Good and bad usability (week 9)

 It is of utmost importance to make things easy to read and as foolproof as possible. It can be a decisive factor since many disasters can be avoided or happen because of that.

1) Air Inter Flight 148 crashed because of the small screen

This disaster happened in 1992 because pilots practically descended into mountain. A two-year investigation concluded that ridiculously small display screen was most likely at fault. The pilots intended to descend toward the airport at an angle of -3.3 degrees, so they likely entered "-3.3" into the autopilot and proceeded with landing procedures. However the autopilot happened to be sent in the wrong mode of feet per minute instead of degrees. So those entered digits were interpreted as 3300 feet per minute - over four times faster than pilots originally intended. Autopilot display screen was simply a two-digit screen and it gave no hints as to what mode was actually used. Even the simplest alarm clocks have more safeguards!

Another problem was that because of the competition with French TGV high speed trains, Air Inter presumably encouraged pilots to fly lower and at higher speeds. And because of that they decided not to install or disable ground proximity warning system -simply because the system would give too many warnings due to lower altitude flying. The system that could warn Flight 148 pilots that they are too close to ground.

The entire accident could have been avoided if the screen had space for two more digits or some sort of indication about what mode of autopilot was being used.

2) Apple Watch's ECG feature and Fall Detection have saved numerous lives across the world

Apple Watch was more about fashion and notifications when it first launched in 2014. Fast forward 7 years later and it is very much a health and wellbeing device with a number of features, including ECG (Apple Watch is the only direct-to-consumer device with built-in ECG) and and irregular heart rhythm notification. The irregular rhythm notification feature checks heart rhythms in the background every two hours and sends a notification if an irregular heart rhythm is detected. Obviously, Apple Watch is not going to replace or be as good as hospital quality electrocardiograph machine but the idea is that it can potentially catch and notify its owner of life threatening condition before the first signs will even show. And there are dozens of stories where people have no doubt they are still alive only thanks to their smart watch.

Fall Detection is another crucial feature that has already saved many lives. It detects when user had a hard fall, and if he is immobile for a minute after the fall, it will start a 30-second countdown. During these 30 seconds, the watch will tap user on the wrist and sound an alarm, which keeps increasing in volume as well. The vibration is to make sure that the person is unresponsive, and the alarm notifies nearby people that help is needed. Once the countdown is over, Apple Watch will contact emergency services and alert emergency contacts. When the call goes through, an audio message will play, informing emergency services about the fall along with location coordinates. Needles to say, this feature already saved some unlucky hikers and clumsy older people.