I think this whole thing could be seen as a blessing in disguise, but I don't hear anyone talking about it. We seem totally unprepared for this kind of event. The message said take shelter, so why were people running around screaming and crying in the streets?
People were throwing their kids into storm drains. Clever, but what happens to them after that?
Where do we go? How long do we have to stay there? Who is going to pass out the iodine pills? Where's the clean water? What will we eat? Who will come get us when it's all over?
It seems like we gave a damn about this many years ago during the Cold War. There were drills in schools, public service messages, people bought bomb shelters, there was the Civil Defense. Once in awhile I see one of those public bomb shelter placards on a building and wonder if there really still is one or if it is just some old artifact someone forgot to take down.
We laugh at all this stuff like ironic hipsters and now we see the results.
No one stopped caring. What we stopped doing was pretending the civilian population could be protected against nuclear holocaust.
The bomb that obliterated Hiroshima was a toy next to a thermonuclear bomb, which is 1000 times as powerful. If one lands on Oahu, there won't be anyone to pass out iodine pills in Hawaii, or anyone to pass them out to.
Hawaii is just stupid to spend a nickel on an early warning system. The only reason it exists is that too many people don't understand what they're supposedly being warned, or that they are utterly defenseless.
Sometimes, the only protection is prevention. This is one.
For whatever reason there came to be a general belief that the drills were pointless or just propaganda. In reality they were very worthwhile and provided meaningful preparedness training. The bomb isn't what always kills people: it's the building falling on top of you that will kill or maim you, and knowing what to do when the building is falling down can drastically improve your chances of survival.
The assumption that most people have is just that nukes just evaporate people like in Terminator 2. That's not the case for most of the danger zone.
This fascinating book on the topic of preparedness is available for free here: http://www.oism.org/nwss/
It includes a lot of detail, diagrams, and explanations about topics like fallout. Unfortunately many students who become politicians tend to be dramatically misinformed about how nuclear weapons work which leads to some systematically incorrect assumptions that have wide-ranging consequences.
Most of what people believe about nuclear weapons and nuclear technology in general is false.
There was a very similar incident in 1971 ("code word hatefulness"). Back then, three tapes were kept next to a EBS transmitter, two real alerts and one for testing. One day, an operator accidentally loaded the real alert rather than the correct test alert, and many stations prepared to tell the country the nuclear war was imminent.
The fix was to:
> …In the past three tapes, one for the test and two for actual emergencies, were hanging on three labeled hooks above the transmitter… In the future only the test tape will be left near the transmitter. The two emergency tapes [will be] be sealed in clearly marked envelopes and placed inside a nearby cabinet.
I'm glad the popular discourse has made it from "train employees better" to "design better interfaces" in this case. But as you point out, this is far, far from a new problem.
It's as if we lived in a world where bridges have been built for decades with structural engineers as optional, rather than required by building code. If your project had a budget for a structural engineer, you hired one, but if not, fine, you just had your construction contractor do their best.
And so now a bridge just collapsed again (fortunately everyone got off in time) and we're talking about how we really ought to design bridges better, but no one is suggesting the obvious, that we legislate building codes that require structural engineers as part of the bridge-building process.
I know this is a controversial idea, as it opens up the question of UX design certification and licensure (if you require UX for critical infrastructure, what are the qualifications?), which can lead to all sorts of unintended consequences of gatekeeping, exclusion, and administrative bloat. But I think Hawaii makes it clear that the status quo is unsafe and unsustainable.
It's similar to the "A gun is always loaded" principle. Unless you can tell at a glance that a firearm is not in a ready-to-fire state, you treat it as if it is. People are clumsy and forgetful, and you only have to mess up once.
Leaving the live rounds right next to the blanks, in that way, is pretty indefensible. (Ignoring of course that blanks can still kill, for this analogy.)
The point of a drill is to drill the procedure into people, so that when it is required the people are operating on autopilot without the need to actively think about the actions that they are performing.
I would prefer to see the only two tapes next to the transmitter are the emergency tapes. If there is a drill then the drill setup will replace these tapes with the test tapes, and maybe place a corrupt tape there once in a while.
