Yet in the real world, you run into interfaces that are almost that bad. The consequences range from minor workplace annoyances, like charging a custumer for a Happy Meal instead of a Big Mac because the buttons are right next to each other, to huge disasters like ...

Until humans learn how to command machines with their minds (or vice versa), we're always going to need some sort of menu, control panel or whatever to interact with our machines and tell them to do our jobs for us. And these controls had better be really freaking clear, and simple, and easy to use. A speedometer doesn't do any good if, say, it's mounted inside the glove box and requires you to do calculus to read it.

6 The USS Vincennes Shot Down a Civilian Plane Because of Bad Cursors

Via Wikipedia

Toward the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, the United States and Iran had a bit of an undeclared war on the side, presumably just to make Iraq jealous. The most tragic event of this undeclared war happened when the USS Vincennes was in the middle of a confrontation with Iranian gunboats in the Persian Gulf and accidentally shot down a civilian airliner after mistaking it for a combat aircraft in attack mode.

Via Wikipedia

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If you're wondering why their radar system didn't have some kind of method for separating friendly planes from hostile, well ...

The Dumb Problem:

Actually, it was equipped with exactly that sort of thing -- the problem was that it sucked.

Via Wikipedia

That's the interface from 1988, apparently being operated by a 15-year-old boy.

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Have you ever played a war strategy game on the PC? An RTS game like StarCraft or Red Alert? In those games, you have your little tank or robot icon on the screen, and you click it with your cursor to highlight it. Then from there you can either control the unit or learn more about it (how much health it has left, or whatever).