarkCamp

    The Scarecrow (View Comment):

    KentForrester (View Comment):

    I finally figured out why I was making so many typing errors. I wasn’t getting feedback. So I bought a keyboard with feedback. That is, the keys click when I type and they depress maybe 3/16th of an inch. I make far fewer errors now.

    Funny that touch screens in an automobile would be legal. You have to look at it, and concentrate, if only for a second or two, to make sure you have done everything right. It’s a few seconds you’re not looking at, or thinking about, the road.

    With normal mechanical controls you can reach down and do most things from muscle memory.

    I much-more-than Like this comment. I’ve been waiting for years for someone to say it. 

    • #13
  14. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    I disable several keys on my keyboard because I’m always accidently hitting them – caps lock, scroll lock, insert, and the Windows key.  The problem is, sometimes my logitech software undisables them all by itself.

    And people wonder why I don’t fly anymore . . .

    • #14
  15. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Stad (View Comment):

    I disable several keys on my keyboard because I’m always accidently hitting them – caps lock, scroll lock, insert, and the Windows key. The problem is, sometimes my logitech software undisables them all by itself.

    And people wonder why I don’t fly anymore . . .

    Do you know if submarines still have physical controls?  Or if they’ve gone to touch screens as well.

    • #15
  16. Mark Camp Member
    Mark Camp
    @MarkCamp

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Do you know if submarines still have physical controls? Or if they’ve gone to touch screens as well.

    I do know they abandoned a research program, after spending several billions, to develop a virtual main hatch that the hide-bound old salts wouldn’t howl about in protest. They made improvement after improvement to the graphics, but the traditionalists always came back with the same old refrain:

    “It doesn’t keep the water out!”

    • #16
  17. Dbroussa Coolidge
    Dbroussa
    @Dbroussa

    The idea that a combat vessel would have a completely touchscreen interface is insane.  Yes, a digital panel is nice, but if you are thinking about things like combat damage then you want to ensure that the bridge crew can work if a casualty takes out a touch screen.

     

    • #17
  18. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Do you know if submarines still have physical controls? Or if they’ve gone to touch screens as well.

    I do know they abandoned a research program, after spending several billions, to develop a virtual main hatch that the hide-bound old salts wouldn’t howl about in protest. They made improvement after improvement to the graphics, but the traditionalists always came back with the same old refrain:

    “It doesn’t keep the water out!”

    Maybe they need to introduce screening procedures into new main hatch research.

    • #18
  19. Mark Camp Member
    Mark Camp
    @MarkCamp

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Do you know if submarines still have physical controls? Or if they’ve gone to touch screens as well.

    I do know they abandoned a research program, after spending several billions, to develop a virtual main hatch that the hide-bound old salts wouldn’t howl about in protest. They made improvement after improvement to the graphics, but the traditionalists always came back with the same old refrain:

    “It doesn’t keep the water out!”

    Maybe they need to introduce screening procedures into new main hatch research.

    This is to inform you that you have received the coveted Camper Chortle award.

    • #19
  20. CACrabtree Coolidge
    CACrabtree
    @CACrabtree

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Tech is hard.

    True ‘dat.  I retired from the Military before we went full-touchscreen, however, I wonder how the folks from my old MOS/AFSC are handling the technology while in full MOPP gear.

    Thankfully, I was never in any real-world MOPP 3 or MOPP 4 levels, but I had many exercises in which we were expected to be at MOPP 4 for extended periods of time.  Deploying the COMM equipment was bad enough but trying to utilize a keyboard was sometimes a challenge.  Because the rubber gloves (with cotton inserts underneath) were so cumbersome, we were forced to use pencils (the eraser side, naturally) to enter data via the keyboard.  Looking back, the sight of us, pecking away with those pencils, must have been pretty humorous.

    I doubt that the MOPP gear has changed all that much, so I wonder how the folks are able to accurately access the touchscreens.

    • #20
  21. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Ontheleftcoast (View Comment):

    KentForrester (View Comment):

    I finally figured out why I was making so many typing errors. I wasn’t getting feedback. So I bought a keyboard with feedback. That is, the keys click when I type and they depress maybe 3/16th of an inch. I make far fewer errors now.

    Why stop there? There’s a kit you can install on an old typewriter to convert it to a USB keyboard!

     

     

     

    Actually, old manual typewriters don’t really have the tactile feedback of a “clicky” computer keyboard.

    • #21
  22. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Do you know if submarines still have physical controls? Or if they’ve gone to touch screens as well.

    I do know they abandoned a research program, after spending several billions, to develop a virtual main hatch that the hide-bound old salts wouldn’t howl about in protest. They made improvement after improvement to the graphics, but the traditionalists always came back with the same old refrain:

    “It doesn’t keep the water out!”

    Maybe they need to introduce screening procedures into new main hatch research.