With this fix, in an emergency situation it's suddenly someone has to remember to get the tape out of the cabinet (was it Alice's or Bob's cabinet that we put them in?) and use that rather than follow the process that has been rehearsed.
This whole scenario whiffs of improper drill setup, not a failure of following the drill.
The article is confusing. It states that the "errant employee actually was working with a drop-down menu on a computer program". But the photo is clearly of a list of normal "a href" elements.
I'm asking, because if it was truly a drop-down (select element) then the UX would be even worse. At least with a list of links, there is the odd chance that the person would spot the correct choice. Using drop-downs, once the incorrect choice was made, there is really very little chance of realising the error.
A lot of conversations seem fixated on what's the worst that could happen if the wrong message was sent, but very few of these people are considering what's the worst that could happen if the right message wasn't sent. Also, it's very likely that the dropdown message text was not added by a developer, and this addition of the messages by non-technical users should also be part of that UX conversation.
The state sent out a death threat! People are just letting the government know how they feel.
The design of this system is grossly negligent, which IS a management problem. It does look like a web page. How is the page served? An internal secure setup on a private network? Is the browser ever updated? Is there javascript? The number of failure modes on this type of setup is unconstrained. How are updates tested? It appears to me that somebody just put something together without any design or validation process at all. This is fine in many settings, but not for critical public safety infrastructure.
The UX in most software made for the government is terrible. At the end of the day, I think anyone clicking any button in that list should have been well aware of what those buttons do especially since clicking that button was a routine part of the shift change process in that shop.
Aka, blame the user, not the design. The FAA got away from that because it caused too many planes to drop out of the sky. Sure, user errors will happen, but designs should try to avoid them and mitigate their consequences.
I've been a software engineer in the defense industry my entire career. No contract I've ever been a part of included a UI/UX designer, I rather doubt the customer would have been willing to pay for one.
Interfaces are always designed by the programmers alone, and they are universally awful.
Heck, several years ago I remember having to learn Blender so I could create 3D models for some simulation software (no one else to do it, guess it's me again -> here have some rockets that look like something out of 1950s scifi). Apparently the folks writing the contract didn't think we'd need anyone with any 3D art skills to create 3D visualization software.
People are going to goof at a certain rate. We need to design systems to withstand at least some rate of goofing. We wouldn't get rid of seat belts and just tell people to not goof. Sometimes the goofing is criminally negligent, sometimes it isn't. In this case, I'd say it wasn't.
I've been "arguing" with people here as to what a better interface would look like, and it's interesting at how much disagreement there is. A lot (like too many) seem to think adding a yes/no dialog box would make things better, but it's well known users don't read dialog boxes.
My preference would be a mcDonald's menu style UI, showing the text that will be sent in a 6x5 grid of buttons. Easy to press; easy to see what you're sending; no funky "are you sure" messages that'll be auto-clicked.
It doesn't even need that. It should start by grouping the options by severity - separate the real alerts from the test alerts via section headers and you solve 99% of the problem.
The major problem with the UI is that various types of tests and actual alerts are displayed together on one list.
The system should start with two options: test vs. real alert, which open up separate menus. Those menus should be visually distinct (e.g., different color background, options for former all end in (TEST)".
ISTM there should be a phrase they have to type in that's specific to each option. Those "are you sure? [y] [n]", "are you _really_ sure? [y] [n]" dialog boxes are easy to blindly click through. Typing is a physical action. Or, even better—have it require _two_ employees.
Personally I'd go for a radiobutton list, with a submit button. That way there's time to double-check your selection. Furthermore the real alert should probably pop up a bright red page with flashing warning lights and siren sounds indicating that the user is entering a serious situation.
This all is assuming that falsely sending a test alert is no big deal.
The problem in this particular case is that almost anything would be better. Probably the only thing to make this worse would be to also mislabel things.
Which is why there are plenty ideas for a better design.
