It sounds like heresy, but I couldn’t help wondering that after seeing the rows and rows of physical buttons, gauges, and readouts that Russian technicians use to run this nuclear power plant. Built post-Chernobyl, the plant boasts a “30km-wide security zone around the plant itself, filled with all sorts of sensors and monitoring devices that measure the condition of the environment to report any smallest deviation from normal radiation doses.” But what about all those clunky, straight-outta-Star-Trek knobs and lights — what if they’re a safety feature, too? The plant was completed in 1990, so colour computer screens, mice, and “normal” high-tech user interfaces were certainly available. How could a dizzyingly dense grid of plastic buttons be better than a single screen that can change to display only what the technician needs at any given moment?
Well, here’s the thing, as Christopher Mims at Technology Review brilliantly points out: touch is a powerful, powerful thing. And not the sterile, featureless version that passes for “touch” on your iPad. I’m talking about the physical, primal, ultra-high-res sensorium that you experience from interacting with everyday objects in the real world. Our brains and hands evolved they way they did for a reason, and virtual displays and interfaces simply don’t “click” with the kind of infomation-processing we’ve evolved to do so well. Deep, spatial sense-memory – “coloured THING in THAT location that feels like THIS and STAYS there” – is how our savannah-dwelling ancestors navigated their environment and avoided getting killed, and it’s still true today.
So while there were surely other factors influencing the Russian nuke-designers’ UI philosophy (economics being a huge one), it’s hard not to wonder if they shied away from screens on purpose. When you’re always one wrong command away from another Chernobyl, it pays to play by the brain’s built-in rules – not Steve Jobs’s.
[All photos by Ilya Varlamov; Hat tip to Technology Review]
The Gremlin
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 10:57 AMAny gamer who’s tried an iPad game will tell you this. Touch screens are no good for anything important that requires precision, such as running a nuclear plant… or gaming.
AnthonyP
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 11:02 AMYou also have to remember the technology did not at fault on Chernobyl. It was process, human error.
Chernobyl melt down was caused by running melt-down tests at the end of a night shift, disabling all the alarms and then ignoring the real readings and the final fail safe alarms. Human error!
KISS is the number one rule.
olearymo
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 11:16 AMThere’s no such thing as a technology fault. Just as there’s no such thing as a *hammer* missing a nail. It’s the person. It’s always human.
Drew Triebe
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 11:30 AMShame on you John Palvus, and shame on all you poorly worded journalists who insist on telling us we’re a hairs breath away from another Chernobyl.
Chernobyl was a very deliberate and grossly calculated exercise in fucking up, it was not a single wrong command or slip of the finger. Nuclear power is incredibly safe and dozens of safeguards are in place (all of which had been deliberately turned off and ignored during the Chernobyl Test) that prevent a Nuclear power plant from getting anywhere close to abnormal operation.
It is journalists like you who keep the public fearful of nuclear energy, why we are so stuck on burning fossil fuels for power and invading desert countries to secure our supply to them.
Shame on you.
Adam
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 12:32 PMThe Upside: This article is interesting and has some great pictures from inside a nuclear facility. In fact some of those pictures would look great as wall art. The point about the tactile nature of real buttons and dials is also not only interesting but shows the importance of designing functional interfaces. Interfaces that interact with our brains on the simplest and most functional level and don’t just look pretty. (anyone used a BMW iDrive, buttons please)
But killing a good article is the stupid/uninformed/brain fart/pathetic comment “When you’re always one wrong command away from another Chernobyl”. This is just wrong for so many reasons and does not reflect the safe nature of nuclear reactors today. Current generation reactors will self shut down without a person even touching a button. Please read Wikipedia for a simple explanation of what happened or if you have some time, the International Atomic Energy Agency report INSAG-7 which details what happened.
Please don’t allow stupid comments like this to influence people’s opinion about nuclear energy. Just look at the facts from people who know what they are talking about.