Permitting Customizable UI for a Spaceship's Systems

User Interface Customization for Spaceship Controls;

"In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice, they're totally different."

We often find that what we plan for isn't what actually happens. What we think we'll need, we actually don't and need something else. This holds for camping trips, tool boxes and so much else. A Priori planning only gets you so far. Designing spaceships is hard. Getting the user interface right is just as hard. However, we have to assume that for the most part, the displays and controls are correct. They provide the correct information and facilitate the proper operations.

On a long endurance spaceship that won't come back to port for many years, it's possible that the user interfaces designed into the ship aren't actually all that useful. There's information that an operator finds more useful or a presentation that gives too much of the wrong information. What place in this scenario is there for allowing a user/engineer/operator to customize the display and controls to meet their needs? Where should UI customization be permitted and where should it be forbidden? I'm interested in should customization be allowed, and if so, with what restrictions, not how to make customized displays (as that question is very broad).

There are obvious safety concerns to allowing this. Permitting the power-plant engineers to turn off the big red light because it wakes them up is a bad move. However, letting the navigator build a new display that helps plot a course that incorporates fuel efficiency/time trade-offs would be handy.

We assume this spaceship has the standard systems: Powerplant, life-support, food prep/production, navigation, sensors, crew quarters, recreation, weapons/mission tools.

posted almost 6 years ago

Green‭

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