This doesn't add up for me and doesn't pass the smell test. Looking at that dashboard and the way it's set up and knowing PACOM stands for Pacific Command, I'm not buying this story at all. Look at the way that screen is designed. You don't just click one of those and it sends the alert off. The link sets the type of alert (i.e. Amber) and the destination/recipients (i.e county, statewide, etc.). It doesn't set the content. Logically, this must be true. An amber alert needs specifics like, most commonly, the license plate of a vehicle. That means someone clicked that link and then manually filled out the text "this is not a drill". That makes this peculiar sentence from the article make more sense - "I wish I could say there was a simple reason for why it took so long to get the correction to the false alert out". That line from the article struck me as odd the first time around, especially since no explanation at all was offered from what I saw. I believe they really thought there were incoming missiles and that's why they didn't rescind the alert immediately. Let's also remember that when this alert went out the person who sent it as well as anyone else working with them would have received it on their own phones and someone surely would have said "holy shit you just sent out a real nuclear war alert!" And then they would have gone back and filled out different text/content for an updated alert. There is precisely zero chance it took 38 whole minutes for everyone in that place to realize it was a real alert and figure out how to send a follow up.
Did anybody read about or see the NBC segment where they were exploring the exact D.O.D. bunker in Hawaii where the emergency phone, and I assume alert system computer, were held. Did this actually happen? Was NBC actually in the same room as the computer where the alert originated before the alert actually was sent out?
Let me know if I'm being misinformed by low-life YouTube conspirators.
Why are we talking about dropdown boxes and modal confirm messages? Shouldn't it be basically impossible for the same system that sends test messages to also send real messages?
If it takes two people turning two keys to launch a missile, shouldn't it take the same to send a missile warning?
In some ways I think the poor design decisions start with making a system of this nature, with this purpose, digital in the first place. With the current state of weapons systems, multi-domain tactics, and the technical capabilities of near-peer rivals, or the types of state actors capable of launching a ballistic missile, a massive cyber/electronic attack will almost certainly precede the kinetic weapons wave. Really, I would want a ballistic missile warning system to be as simple, physical, and reliable as, literally, a big button that sets off the warning broadcast over loudspeakers. It is impossible to prepare for every contingency that may arise from an unexpected all-out attack, but the obvious ones with clear solutions should be mitigated.
Their solution to the problem was to add an additional "BDM False Alarm" entry to the list of alerts which will send out the message that the previous alert was a false alarm and there is no threat.
Perhaps they should also add a "false alarm that this was a false alarm, there really is a threat after all" option in case the "false alarm" option is selected accidentally after warning about a real threat. /s
I don't know how anyone in Hawaii can be expected to trust or take these alerts seriously after this.
Adding some color and better labeling would be good. Also I would have a confirmation dialog box to confirm what will happen when the button is pressed.
Taking the opposite side side of the argument, good UX only matters for inexperienced employees. People that mindlessly click are going to mindlessly click "yes" on the confirmation dialog
Experienced employees will not mindlessly click on Yes, because they have experience with it going wrong.
Having yes/no labels on buttons, or this kind of random labeled links in haphazard order is always bad. Experienced users may not do errors, but their life would still be better if the UX was good. UX is the same as accessibility, if it is good it does not bother you but it can always help, even if you think you do not need it.
Experienced users can adapt to almost any interface that they use regularly. Presumably missile alerts, even test alerts, are done rather infrequently (1 x month?). So in that case a foolproof interface is even more important.
Do we know if the test button also includes a confirmation dialog? In that case, the two actions are pretty much indistinguishable.
Good UX would eliminate any mindless clicking, for example:
* significantly different workflow than the test workflow
* requiring multi-person confirmation
* showing the resulting action with (time-limited) undo
* and more...
At each level, people with grave responsibilities did not take their responsibility seriously enough. From the top to the bottom.
Button-pusher: obviously.
Interface designer: clearly.
Manager responsible for project: also
The manager's manager: yes
The whole department head: how is this person making decisions?
The people who set the budgets and procedures: How do they know that work is being done well enough?
Vern Miyagi: From decades in the army, your process designers should understand best practices in the design of emergency systems, and yet they clearly did not. Why?
[+] [-] nsxwolf|8 years ago|reply
People were throwing their kids into storm drains. Clever, but what happens to them after that?
