Touchscreens (and screens in general) are awesome. So sleek! So dynamic! So futuristic! Yeah, able-bodied what if they're fundamentally ambagious and dangerous, too?
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It sounds like heresy, but I couldn't advice apprehensive that afterwards seeing the rows and rows of concrete buttons, gauges, and readouts that Russian technicians use to run this nuclear ability plant. Built post-Chernobyl, the bulb boasts a "30km-wide aegis area about the bulb itself, abounding with all sorts of sensors and ecology accessories that admeasurement the action of the ambiance to address any aboriginal aberration from accustomed radiation doses." But what about all those clunky, straight-outta-Star-Trek knobs and lights — what if they're a assurance feature, too? The bulb was completed in 1990, so blush computer screens, mice, and "normal" high-tech user interfaces were absolutely available. How could a dizzyingly close filigree of artificial buttons be bigger than a individual awning that can change to affectation alone what the artisan needs at any accustomed moment?
Well, here's the thing, as Christopher Mims at Technology Review blithely credibility out: blow is a powerful, able thing. And not the sterile, characterless adaptation that passes for "touch" on your iPad. I'm talking about the physical, primal, ultra-high-res sensorium that you acquaintance from interacting with accustomed altar in the absolute world. Our accuracy and easily acquired they way they did for a reason, and virtual displays and interfaces artlessly don't "click" with the affectionate of infomation-processing we've acquired to do so well. Deep, spatial sense-memory — "colored THING in THAT area that feels like THIS and STAYS there" — is how our savannah-dwelling ancestors navigated their ambiance and abhorred accepting killed, and it's still accurate today.
So while there were absolutely added factors influencing the Russian nuke-designers' UI aesthetics (economics getting a huge one), it's harder not to admiration if they shied abroad from screens on purpose. When you're consistently one amiss command abroad from addition Chernobyl, it pays to play by the brain's congenital rules — not Steve Jobs's.
[All photos by Ilya Varlamov; Hat tip to Technology Review]
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