    Wouldn’t that be screen-door procedures?

    • #22
  23. Mark Camp Member
    Mark Camp
    @MarkCamp

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Actually, old manual typewriters don’t really have the tactile feedback of a “clicky” computer keyboard.

    ABSOLUTELY!  

    These days you can get a useable keyboard for frequent users from by vendors other than IBM, e.g., my MacBook.  The perfect keyboard shipped with an Engineering Workstation called the RT PC. It felt like it was doing the typing and 100.0% of your time and attention could be devoted to thinking, which for some of us radicals is “meets min” for Tech tooling.

    • #23
  24. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Do you know if submarines still have physical controls? Or if they’ve gone to touch screens as well.

    I do know they abandoned a research program, after spending several billions, to develop a virtual main hatch that the hide-bound old salts wouldn’t howl about in protest. They made improvement after improvement to the graphics, but the traditionalists always came back with the same old refrain:

    “It doesn’t keep the water out!”

    Maybe they need to introduce screening procedures into new main hatch research.

    This is to inform you that you have received the coveted Camper Chortle award.

    Oooh  I am truly honored.  (Is there a cash prize?)

    • #24
  25. Aaron Miller Inactive
    Aaron Miller
    @AaronMiller

    CACrabtree (View Comment):
    Looking back, the sight of us, pecking away with those pencils, must have been pretty humorous.

    Robots will look much cooler when they do it.

    • #25
  26. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Actually, old manual typewriters don’t really have the tactile feedback of a “clicky” computer keyboard.

    ABSOLUTELY!

    These days you can get a useable keyboard for frequent users from by vendors other than IBM, e.g., my MacBook. The perfect keyboard shipped with an Engineering Workstation called the RT PC. It felt like it was doing the typing and 100.0% of your time and attention could be devoted to thinking, which for some of us radicals is “meets min” for Tech tooling.

    The RT models may very well have come with an IBM model M keyboard, they were very widespread at that time.

    I never had an RT model, they were somewhat of a technological disappointment compared to the power available with other systems including IBM PCs of the time, they were replaced by the RS/6000 series with the early PPC processors that Apple also used for a while.

    • #26
  27. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Aaron Miller (View Comment):

    CACrabtree (View Comment):
    Looking back, the sight of us, pecking away with those pencils, must have been pretty humorous.

    Robots will look much cooler when they do it.

    Robots pecking away?

    I didn’t think robots had peckers.

    But I suppose that someone’s sex robots would.  Some of them, anyway.

     

    • #27
  28. John H. Member
    John H.
    @JohnH

    I have sort of got used to the touchscreen on a helicopter GPS. A helicopter vibrates less than you might think, but it does vibrate.  At least the instrument does not actually fly the craft; it just displays information. Now if you’re punching in information…where’s that backspace button again? The interface mutates from screen to screen and I don’t think there’s a fixed or standard location for this feature. I need to read the manual. While on the ground.

     

    • #28
  29. Keith Lowery Coolidge
    Keith Lowery
    @keithlowery

    Many years ago, about the time graphical user interfaces became a thing, there was a contest for new UI development.  The contest required every entry to offer an intuitive interface for ordering a taco.

    Almost all the teams went wild with drag-and-drop, elaborate pictures of selectable ingredients, and often the ability to visually construct an entire taco on the screen.  If should have dawned on someone, but this approach essentially required the user to draw pictures of his desired taco.

    By contrast, the eventual winning entry merely asked the user a handful of yes/no questions about what they wanted on their taco.

    (e.g.  Do you want beef? Y/N Do you want cheese? Y/N Do you want lettuce? Y/N)

    The criteria for winning was on the correspondence between what the user actually wanted and what he successfully ordered in the limited timeframe allowed.

    The Q&A interface won, hands down.

    • #29
  30. Joseph Eagar Member
    Joseph Eagar
    @JosephEagar

    Keith Lowery (View Comment):

    Many years ago, about the time graphical user interfaces became a thing, there was a contest for new UI development. The contest required every entry to offer an intuitive interface for ordering a taco.

    Almost all the teams went wild with drag-and-drop, elaborate pictures of selectable ingredients, and often the ability to visually construct an entire taco on the screen. If should have dawned on someone, but this approach essentially required the user to draw pictures of his desired taco.

    By contrast, the eventual winning entry merely asked the user a handful of yes/no questions about what they wanted on their taco.

    (e.g. Do you want beef? Y/N Do you want cheese? Y/N Do you want lettuce? Y/N)

    The criteria for winning was on the correspondence between what the user actually wanted and what he successfully ordered in the limited timeframe allowed.

    The Q&A interface won, hands down.

    I’m so glad I’ve never had to use the other ideas.  That would drive me insane.  I like the Q/A approach, that’s how you build a taco at a restaurant in real life.

    • #30
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