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by oven9342 832 days ago
People have already died because of the screens “The ship's user interface [touch screen] was found to have contributed to the sailors' confusion.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_John_S._McCain_and_Alnic_M...

2 comments

Seems to be a US Navy thing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655#Potential_...).

On a more serious note, there's a big difference between a vehicle like a car that is operated by one person, and a ship with a large crew with dedicated tasks.

True. With a car there are fewer eyes monitoring the situation and frequently little or no time to correct from a mistake.
Each crew member should have been assigned the management and activation of a given portion of the touchscreen.

Morning briefing by the Captain: “John, you’ll supervise and operate the bottom left corner of the Touchscreen. Adam, as a left handed sailor, you’ll stand right to John and operate the bottom right corner of the Touchscreen with your left hand so there are no collisions in case of emergency”

Aye, captain

The control interface you know is the touchscreen of your smartphone, isn't it?
ProPublica did excellent reporting on this: https://features.propublica.org/navy-uss-mccain-crash/navy-i...