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I’m a user experience designer. My favourite story is from aviation engineering. I don’t remember the year or all the details, but the US Navy had put stupid amounts of money and time into engineering a new fighter jet. It was worked out on paper and built to exact specifications. Then, during the first human test of it, the pilot ejected on the tarmac before it took off. The plane crashed, obviously, but the pilot couldn’t explain what happened (apparently he had a concussion from his unscheduled landing).
The plane was built again, and shortly after takeoff, the pilot again ejected without explanation.
What the fuck was going on?
In the retelling I heard, someone finally noticed the design of the cockpit was to blame. In trying to cram all the standard controls plus new ones into the smallest amount of space, the designers had moved the eject lever right next to the lever to adjust the seat position – they’d coloured the eject lever red, but the pilot couldn’t see that since it was below and slightly to the right of his ass, and both levers were the same size and shape. Nobody noticed this was a problem until at least two pilots accidentally ejected on takeoff.
This might be apocryphal, I don’t know, but I learnt it as an example of how things might look good on paper, but you can’t really know until a user fucks everything up.
I assume you’ve quit your day job.
I call shenanigans. This comment was a damp fish at best. It felt like haddock.
Weirdo here. We needed it for video games (pre-1990 at least).
We had a smokers’ wall in high school: a corner of the break yard next to the cafeteria that was designated by a yellow stripe painted on the ground. It was always full-to-bursting at every break, and if you had even a toe over it whilst smoking, it was immediate detention.
A pop and a puff of smoke meant we were going to miss the rest of our show, but would go on a fun trip to the electronics shop with dad. I loved that shop. So many cool things.
And the Netherlands. More than a dime, though.
Conversely, I remember rivers on fire.
(e: I think that was our biggest clue at the time we were fucking up.)
Calling in to the radio station to request your song, then sitting with your fingers hovering above the play and record buttons for two hours, waiting for them to play it. Missing the first few seconds because you got distracted, but you were the first one at school on Monday with the new song, so it was worth it.
TV Guide. Every week, you’d get a little digest in the post with a listing of that week’s shows, trivia, Q&As and interviews with insiders, and puzzles & games. I was very interested in movies and television, and devoured it cover to cover.
e: link
I blame this for my inability to sleep without white noise. I fell asleep to the television throughout my formative years.
Holy shit, this one is depressing.
Back when ‘do you have Showtime?’ was sleep-over code for ‘will we get to watch porn when the ‘rents go to sleep?’
We smoked everywhere. Grocery stores, hospital rooms, planes, taxis, buses, restaurants – no place was off limits, and there were barely any designated smoking sections. Everyone smoked, even if they didn’t, because it was literally everywhere.
Go back far enough and people who didn’t smoke often kept cigarettes and ashtrays for guests because it was a polite thing to do for company.
It’s one of the biggest (and lesser acknowledged) cultural shifts we’ve seen over the last several decades.
My grandmother still had the list of her friends’ numbers tacked on the wall next to her telephone stand (which was a little table and chair in the entry way with the house phone, notepad, pencil, and ashtray), and each was a four digit number along with the city name to tell the operator. You’d pick up and wait for the operator – no dialing – and then say ‘Midland 4119’ or whatever, then a person physically connected you.
By the time I was young, they’d replaced that with dialing, but it was recent enough that she hadn’t taken down her cheat sheet yet.
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