Where do we go? How long do we have to stay there? Who is going to pass out the iodine pills? Where's the clean water? What will we eat? Who will come get us when it's all over?
It seems like we gave a damn about this many years ago during the Cold War. There were drills in schools, public service messages, people bought bomb shelters, there was the Civil Defense. Once in awhile I see one of those public bomb shelter placards on a building and wonder if there really still is one or if it is just some old artifact someone forgot to take down.
We laugh at all this stuff like ironic hipsters and now we see the results.
[+] [-] jklowden|8 years ago|reply
The bomb that obliterated Hiroshima was a toy next to a thermonuclear bomb, which is 1000 times as powerful. If one lands on Oahu, there won't be anyone to pass out iodine pills in Hawaii, or anyone to pass them out to.
Hawaii is just stupid to spend a nickel on an early warning system. The only reason it exists is that too many people don't understand what they're supposedly being warned, or that they are utterly defenseless.
Sometimes, the only protection is prevention. This is one.
[+] [-] j-c-hewitt|8 years ago|reply
The assumption that most people have is just that nukes just evaporate people like in Terminator 2. That's not the case for most of the danger zone.
This fascinating book on the topic of preparedness is available for free here: http://www.oism.org/nwss/
It includes a lot of detail, diagrams, and explanations about topics like fallout. Unfortunately many students who become politicians tend to be dramatically misinformed about how nuclear weapons work which leads to some systematically incorrect assumptions that have wide-ranging consequences.
Most of what people believe about nuclear weapons and nuclear technology in general is false.
[+] [-] Chaebixi|8 years ago|reply
The fix was to:
> …In the past three tapes, one for the test and two for actual emergencies, were hanging on three labeled hooks above the transmitter… In the future only the test tape will be left near the transmitter. The two emergency tapes [will be] be sealed in clearly marked envelopes and placed inside a nearby cabinet.
http://conelrad.blogspot.com/2010/09/code-word-hatefulness-g...
[+] [-] mortenjorck|8 years ago|reply
It's as if we lived in a world where bridges have been built for decades with structural engineers as optional, rather than required by building code. If your project had a budget for a structural engineer, you hired one, but if not, fine, you just had your construction contractor do their best.
And so now a bridge just collapsed again (fortunately everyone got off in time) and we're talking about how we really ought to design bridges better, but no one is suggesting the obvious, that we legislate building codes that require structural engineers as part of the bridge-building process.
I know this is a controversial idea, as it opens up the question of UX design certification and licensure (if you require UX for critical infrastructure, what are the qualifications?), which can lead to all sorts of unintended consequences of gatekeeping, exclusion, and administrative bloat. But I think Hawaii makes it clear that the status quo is unsafe and unsustainable.
[+] [-] MaxBarraclough|8 years ago|reply
It's similar to the "A gun is always loaded" principle. Unless you can tell at a glance that a firearm is not in a ready-to-fire state, you treat it as if it is. People are clumsy and forgetful, and you only have to mess up once.
Leaving the live rounds right next to the blanks, in that way, is pretty indefensible. (Ignoring of course that blanks can still kill, for this analogy.)
[+] [-] DDub|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] igitur|8 years ago|reply
I'm asking, because if it was truly a drop-down (select element) then the UX would be even worse. At least with a list of links, there is the odd chance that the person would spot the correct choice. Using drop-downs, once the incorrect choice was made, there is really very little chance of realising the error.
[+] [-] bena|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpindar|8 years ago|reply
I don't know which image is real.
[+] [-] everdev|8 years ago|reply
Add spacing and then add more. It won't make it a masterpiece but it'll prevent misclicks and make the UI easier to read and understand.
Also, use headings like "Amber Alerts", "Weather" and "War".
And, use semantic titles like "[TEST] Tsunami" or "ALERT! - Tsunami"
[+] [-] HarrietJones|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notjustanymike|8 years ago|reply
Missile warning: Everyone flees to basements.
Right next to each other, no way that'll go wrong.
[+] [-] bovermyer|8 years ago|reply
Sounds like they need to prosecute some people for terroristic threats to the fullest extent of the law.
