Posted on 08/15/2019 11:24:55 AM PDT by CedarDave
Ive been working with touchscreens for a long time and there is no way they should be used to control a a war ship. They are prone to noise issues and they can actually not work for some fingers. They should be scrapped.
Used to be you got in a high-end British or Italian car, driving was simple. Controls were exactly where you expect them to be and you don’t have to go looking for them in the dark.
And off with the heads of all who design dashboards to look like freakin iPads!!! How can one steady one’s finger in a moving vehicle to push the d*** screens in the the right place!!! Off with their heads I say!
Me too, I’ll keep my 2005 Jeep with a stick shift and hand cranked roll down windows.
The reason that is not done is that there are no more battleships!!
See my tagline. Sometimes the old ways are better.
“Poor software design, not poor technology.”
agreed.
no reason in the world that well-designed GUI controls couldn’t mimic physical controls one-for-one ...
A friend of mine bought a new small pickup truck and was driving home from the dealership. He concentrated a little too much on setting the radio buttons and slammed into a parked car. Totaled his pickup.
There is extensive redundancy in McCain's steering system. There is no single point of failure. The problem was lack of training. When the CO directed the watch to reconfigure the helm, neither the CO, nor the helmsman understood how the system works or how to configure it properly. There are written procedures at the helm on how to do it (EOSS and CSOSS) that watchstanders could have referred to, but they were likely intimidated by the CO to act quickly. The Strait of Malacca is no place for on-the-job training, or trying something for the first time.
GUI controls are two dimensional.
Real controls are three dimensional.
Anyone who doesn’t understand that fact, and its implications, should be permanently banned from ever developing any form of control system.
Looks like they’re going back to a more TOS interface.
CC
Redshirts last words: “ captain, I found something!...aaaargh!!”
CC
I know somebody who works for a medical device company.
Their touchscreen controls have to undergo test after test after test. Ergonomic tests. Field tests with actual nurses. Focus-group type tests with other users.
The goal is to make them “idiot proof”. Impossible to hit the wrong button even in the most stressful or confused situations.
Sounds like the DOD did not do the same.
“Couple of rocks and I was up and out of the rut. Standard maneuver with a manual transmission. Try doing that with an automatic transmission with a touch screen.”
Yes, you lose functionality with this over-complicated crap. Same with a paddle shift manual. Same with an electric parking brake which is on/off.
There is also the issue that you can teach and train people on some complicated setup, but under stress they revert to simple behaviors that are not correct for the complicated controls.
An example, a CHP officer who had a Lexus loaner car which was a runaway due to a stuck electronic throttle. Under stress, he could not figure out how to turn it off (no key, had to press and hold the start button).
The officer used the car brakes to keep it at a safe speed until the brakes burned out and failed. Then the car took off at maximum speed and everyone in that car died in the crash.
I bet they train for that!
Sounds like the Russians have been designing our Navy ships.
Ships like the Zumwalt, destroyer or whatever it was supposed to be, the litoral ships/boats and this cluster with the touch screen on combat ships.
Supposedly, the Navy ships are intended to go into harms way and as a result, suffer some damage. That’s why there are numerous casualty control drills on how to keep the ship operating with some damage. All engineering/propulsion systems should be designed to be operated manually if necessary
I was an engineer on a couple of Liberty ships in which the engineering plant could be fully operational without electricity. The back-up boiler feed and fuel oil pumps were steam reciprocating pumps. . The forced draft blowers were steam turbine. Can’t get much simpler than that.
We won WW2 with ships like that. But then, the sailors were of a much sturdier stock.
I understand that there are no more steam ships, but still, there must be a way to design modern ships, with gas turbines, that can be simple to operate and repair battle damage.
I would help also if you could have an all male crew, unlike on the USS Fitzgerald where the mostly female bridge watch were having a cat fight and refused to talk to each other, wrecked the ship and killed some of their shipmates.
But you have been told that diversity is good for everyone, right?
I guess. Well, better late than never...:)
Correction: I said that I was on Liberty ships, I’m old but not THAT old.
I should have said I was on Victory ships.
Maybe they can go the McDonalds route where they have buttons with little pictures on them, like burger, fries, drink, etc.
Should help with our the increasingly “multicultural” armed forces that the elites have decided we shall have.
Okay. I'm not a mariner but I was trying to find as generic a term as I could think of for U.S. Navy ships.
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