The data behind the search for MH370 | Hacker News Reader

The data behind the search for MH370

geoscience-au.maps.arcgis.com

107 pointssohkamyung29 comments

I'm going to have to disagree with many of the other comments and say that this is a very well designed website. In my opinion, it's the optimal way to present this data in an interactive format short of a presentation from someone in the same room. Large amounts of geographic data that covers as large an area as the search for MH370 did, is not easy to present.

Very cool.

On a laptop with no mouse it is just frustrating though. It also makes it nearly impossible to skim.

I’ve I said earlier I’m primarily a webdesigner and not against animations etc But this is poorly executed.

Here’s (almost) the same concept, with a far better UX :

https://tympanus.net/codrops/2015/12/16/animated-map-path-fo...

As a user here’s my main gripes when comparing the two UIs :

- The map in tympanus is in svg. Lighter, see how the interaction is always in sync with the user interaction ? Why using tilze at maps if you can’t zoom ? You’re lazy loading but I’m not lazy reading.

- The text flows naturally : you need to choose either you build a powerpoint with bullets either you write more elaborate content. This UI is more appropriate to bullets but is displayed with a powerpoint type UI because of …

- Scroll hijacking : everyone not working in a webagency hates it. Even your boss who tells you that (s)he finds it cool hates it when they need to use it.

…And the stock video of water isn’t bringing much (but that’s another debate)

The only good piece of news is that the UI seems to be open-source (though bound to external services) so if you want to punish your users or improve the whole thing : https://github.com/Esri/story-map-cascade

But as I’ve also said earlier people died in this crash and families are still looking for explanations and I don’t find this way to narrate the events appropriate. Maybe I’m old school and should just say to my relatives : If I die in a tragic fashion please don’t let any webagency and government agency do parrallaxes on the circumstances of my death and its side effects

here's another scrolling variant using canvas: http://global.blackyak.com

I don't have a background in webdesign so I cannot speak to the inefficiencies of how this is put together. I do, however, have a background in GIS/Geography and from that perspective I still maintain that this is a great way to present the timeline of events and information gathered. It's an especially great way to present the data for a layperson who

A) has a passing interest in geographic/oceanic/general data topics and

B) doesn't really care how efficient the UI is because they don't live in that world on a daily basis

That said, I also have the opinion that not all websites HAVE to be optimized for mobile viewing. There are instances, such as this one, where the data/information being communicated does not lend itself to mobile and therefore should not be compromised.

To your last point, I think I understand the direction you're coming from, but I have to disagree with the final argument you make. Just because a lot of people died in a tragic accident doesn't mean that we cannot celebrate and utilize information that is a direct result of that tragedy.

The designers of the linked site are not celebrating the deaths of these people, they're sharing and marveling in the data that was produced as an unexpected secondary and tertiary result of those deaths. One does not preclude the other and, I would argue, it would be a disservice those who died to NOT share and learn from the data produced.

For some software the term "bloatware" was coined, which had to many features which do not add any useful functionalites, but made working with the software overly complicated.

Do we have a similiar term for overdesigned websites which makes reading them feel like doing hard work?

I'm in general not against it (as I use reader mode) but given the fact that people died in this crash and that this is an official website a more simple design should have been used.

I'm generally not against this particular sort of design, mainly because it doesn't pretend to be a "normal" webpage. It's a very specific sort of guided presentation.

This is the most annoying page design/behaviour I have encountered in the last 30 days. I am very curious, but I just can't.

I don't understand this at all. You scroll, and new text appears and the map in the background simply shifts to different points and shows some different data. This seems exceedingly simple to display all the data they wanted.

I think the point is that the page designers want to show me a movie, while I want to read an article.

It's annoying, because the fate of this plane is far more important to me than tedious details of web design. But I find the page incomrpehensible and will have to learn the facts somewhere else.

literally the only mode of interaction to consume the content is "scrolling down with your mouse" and this is apparently beyond your capabilities of comprehension?

That's really neat. Jump down to the "Phase Two Data", they found some really cool stuff down there. Whale bones and ships and cable.

I would love to, but the site is basically un-navigable.

