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"Most UIs that people design, including this library, are not meant for anything remotely similar to those situations."

You would think that, but that isn't necessarily the case. I worked for a Naval intelligence contractor back in 2007, and I was surprised at the amount of times there were requests at the top to "make it look cooler". War rooms at the time tended to look exactly like the Hollywood depictions. Not because Hollywood got it right, but because generals saw the movies and said, "I want one that looks like that". Even in the most functional of situations, flashy looks sell hearts.

Without getting into specifics, this is absolutely the case.

There was one instance where, when the new ops center opened, getting the tour of it was the thing everyone wanted. The brass thankfully obliged. Over a period of weeks, small groups got to go over and the new center, with it's large blue display edge lighting, and electronically frosting glass. I'll never forget this bemused airman, pressing a button while a circle of us stood around in a half circle, giving a very Simpsons-esq "Oooooooooohh!" as the glass went transparent to opaque, and transparent again.

Was it necessary? Absolutely not. Was it cool? Hell yeah it was. =D

It wasn't my intent to say that people designing serious systems don't like flashy things. More just that a lot of UI designers and projects posted on HN are focused on lower-stakes applications that can accommodate more artistic license.

But, my question is, did that actually make the war rooms less functional? In what ways did Hollywood get it wrong that they copied? Even a war room is a very different application than literally flying a fighter jet, which is arguably the most intense and demanding control experience in existence.

There was a "behind the scenes" style documentary about QinetiQ and/or DERA (it was around the time DERA was split into QinetiQ and DSTL) where the engineers were shown analysing the 3D displays from the "Aliens" dropship sequence for inspiration.

Like this?

https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16333376/us-navy-military...

Tesla’s have a touchscreen instead of analog controls, recently there was a case where a driver attempting to use the touchscreen wiper rate changer got in a collision and was deemed negligent.

Based on them taking arguably the single most important toggle in a car [1] and hiding it behind a touchscreen so that when you already are in shitty conditions and you can’t see, you have to take your entire focus off the road and navigate a touch screen interface, compared to every other car on the market where you can do it subconsciously while keeping your hands on the wheel... let’s just say I don’t think Elon’s companies care particularly much about creating interfaces that are easy and safe to use if it means sacrificing “aesthetic“.

https://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/news/german-court-rul...

[1] wipers and headlights are the 2 “I’m driving a massive hunk of steel at 80mph down the highway and I can’t see shit I need to fix this immediately” controls, and wipers are more likely to be needed at the spur of a moment, so I’d say it is the single most important toggle in a car and replacing it with navigating a touchscreen seems like it ought to be grounds for not street-certifying a car.

Tesla has very convenient wiper hardware button.

That button is the opposite of convenient. It only makes the wipers wipe once. There's no way to start/stop or change interval with it. Probably the worst design flaw of the car.

It wouldn't be a problem if the auto wipers worked, but Elon doesn't think they need a dedicated rain sensor because he believes neural nets can solve any problem just by looking at the autopilot cameras. So they don't work.

(I should note that it's still the best car I've ever driven by far)

Do you really think that changing wiper mode on Mercedes is much better than "touch screen"? It also awful to use and really hard to locate without looking at. I own both vehicles and they are about the same.

In emergency situation you can pres button as long as you want, a little bit weird but in reality very useful. Also pressing this button will open wiper settings and you can blindly pick a different mode.

Not like typical implementation in Mercedes.

I drive an '03 Mercedes and I can tell you that the wipers are absolutely intuitive -- just like almost every other car I've driven, from back before the automotive design industry collectively lost their minds. Touch screens have never belonged in a car, and they still don't.

I’m not particularly interested in whether Tesla is more or less convenient than whatever Mercedes is up to, what matters to me is that is is undeniably less convenient than the standard lever toggle that has been around since as long as I remember. In my 2004 4Runner I can go to any wiper configuration without taking my eyes off the road (or even thinking about it at all), I can do the same for head lights, radio, cruise control, A/C, traction control, transmission toggles, etc. To pay $$$ for a “modern” car that makes every one of those core operations more difficult is, to me, absurd.

I'm not an absolutist about physical controls vs. touchscreens. Of your examples, A/C and traction control are automatic enough that I don't fiddle with them during driving and the touchscreen works great. As for transmission, the Model 3 doesn't have one. Radio, headlights (brights), and cruise control have physical controls that work just fine.

The wiper controls are really my only complaint. It wouldn't even require hardware changes to fix, as they could add a gesture involving holding the button while moving the stalk or something like that; they just haven't bothered, presumably because they think everyone should just rely on the auto wipers.

> The wiper controls are really my only complaint.

Back to my original point: the wiper control is arguably (see above) the single most important important manually operated safety feature in a car (besides maybe the breaks). For them to have such poor design speaks to Elon’s ability to put function over form.

My understanding is that the button toggles enablement of the sensor-driven wiper mode. If this is correct, it means every Tesla driver is betting their life and the lives of those around them that for every instance of something on the windshield blocking their view, either the sensor will accurately respond to it, or they will be able to navigate the touchscreen to activate the manual override before needing to react to developing conditions on the road. Given the reliability of automotive grade sensors (I’m not the only one who has paid mechanics a lot of money to tell me the sensor was bad right?) and the difficulty of interacting with touch screens, that’s not a bet I’d be willing to take. Looking at the German case, I wish more people were unwilling to take that bet.

