14 votes

Five UX improvements that could save lives

23 comments

  1. [12]
    mtset
    (edited )
    Link
    This isn't workable because of the structure of the notification system and how difficult sustainable software development is for both iOS and Android. It's very difficult to build software for...

    This isn't workable because of the structure of the notification system and how difficult sustainable software development is for both iOS and Android.

    It's very difficult to build software for mobile devices that will continue to operate without continued investment - specifically, investment in software engineers. It's a reality of the walled-garden model that these companies are incentivised to break and remove "out of date" software, so that software which uses newer APIs with new features, better security, and, most importantly, payment models can be promoted.

    It's easy to see this on Android, where "obsolete" apps are available, and useful, on FDroid for years after being abandoned by their developers, because FDroid recompiles them onto new library versions. The same apps have been made uninstallable through the Play Store because their authors have not recompiled them, even when they are source-compatible with newer API versions. On iOS, Apple literally just deletes old apps, regardless of whether or not they work, I guess because they want to deprecate old ABI or something like that.

    So, it would be a huge effort, either from the duopolists to define and maintain a preinstalled or native system capability for this, and/or for the government to keep up with Apple and Google's bullshit. Plus, most of the rich notification APIs discussed here are probably going to get deprecated and replaced soon anyway, so that'll add another huge burden.

    I agree that this would be great, but our society is organized in the precisely worst way to actually accomplish this.

    EDIT: I will say that the two appropriate ways to solve this would be an mandated standard that the govt develops (forcing the big G and A, and other future phone OS devs, to bear the burden forever) or to nationalize some large software development firms and develop a national phone OS. We will get neither.

    9 votes
    1. [6]
      Akir
      Link Parent
      That's not the only reason why this is not going to happen. The added photos means that the amount of data that needs to be distributed has just exploded, and carriers are going to throw every...

      That's not the only reason why this is not going to happen. The added photos means that the amount of data that needs to be distributed has just exploded, and carriers are going to throw every possible roadblock to having them pay for it. Not to mention getting access to those pictures are going to make it take longer for those alerts to go out. And what do you do if the car has special marking or is in a color that the manufacturer didn't offer, so there's no good representative picture?

      Finally, we would need a far more competent government to get anything close to this put together, and when (or if) we actually get one they have far more pressing matters to attend to.

      5 votes
      1. NaraVara
        Link Parent
        There's no reason it needs to be pushed through. It could just be stored on device. The message itself can be basically just be a text file that references the library of images and standard text...

        That's not the only reason why this is not going to happen. The added photos means that the amount of data that needs to be distributed has just exploded, and carriers are going to throw every possible roadblock to having them pay for it.

        There's no reason it needs to be pushed through. It could just be stored on device. The message itself can be basically just be a text file that references the library of images and standard text in the alert application.

        You also don't necessarily need a picture of the vehicle, you could just do a silhouette for whether it's a pickup truck or a sedan or what.

        Now it won't happen because LOL at the idea of data interoperability within a single agency in the government, let alone multiple governments at once.

        2 votes
      2. [4]
        vord
        Link Parent
        I noted in another post...but 3 adequate jpg for a amber alert (300x300) easily can weigh in at less than 64KB. For phones that already exchange GB/hour, that's pretty trivial, and elimintes...

        I noted in another post...but 3 adequate jpg for a amber alert (300x300) easily can weigh in at less than 64KB.

        For phones that already exchange GB/hour, that's pretty trivial, and elimintes dependancies on accessible web server.

        I browsed Steam's game section for like 5 minutes and used 500 MB of data on mobile.

        1 vote
        1. [3]
          mtset
          Link Parent
          As a counterexample, I rarely use more than 500MB of mobile data per month, using a Pixel 5a on Ting.

          I browsed Steam's game section for like 5 minutes and used 500 MB of data on mobile.

          As a counterexample, I rarely use more than 500MB of mobile data per month, using a Pixel 5a on Ting.

          3 votes
          1. [2]
            vord
            Link Parent
            Oh I only pay for 1GB of data, and wifi is the norm. But it goes to show that the mobile networks can easily handle the load, especially in a 1-way broadcast, it's just all posturing.

            Oh I only pay for 1GB of data, and wifi is the norm. But it goes to show that the mobile networks can easily handle the load, especially in a 1-way broadcast, it's just all posturing.

            1 vote
            1. mtset
              Link Parent
              Ahhh, I see what you mean. Yes, I think it's all about greed. We definitely have the infrastructure to handle something like this!

              Ahhh, I see what you mean. Yes, I think it's all about greed. We definitely have the infrastructure to handle something like this!

              2 votes
    2. [2]
      Ember
      Link Parent
      I think another good alternative would be for Apple & Google to build and maintain it themselves. They can spare a single development team maintaining "emergency" features like Amber Alerts, COVID...

      I think another good alternative would be for Apple & Google to build and maintain it themselves. They can spare a single development team maintaining "emergency" features like Amber Alerts, COVID exposure, 911 calls, etc. The government can mandate the phone OS either provides the old functionality of just free-form text or new structured input that populates the new UI. If the user's phone doesn't have an Internet connection to download the associated images, then fall back to the old notification or image alt text.

      2 votes
      1. mtset
        Link Parent
        Can? Yes. Will? No. The profit motive is fundamentally destructive to social well-being and this is a great example.

        They can spare a single development team maintaining "emergency" features like Amber Alerts, COVID exposure, 911 calls, etc.

        Can? Yes. Will? No. The profit motive is fundamentally destructive to social well-being and this is a great example.