For those wondering why the plane wasn't found if we know about the 7th arc, take a look at the Air France 447[1].

There were much more information about it, the route was consistent with what was planned, even floating wreckage and bodies were recovered from the sea, and yet it took 2 years to find things on the ocean floor.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Accident

I am not in this industry so I am curious, what has been implemented if anything to prevent losing another plane is such a manner? have there been any general changes to requirements for airliners or crews?

I'm of two minds on the use of scrolling as a method of interaction with the page. The term "scrolljacking" has been coined as the negative way to describe this particular style where the page itself is designed to render based on the scroll position. At the same time, I'm completely behind trying to find new and more effective ways of interacting with content.

To me, this page is mostly effective, but I'm on a Macbook Pro, which is probably the best-case viewing experience, but I can't imagine this working well on older mobile devices.

There's a lot of comments claiming the site is "un-navigable" which I find to be curious given that the only thing one has to do is scroll down

And this is coming from a person who is not into the whole "scrolljack" thing to bring things into and out of view. Its implementation here is a bit hokey, but that's the state of web UI these days. I was able to see all the information, I can say that at least.

Doesn't work for me on mobile - content is clipped on the screen edge

That is a valid criticism, then.

This was amazing! It's a bit sad that scientists had to piggyback on search missions to get high quality data but I am glad they made the best of the situation; a silver lining of sorts.

I thought that was going to be about Bayesian methods:

http://www.springer.com/de/book/9789811003783

"The available data indicates the aircraft entered the sea close to a long, narrow arc in the southern Indian Ocean, the 7th Arc."

"indicates". If it did enter the sea along this arc, wouldn't they have found it? Perhaps the assumption is wrong? Where is the working showing the calculation of this arc? Where is the peer review and discussion of this work calculating this arc? As far as I know it has never been released (correct me if I'm wrong) and the arc has all the hallmarks of a wild goose chase.

> If it did enter the sea along this arc, wouldn't they have found it?

Perhaps you're unclear on how large the ocean is, how deep the sea floor is, how rugged the sea floor is, and how little we know about it... even with all of the scanning done.

It's entirely within the realm of possibility that MH370 fell and was covered by a landslide, or fell into a crevasse, or one of many other things.

It's not like the sea floor is a large flat plain with a shiny metal object sitting on top.

You should always question assumptions. Especially when millions of dollars are being spent searching. Do you have the data, the calculation of this arc, and the review of this method or not?

Do you think its strange that all the debris has washed up on the opposite side of the Indian ocean to this arc?

The debris took a long time to appear. That fits perfectly well a scenario where the plane crashed on one side of the ocean and the debris washed up on the other side.

> Do you have the data, the calculation of this arc, and the review of this method or not

I don't, and neither do you. But appeals to ignorance are a well-known logical fallacy.

My point (which you missed), is that it is entirely reasonable to think that the search is difficult, with a small chance of success. You don't argue with my points, because you can't. They're all 100% true, and you know it.

Instead, you play the conspiracy thinking game of pushing false doubts into the narrative.

> Do you think its strange that all the debris has washed up on the opposite side of the Indian ocean to this arc?

i.e. you're entirely unaware as to how oceans work.

This is normal for oceans.

So you deny reality, and instead pretend to be skeptical by raising irrelevant details.

No, you're not smarter than everyone else. No, there is no conspiracy to hide the evidence.

> Do you think its strange that all the debris has washed up on the opposite side of the Indian ocean to this arc?

Did you RTFA? There's a simulation near the end that sanity checks the crash arc with where the debris washed up on the east coast of Africa.

"Using the locations of confirmed debris, the Australian Government’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, the CSIRO, conducted drift modelling analysis to determine possible locations of the MH370 crash site. The results of this modelling were consistent with the search area."

Yes, it has been published. See Inmarsat's post on their reasoning, based on AAIB data at [0] and the WIki page [1] also has a good summary. The peer reviewed paper [2] by Inmarsat is also available from the Journal of Navigation.

0. https://www.inmarsat.com/news/malaysian-government-publishes...

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_of_Malaysia_Airlines_...

2. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-navigatio...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com