I understand being pissed off about the false alarm, but sending death threats should be an automatic jail sentence at minimum.
[+] [-] getpost|8 years ago|reply
The design of this system is grossly negligent, which IS a management problem. It does look like a web page. How is the page served? An internal secure setup on a private network? Is the browser ever updated? Is there javascript? The number of failure modes on this type of setup is unconstrained. How are updates tested? It appears to me that somebody just put something together without any design or validation process at all. This is fine in many settings, but not for critical public safety infrastructure.
[+] [-] macintux|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evfanknitram|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] datpuz|8 years ago|reply
Bad UX, sure. But that person dun goofed.
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jcadam|8 years ago|reply
Interfaces are always designed by the programmers alone, and they are universally awful.
Heck, several years ago I remember having to learn Blender so I could create 3D models for some simulation software (no one else to do it, guess it's me again -> here have some rockets that look like something out of 1950s scifi). Apparently the folks writing the contract didn't think we'd need anyone with any 3D art skills to create 3D visualization software.
[+] [-] derekp7|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BearGoesChirp|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HarrietJones|8 years ago|reply
My preference would be a mcDonald's menu style UI, showing the text that will be sent in a 6x5 grid of buttons. Easy to press; easy to see what you're sending; no funky "are you sure" messages that'll be auto-clicked.
[+] [-] Ajedi32|8 years ago|reply
Combined with a confirmation dialog like this: https://twitter.com/Ajedi32/status/953303114995597312
[+] [-] kemitche|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ClintEhrlich|8 years ago|reply
The system should start with two options: test vs. real alert, which open up separate menus. Those menus should be visually distinct (e.g., different color background, options for former all end in (TEST)".
[+] [-] barsonme|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Doxin|8 years ago|reply
This all is assuming that falsely sending a test alert is no big deal.
[+] [-] johnchristopher|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yoz-y|8 years ago|reply
Which is why there are plenty ideas for a better design.
[+] [-] xxxdarrenxxx|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] turc1656|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heavenlyblue|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soapdude|8 years ago|reply
Let me know if I'm being misinformed by low-life YouTube conspirators.
[+] [-] nsxwolf|8 years ago|reply
If it takes two people turning two keys to launch a missile, shouldn't it take the same to send a missile warning?
[+] [-] jack6e|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rudism|8 years ago|reply
Perhaps they should also add a "false alarm that this was a false alarm, there really is a threat after all" option in case the "false alarm" option is selected accidentally after warning about a real threat. /s
I don't know how anyone in Hawaii can be expected to trust or take these alerts seriously after this.
[+] [-] Overtonwindow|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AtTheLast|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jkolyer|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Froyoh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nolo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yoz-y|8 years ago|reply
Having yes/no labels on buttons, or this kind of random labeled links in haphazard order is always bad. Experienced users may not do errors, but their life would still be better if the UX was good. UX is the same as accessibility, if it is good it does not bother you but it can always help, even if you think you do not need it.
[+] [-] Ajedi32|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] schnable|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ams6110|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] macintux|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonpeacock|8 years ago|reply
Good UX would eliminate any mindless clicking, for example: * significantly different workflow than the test workflow * requiring multi-person confirmation * showing the resulting action with (time-limited) undo * and more...
[+] [-] macspoofing|8 years ago|reply
No. People are people. They will make mistakes - even smart and experienced individuals.
[+] [-] dsjoerg|8 years ago|reply
Button-pusher: obviously.
Interface designer: clearly.
Manager responsible for project: also
The manager's manager: yes
The whole department head: how is this person making decisions?
The people who set the budgets and procedures: How do they know that work is being done well enough?
Vern Miyagi: From decades in the army, your process designers should understand best practices in the design of emergency systems, and yet they clearly did not. Why?
Arthur "Joe" Logan: Same question.
Ironically http://dod.hawaii.gov/hiema/hawaii-emergency-management-agen... fails with a Javascript error about "superclick is not a function".
Anyway it goes all the way up, apparently through the military chain of command. So I say Thanks Obama.