I think I want to agree with this article, but I found it a little confusing.
In particular, I think it's strange to compare the F-16 with the F-35 when the former is regarded to be one of the best fighter jets ever made and the F-35 is infamous for being problematic. My understanding is that they are also different kinds of planes for different purposes, but at any rate, I struggle to focus on UX when there's that contextual elephant in the room.
In particular, I think it's strange to compare the F-16 with the F-35 when the former is regarded to be one of the best fighter jets ever made and the F-35 is infamous for being problematic. My understanding is that they are also different kinds of planes for different purposes, but at any rate, I struggle to focus on UX when there's that contextual elephant in the room.
Also bringing up fighter jets in general might not be the best comparison. A fighter pilot is about the farthest thing from a casual user of a fighter jet. My understanding is they're intensely dedicated to knowing how to operate it effectively, to the point of muscle-memorizing menu navigation button-presses to quickly perform different actions (e.g. memorizing something like the Konami Code to fire a particular type of missile).
So they're almost certainly not like the users of whatever web app your building, so maybe it's not the best idea to let a photo of their controls inspire your UX.
Or even if they chose a Tesla without knobs and buttons, people complain about that endlessly. Sure everything is in a screen which is flexible and easy to program, but nobody can figure out how to adjust the heat.
I agree. Not having flown a fighter jet, myself, it's not clear to me which I would prefer. I can easily imagine problems with the "simpler" F-35 cockpit requiring the pilot to navigate a modal UI while navigating the aircraft.
Even older aircraft like the F-16 and F-15 have many modal UIs. They also have a lot of UI features that were added on over the decades which make the system much tighter to sit in than the original pilots would have experienced. The big difference between them and an F-35 (or even F-22) is that the newer ones have the opportunity to clean up or unify a lot of those UI systems so it feels less ad hoc (at present, give it 30 years).
The modals are usually for things you're not going to use often (comparatively), or are very low "depth" menu for modes that have major impacts on what you're doing (so you're essentially selecting activity type)
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I think I want to agree with this article, but I found it a little confusing.
In particular, I think it's strange to compare the F-16 with the F-35 when the former is regarded to be one of the best fighter jets ever made and the F-35 is infamous for being problematic. My understanding is that they are also different kinds of planes for different purposes, but at any rate, I struggle to focus on UX when there's that contextual elephant in the room.
Also bringing up fighter jets in general might not be the best comparison. A fighter pilot is about the farthest thing from a casual user of a fighter jet. My understanding is they're intensely dedicated to knowing how to operate it effectively, to the point of muscle-memorizing menu navigation button-presses to quickly perform different actions (e.g. memorizing something like the Konami Code to fire a particular type of missile).
So they're almost certainly not like the users of whatever web app your building, so maybe it's not the best idea to let a photo of their controls inspire your UX.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Code
Or even if they chose a Tesla without knobs and buttons, people complain about that endlessly. Sure everything is in a screen which is flexible and easy to program, but nobody can figure out how to adjust the heat.
I agree. Not having flown a fighter jet, myself, it's not clear to me which I would prefer. I can easily imagine problems with the "simpler" F-35 cockpit requiring the pilot to navigate a modal UI while navigating the aircraft.
Even older aircraft like the F-16 and F-15 have many modal UIs. They also have a lot of UI features that were added on over the decades which make the system much tighter to sit in than the original pilots would have experienced. The big difference between them and an F-35 (or even F-22) is that the newer ones have the opportunity to clean up or unify a lot of those UI systems so it feels less ad hoc (at present, give it 30 years).
The modals are usually for things you're not going to use often (comparatively), or are very low "depth" menu for modes that have major impacts on what you're doing (so you're essentially selecting activity type)
A bit more problematic is that it uses a photo of a fighter jet that is definitely not F-16, it appears to be early F-15A?