
Redesigning Hawaii’s Emergency Alert System UI - python__
https://hackernoon.com/redesigning-hawaiis-emergy-alert-interface-in-the-open-91c6318a7045?b9
======
TrueGeek
Going the other way, on /r/ProgrammerHumor/ they're showing designs that are
even worse than the original.

[https://gfycat.com/DevotedUnfortunateBongo](https://gfycat.com/DevotedUnfortunateBongo)

[https://gfycat.com/KindlyEverlastingGibbon](https://gfycat.com/KindlyEverlastingGibbon)

[https://gfycat.com/PepperyGoldenAfricanpiedkingfisher](https://gfycat.com/PepperyGoldenAfricanpiedkingfisher)

[https://i.redd.it/ubnpsrzljla01.gif](https://i.redd.it/ubnpsrzljla01.gif)

[https://v.redd.it/8pcx6ymh0ha01](https://v.redd.it/8pcx6ymh0ha01)

[https://gfycat.com/QueasyGrandIriomotecat](https://gfycat.com/QueasyGrandIriomotecat)

[https://i.redd.it/y0a33r0ohja01.png](https://i.redd.it/y0a33r0ohja01.png)

[https://gfycat.com/BadOrganicCanary](https://gfycat.com/BadOrganicCanary)

[https://gfycat.com/BabyishBonyHorseshoebat](https://gfycat.com/BabyishBonyHorseshoebat)

[https://gfycat.com/RegalHighAlaskanhusky](https://gfycat.com/RegalHighAlaskanhusky)

~~~
jakozaur
[https://i.redd.it/ubnpsrzljla01.gif](https://i.redd.it/ubnpsrzljla01.gif)

is the best.

------
jmisavage
It looks like it would help prevent the recent incident, but the confirmation
screen at the end doesn't make it clear whether it's a test or a real thing. I
know there was that big screen at the front, but if you're confirming
something you need all the options presented again to double check.

~~~
mc32
There was a story of a nurse who was looking after a mother and her child in
ICU. Child had many probes and alarms for alerting of change in condition.

The alarms were going off constantly, but often times, the condition was not
severe. Mother was not getting sleep. Nurse took pity on mother. She tried
silencing alarms. The system had, i believe, seven warning screens warning
against deactivation, all needed to be acked to proceed. She proceeded. Mother
got rest. Alarms were silently blaring. Nurses did not get the critical
alarms. Toddler did not make it. Nurse obviously fired hospital sued,
monitoring system mfg sued.

Monitoring mfg stated they didn't put in further failsafes because they never
imagined someone would possibly go past seven ack Windows with all the
warnings . Someone did.

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
Did you know its actually a crime to sit in traffic and constantly honk your
horn for no reason at all? That's because alerts are _supposed_ to actually
alert someone of something. By constantly sounding alerts for basically no
reason, you are creating an unsafe environment, because REAL alerts will be
ignored.

I've sat by those beds, and had alarms not stop for 12 hours straight. They
don't get nurses to come by and check, they aren't alerting to anything
important and they are completely ignored.

I believe the company should be sued, not for the GROSS negligence of the
nurse unplugging every system, but for the minor negligence of designing a
system where constant alerts that don't really mean anything or require any
action can't be silenced.

~~~
mc32
The problem is she not only turned off the alarms and beeps in the patient
room, but also all the notifications going to nurses' station and pagers, so
when the real bad thing happened, no one got alerted.

------
niftich
As others are pointing out, steps 2 and 3 are flawed in this design. In an
effort to break out the decision steps into a wizard, the author chooses to
treat the distinction of 'test alert' vs 'real alert' as a simple
configuration option whose decision was already chosen, so it doesn't need to
be shown on step 2. This is the sort of designer-bias mistake that,
ironically, leads to terrible interfaces like the original that precipitated
this whole sequence.

Test alerts and real alerts are entirely different in every imaginable way:
one's normal procedure, the other is hopefully a rare event; one causes people
to scoff at their phones while the other creates urgency and concern. Playing
up the distinction on 'step 1' is good, but eliminating all visual indications
of the choice on further steps is bad in ways a confirmation screen can't
rectify. UI is only a portion of the UX and the overall operator process, but
there should be as few commonalities between the process (and UX) surrounding
test alerts and the process surrounding real alerts as the trained operators
of the system can bear. It's even odd to have them originate in the same entry
point, but as the author has done, I'll also keep my criticism focused on a UI
that can do both.

Concretely, I propose a simple way of rectifying the loss of context on 'step
2' is to get rid of the spurious 1-2-3 breadcrumb that doesn't communicate
anything that isn't abundantly clear otherwise, and use the space for several
conditional indicators that trigger in case a real alert was selected. Warning
icons, clear wording, exclamation marks, attention-pulling colors or patterns
should be used to distinguish the context of real alerts from text alerts in
so many visual ways that accidentally confusing them, even through a momentary
loss of situational awareness, is practically impossible.

------
eagleal
While we all love pretty and overdesigned UIs, for it to be more 2018 friendly
make sure to add 5MB of JavaScript and CSS dependencies and new features that
only works on Chrome!

As others have noted though step-based flow is not really recommended on a
mission-critical UI as you can't rely on user memory. Why not just show the
choices sequentially without hiding anything through various generic message
screens?

Alert type: [ test ] - live

Message: other1 - [ Kauai county only ] - other2

Confirm: Send test > Kauai county only?

------
CameronBanga
We're going to see a multitude of design hot takes here over the next 10 days,
but I think most of these designers are missing the problem. The interface
that caused this failure isn't because the system lacked designers. This
design was created by being handcuffed by bureaucracy, with no strong
leadership in place to solve the problems that were caused.