That button causes the wiper to wipe once, no matter what. No sensors involved. Yes you might have to keep hitting it but you aren't "betting anyone lives" on a sensor or UI.

Driver ended up crashing the car, that’s the result isn’t it.

I have no experience with the S but I can say that every Model 3 made has had light and wiper controls on the stalk.

Not sure, but it is hard to deny that Elon's personal taste in building everything "sexy" has something to do with it.

I think you're delving into the details and you're making valid points, I am mostly talking about the philosophy and approach in an abstract sense.

It's fine to use this library. Otherwise, the world would be a totally unremarkable place. If you consider the central point I was trying to make, to re-emphasize is that I wonder how much of influence do things like sci-fi aesthetics makes in designing serious products [1][2] (I suspect that it is widespread).

[1] https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61cGhQ0begL...

[2] https://miro.medium.com/max/800/1*eW4danopMOoMxEr5GBRZOA.png

I think it’s a somewhat orthogonal issue. I think you can approach the design of a serious interface with the F-15 philosophy while also incorporating aesthetic sensibilities. Yes, some people may end up designing serious interfaces that suffer from too much unnecessary chrome (I’ve heard of a lot of frustration with touchscreens in cars).

But I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with sci-fi aesthetics influencing interface design. What arguments can actually be made against the functional effectiveness of that oscilloscope or the SpaceX cockpit?

The question is the other way around, the onus is on the designer that wants to add unnecessary decorations: What arguments can be made to support adding of unnecessary decorations?

I really like HN design philosophy articulated by @dang here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23199062

Quoting: > Move slowly and preserve things

Everything should be questioned ruthlessly and UI is not like fashion that needs to keep up with trends. Although, if we are designing a website for a music band, all bets are off :)

What arguments can be made to support adding of unnecessary decorations?

Because without them, the world would be a totally unremarkable place. :) I think there is a lot of value to the images of SpaceX astronauts in their sleek suits, and the general flair with which they go about things. It inspires and excites people, it sparks joy.

I get what you're saying though and I also appreciate the functional minimalist design of places like HN and Craigslist (I much preferred the original purely text GameFAQs forums vs. alternatives at the time that had a lot of crazy stuff going on). I'm not saying at all that form should step on function in serious UIs but I do think both are important and aesthetics should not be dismissed or lamented.

It is also fun to question aesthetic choices for example - children's iPad apps - why do they need to use "friendly" and "fun" fonts, pastel colors, excessively rounded corners, etc? Nothing in human psyche dictates that children should be exposed to this particular type of aesthetic. I can understand if they're physical products and sharp corners for example need to be blunted, but there is a lot of excessive decoration. Blue/pink color themes with boys and girls toys is a whole another can of worms. I don't think children have any sort of native affinity for soft and cuddly aesthetics - probably the opposite from the evolutionary standpoint and developing early survival instincts.

Lol, I am not saying to develop iPad apps for children that look like F-15 controls, but the society is full of aesthetic subjectivity, noise, prejudices, norms, etc. whatever you wanna call it. Some University's psychology department should study this.

Children have a very strong affinity for bright colors and visual language

There's no such thing as "unnecessary" in an absolute sense. The question is "unnnecessary" to who.

"Unnecessary" decorations are necessary if you want something to stand out. If you don't want your house to look like your neighbor's, you're going to make "unnecessary" changes to it. Paint rooms different colors. Use different furniture. All unnecessary changes... if you don't care about them.

You seem to adopt the somewhat naive functionalist/minimalist philosophy that you can find in early modernist thought (e.g. Loos in "Ornament and Crime" [0]).

What those thinkers missed is that beauty and aesthetics are a function too.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_and_Crime

SpaceX touchscreen don’t work under acceleration.

F-15(or any other fighter) can be operated normally at -12G to +12G for important or critical functions.

Pretty stark contrast, oh, and Dragon LCD look so blurry and washed out for aviation display btw.

But hey, we can't criticize SpaceX UI because we're not astronauts and don't have first hand experience. That's the pushback you're going to get for saying anything against SpaceX's rampant disregard for basic aviation and space UI concepts. Just because Doug and Bob doesn't have problem with the UI/UX, doesn't mean that it isn't terrible.

Another example - the abort handle, instead of being painted with a hazard yellow/black stripes or some blaringly evident color scheme, it is painted matte black just like the rest of the dashboard.

Can you spot it in the center? https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0173/8204/7844/articles/IM...

You can easily mix it up with the handles for support on left and right side when its bumpy in the cockpit.

I can't see any defense to this. It is in a terrible place on the dashboard and on top of that it is painted black to hide it!

As a user, I want all my UI's to be just as elegant, purpose-driven and performant as whatever best of breed example you can think of (perhaps to the point where, like the controls of a cockpit, they feel like a natural extension of my body). Imagine if all Palm or Apple had strived for was "good enough".

The most enjoyable interfaces in games are often simple, functional and still match the theme. Yet many games go over the top with fancy artwork and god forbid time stealing animations. There is definitely a point in trying to stick to the setting with the UI, but it is a thin line.