Heidi + R + 03

Pre-reading this, I knew little regarding the Space Shuttle Challenger. I know there was a space shuttle, it launched, a few minutes into the mission it ended in failure as Challenger blew up. I thought that it was a fluke, that no previous information had been given that this mission had a high chance to fail. I assumed that if someone had important information, that would lead you to believe that lives were in danger or someone were to be hurt, they would listen and adhere to those results. If I were to get results that something I was doing has a large chance to fail I would not want to follow through, especially if someone would be harmed by my experiment. So when reading that they knew the mission was in danger and there was a large chance that it was going to fail, it shocked me to know that they went through with it.

Perhaps NASA decided to go through with the mission because so much was invested. It can be argued that they gave the engineers time to think of reasons to not launch, but with only 4 hours of prep time to speculate why the launch wouldn't work, it really was not enough time to think of reasons, research them and then design the information. The engineers knew that something bad could happen, but the way that the information was present to NASA left too many gaps and allowed them to theorize that what was being presented were just facts of what could happen, not what would happen. Because the information wasn't clearly presented there were too many if's.

It was interesting to know that if this information was designed differently lives might have been saved. Information design is more crucial then I first thought, because depending on how it is designed changes how it is read. If there are inconsistencies or loop-holes the data can often be over looked and disregarded. Things such as order and good design help make data important and useful. Keeping the data clear and easy to read is highly important as well. The order of the data is important because it helps the reader know what is important and cause and effect.

After reading this I realized how important good information design is, it could, at times, mean life or death.