~~~
always_good
No, the UI is just a limited problem and people enjoy taking their whack at it
just like how developers like to test out their own abstractions.

Neither a line of code nor a stroke of paint is going to solve bureaucratic
issues. To suggest that everyone is unknowingly glancing past these issues
except for you is a bit tacky, as if one is trying to score some me-too
points.

~~~
majewsky
It's not that. People are talking about the UI design because that's their
area of self-efficacy. They are able to design a better UI, but they're not
able to come up with a better bureaucracy.

------
olliewagner
Imagining using this 3-page design makes me feel uncomfortable at step 2 and
3. What if I didn't know what the "test" notification was supposed to look
like and wanted to make sure the system took my input correctly? What if it's
such a dire emergency that the operator forgets (perhaps from experiencing
intense anxiety) which one was selected? I think a stronger approach would be
to flatten the design to one page. You could then visually confirm that you've
chosen a test/real alert, which alert was chosen, and then see what those
options actually produce. In addition, because of the seriousness of sending
an alert, I think it would be better to make the "Yes, Send Now" button harder
to engage — maybe a slide to send, press and hold to send, or simply give a
confirmation dialog after clicking it would help.

~~~
softwareqrafter
You should probably also keep in mind that this isn't a consumer app. Who ever
uses this will have seen the entire process before and tested it in a training
environment. The redesign seems mostly to focus on making sure stuff isn't
done by accident.

~~~
ceejayoz
I've seen video of police shootouts where the cops - presumably trained on
such a thing, plus daily exposure to tense situations - miss repeatedly from
just a couple feet away, trip and fall, and otherwise screw up.

Training is not a replacement for good design. It helps, but I'd expect
someone _genuinely_ thinking they're about to be nuked to act differently than
someone participating in a drill about it.

------
casperb
I think step 2 and 3 are not very clear that you are sending an important
message to millions of people, that should only be send in a rare occasion. It
could just be that the designer likes red.

What blows my mind is that something like this can be send by a single person.
A better approach would be that you need 2 or 3 people to send such an alert
to millions of people.

How can a single person, that misplaced it's cursor by 20 pixels have such an
effect? That is not only changed by fancier fonts and more colors IMO.

~~~
koolba
Is it possible to have two separate cursors?

Having two mice plugged in controls the same cursor so it doesn’t work for
dual entry.

With two separate cursors you can have a “double double click” on two sides of
the screen. It’s be like the dual key, “ _1-2-3-Engage!_ ” in the movies.

------
abalos
This is pretty awesome. Kudos to the author. It's cool to see the thought
process around designing for clarity instead of purely simplicity on high-
impact systems like this.

------
dstjean
What I find astonishing is that there was not a Two-man rule security control
in place.

~~~
hvidgaard
UI is not even remotely relevant compared to this. It can be as ugly 80'ies
inspired as it wants to with poor UX. It should require 2 people signing off
with their credentials for it to be send.

------
scrumper
Why couldn't you just have the color scheme on the web page invert if you
click one of the unusual, dangerous live alerts, so you're immediately very
clear that you've selected a non-normal action?

So:

\-- Business as usual --

1\. Click test alert

2\. Confirmation appears.

\-- Nuclear attack or accidental click --

1a. Click live alert

2a. Invert colors

3a. Confirmation appears.

Doable entirely client-side, no need for extensive server-side changes which
all these redesign ideas require. And the fact that the webpage background
just turned black is clue that you've done something out of the ordinary,
especially at shift change (so you don't just blindly hit the confirmation).

------
alkonaut
Don’t redesign the UI redesign the legal and bureaucratic frameworks that
leads to the current UI.

But I get that that’s not much fun.

------
jlebrech
this could be written as a terminal app too, and without the need for the
idiot interface called the mouse.

------
jaunkst
make them confirm by typing test or alert

