Month: July 2019

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  You know something's wrong right away on the first page. Why does this button say "NO" instead of "YES"? And one thing you can't tell here: hovering on the thing you actually have to click ("here") doesn't change the cursor as expected. [credit: Bagaar ]

Sometimes we take Web and user interface design for granted—that's the point of User Inyerface, a hilariously and deliberately difficult-to-use website created to show just how much we rely on past habits and design conventions to interact with the Web and our digital devices.

According to design firm Bagaar's blog:

Over the past decennium, users have grown accustomed to certain design patterns: positions, colors, icons... Rather than looking at a UI, users tend to act instinctively and take 90% of an interface for granted.

... But what happens if we poke all good practice with a stick and stir it up? What if we don't respect our self-created rules and expectations and do everything the other way around?

The resulting website is a gauntlet of nearly impossible-to-parse interactions that are as funny as they are infuriating. In one case, the colors for the male and female selection options in a personal info form are reversed compared to expectations: the white-backgrounded one is the selection, while the blue-highlighted one is the one you're not picking—and there's no non-binary option, either, of course.

Enlarge / The mighty Delta IV Heavy rocket takes to the skies. (credit: Aurich Lawson/United Launch Alliance)

Welcome to Edition 2.06 of the Rocket Report! Happy Fourth of July to everyone, a time when most Americans watch rockets of a different sort take to the skies. We're a day early this week because of the holiday; and there will be no report next week due to the author taking some family vacation time. See you again in mid-July.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Rocket Lab completes third flight of 2019. Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket delivered seven small commercial, military and educational satellites into orbit Saturday after a launch from New Zealand. Saturday’s mission, the seventh orbital launch attempt overall for Rocket Lab, was delayed two days to allow time for crews at Launch Complex 1 to replace faulty components on ground tracking equipment used to support the rocket’s flight termination system, Spaceflight Now reported.