    3. [3]
      vord
      Link Parent
      If we can't get two of the most profitable companies in the world (and their government) to figure out a simple standard to push out less than 64KB of data to each user to potentially save a...

      If we can't get two of the most profitable companies in the world (and their government) to figure out a simple standard to push out less than 64KB of data to each user to potentially save a child's life then we have failed as humans. They probably push/pull more data every minute anyway to collect and send advertising data.

      If a simple data model were agreed on, it would be relatively trivial for phone vendors to implement, even if their specific UI isn't the same. The government could easily fix this problem if they actually cared about protecting children instead of using them as a pawn to deploy authoritarian tools.

      1 vote
      1. [2]
        mtset
        Link Parent
        I find it hard to look at the world today and say that the way we organize ourselves as a society has not, fundamentally, failed. That's why I'm a radical. Right. But we know they don't care about...

        then we have failed as humans.

        I find it hard to look at the world today and say that the way we organize ourselves as a society has not, fundamentally, failed. That's why I'm a radical.

        The government could easily fix this problem if they actually cared about protecting children instead of using them as a pawn to deploy authoritarian tools.

        Right. But we know they don't care about children except as tools.

        1 vote
        1. vord
          Link Parent
          Yup. Twas a post of agreement.

          Yup. Twas a post of agreement.

          1 vote
  2. Immortal
    Link
    I feel like such a nitpick but how are you out there talking about UX improvements with a website like that...

    I feel like such a nitpick but how are you out there talking about UX improvements with a website like that...

    9 votes
  3. [3]
    EgoEimi
    Link
    I really like this. I've long felt that Amber Alert and other emergency notifications are getting abused to the point where they've lost their sense of urgency. And this will cause some people to...

    I really like this.

    I've long felt that Amber Alert and other emergency notifications are getting abused to the point where they've lost their sense of urgency. And this will cause some people to not immediately heed emergency notifications for serious and imminent incidents like an active shooter or bomb or tornado.

    A possible kidnapping is terrible, but it's 20 miles away and the car is pretty generic and it's 3am — what am I supposed to do, run outside on my street and keep watch in the 0.00001% chance that I'll spot them? Why don't we have an automated traffic surveillance network that can detect and flag specific vehicles? — instead of waking up everyone in a metropolitan area for a single crime.

    7 votes
    1. [2]
      ICN
      Link Parent
      At a time when multiple states are looking to punish people who leave their state to get an abortion, I really don't want to put more tracking powers in the hands of the government.

      Why don't we have an automated traffic surveillance network that can detect and flag specific vehicles?

      At a time when multiple states are looking to punish people who leave their state to get an abortion, I really don't want to put more tracking powers in the hands of the government.

      11 votes
  4. [5]
    asterisk
    Link
    Itʼs kinda ironic, because during the first entering to this site shows me:

    Itʼs kinda ironic, because during the first entering to this site shows me:

    Could not load Convertflow script

    5 votes
    1. [2]
      Greg
      Link Parent
      It’s kind of impressively bad - after the loading spinner (long enough to be frustrating even on a very fast connection), it tells me to use the arrow keys on my keyboard to navigate. I’m on...

      It’s kind of impressively bad - after the loading spinner (long enough to be frustrating even on a very fast connection), it tells me to use the arrow keys on my keyboard to navigate. I’m on mobile. Admittedly left and right swipe do seem to work, but the layout has crammed the foreground into a tiny landscape rectangle while scaling the background to portrait slightly taller than my screen, so there’s vertical scroll despite the actual content being confined to about 20% of my total screen height.

      If you’re going to reinvent the wheel, you need to be very confident that you can actually improve on the status quo, and this is a pretty clear example of what falling short looks like.

      8 votes
      1. Diff
        Link Parent
        It's only slightly better on a laptop. Even on a slow connection it loaded fast, but typsetting was often broken with single placed words often having a letter or two wrapping to where it didn't...

        It's only slightly better on a laptop. Even on a slow connection it loaded fast, but typsetting was often broken with single placed words often having a letter or two wrapping to where it didn't belong, or having headers overlapping with body copy. And it wasn't possible to zoom in or out to give the text more room so it'd stop overlapping since it seems to be defined in a way that's independent of zoom.

        4 votes
    2. Liru
      Link Parent
      Yeah, at first I thought it was a satire site because it hung at this screen for me for over a minute.

      Yeah, at first I thought it was a satire site because it hung at this screen for me for over a minute.

      4 votes
    3. Pistos
      Link Parent
      Related: If you try to view the site with cookies rejected, you get nothing but: and, when you look at said console, it shows an infinite loop of error spew.

      Related: If you try to view the site with cookies rejected, you get nothing but:

      Application error: a client-side exception has occurred (see the browser console for more information).

      and, when you look at said console, it shows an infinite loop of error spew.

      3 votes
  5. [2]
    NoblePath
    Link
    Marginally related but a strong pet peeve: ther are some places that could use emprovement. Deprovement? Removal of improvements that really aren’t. Like, for example, touch screen comtrols in...

    Marginally related but a strong pet peeve: ther are some places that could use emprovement. Deprovement? Removal of improvements that really aren’t. Like, for example, touch screen comtrols in cars. Or toasters. Or elementary schools.

    3 votes
    1. Ember
      Link Parent
      I'd guess it's because touch screens are cheaper for companies. They can ship a touch screen and spend years revising the software instead of paying the up-front hardware & design costs for a...

      I'd guess it's because touch screens are cheaper for companies. They can ship a touch screen and spend years revising the software instead of paying the up-front hardware & design costs for a permanent set of physical controls. Then they can subsidize development by adding a subscription fee...

      3 votes