This Post is coming straight from facebook and somehow related to the topic of my paper.
I acknowledge Angelica and Stephanie for this post.
Most of us are big fans of the Sci-fi movies. These movies sport awesome technology, well the dates in the movies are also like 2030, 2050, but these movies are being made right now, and yes some how the magical creators of the films make this magical interfaces appear as reality to us.
Somehow I feel that this kind of movies inform the design of the futuristic interfaces, but when they get implemented in reality, we say “WTF it is not the same as the one in Minority Report” What Stephanie commented on the post on facebook was this, “I think movie technology is often another form of human-centered design, but it’s not for usefulness or usability–it’s for entertainment. The “user” is the viewer, so you have to make the tech as entertaining to watch as you can.” What I personally feel is that we will definitely like to see stuff like the one Tony Stark uses at his home in reality, and thus in research labs all over the world people try to make the interfaces like this, but when they are actually made, only the people who make it are really happy, they do all awesome maneuvers in the videos for promoting the technology which impresses the viewers, but when the normal user gets its hands on this, there is a big disappointment.
I have myself experienced this a lot of times, both, being the user and the maker of such interfaces. I have seen people playing with the stuff I made with the leap. I always see the confusion on the faces of the people using it for the first time, what really scares me is when the confusion comes back after they are habituated with the interface and things go wrong. I feel like this is not what I wanted it to be.
The big question here is that, how much the interfaces shown in the science fiction movies inform the actual Interface design of the futuristic interfaces? Why are these interface not designed in a way that the user can get the same feeling as the one he gets while watching the movie? Where are we lacking? Is it the technology, or the direction which is informing the design?
Is the tech shown in the movies just meant for movies, or we envision what is coming in the future through that window and inform the designs to turn it into reality?
12 comments
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February 28, 2013 at 12:19 pm
Sarang
I will try to talk more about this in the next blog post which is related to Virtual Reality and its reality. I will do that by introducing the Oculus Rift VR headset which is a latest sensation in VR
February 28, 2013 at 4:00 pm
Wishaya P.
In my view, these all futuristic interfaces were designed for “future” users, that’s why we didn’t get the same feeling as current interface nowadays, but at the same time, it amazes people to see their own future. For example, imagine people in early mobile era, what amaze them might not be smaller mobile phone that looks like the same as they have. But they wanna see developed phone which has the same semantics of phone but present in totally different look, the more different, the more they will be amazed.
February 28, 2013 at 8:25 pm
Rayne Zhou
I agree with what Wishaya said, while I do believe that some of, or nearly most of, the futuristic technologies present in movies are only for movie. Why I say this is because I doubt the background of the “designers” for these futuristic technologies. Who designed the stuff in movies? If these people indeed come of engineering or design background, will they still present stuff like that? There’s not only a time gap between future user and current user in this case, but also a space/role difference between the real designers and designers for things in movie.
February 28, 2013 at 9:21 pm
jordanbeck
Sarang, this is a really intriguing post.
On the one hand, I agree with you when you question the discord between what we see in the movies and what we experience in real life. But in my response, I’m going to take the opposite perspective and say that it is only right that the interactions we see in movies are unattainable in reality.
The people who use these awesome futuristic interfaces are either fluent in their use already or unrealistically fast learners who can figure out how to interact with a particular interface such that they’re (practically) fluent after mere seconds. And I see at least two reasons for this: (1) They’re characters in a movie and, thus, they’re more unified and more “whole” than any member of the audience…they’re gestalts, and (2) I don’t want to pay to watch somebody learn how to use the interface for 90 minutes. I want to see the expert user make a particle accelerator in his basement using touchscreens, gesture controls, and all the other cool shit that I don’t know how to use. I want to be in awe. I want to be entertained.
While I’m confident that we’ll attain such interfaces and fluency of use (though not to the perfection of a Hollywood movie), I’m also confident that by the time we do, Hollywood will have imagined even cooler shit that makes the cool shit of today seem mundane and boring…and we’ll end up wondering why the interactions we have in the future-now aren’t as cool or fulfilling as the ones we see when we go to the future-cinema.
March 1, 2013 at 12:39 am
Sarang
Actually, you are right that you don’t pay for a movie to watch people learn an interfaces, the argument I am making is slightly reverse. I am thinking of giving a serious thought to getting inspired by interfaces in the movie and then making those interfaces in real life… I love when people use interfaces I made and they say wow…!!
I really agree on your last paragraph…!!!
March 1, 2013 at 2:40 pm
jordanbeck
Have you seen this? http://displair.com/product/
March 1, 2013 at 5:13 pm
HSK
You could also ask the question as to whether there is any intentionality behind the confusion that is created in the minds of people when they see Iron Man, for example; because even the voice recognition technology and the computer’s understanding of Tony Stark’s spoken irony is way beyond the real capacity of a computer to understand human language-way, way beyond! And at times it seems like “product placement”, that the overall impression you come a way with is clearly beneficial, in a broad sense, to high-tech industrial production. And if you are not savvy to just how outrageous it is in Iron Man, for example, you could easily think that is typical or conceivable in some way at the highest levels of research in the world you live in-and that this would give you great faith and hope with regards to the future, even if this is how the Pentagon and arms trade rolls (which are exactly the subliminal or semiotic associations that are made in the film!)
March 2, 2013 at 11:57 am
Sarang
Thanks for sharing it Jordan, Impressive technology… Helped me to describe something in the tabletop research group…
Well, as we can see, it is nothing but a screen of vapors. it needs a projector. the projection itself is not displayed in air and makes no difference whether it is a solid screen or a vapor screen, it is a screen.. they are using it as a touch screen.
March 3, 2013 at 12:01 pm
ydreyban
You know we joke about these things, but having the images from Minority Report and similar movies definitely affect us. Whether we intend it or not, the mere existence of these ‘visions’ of the future stick with us. How many times have you heard someone jokingly say something like “Wouldn’t it be funny if it looked like the Death Star” or some similar comment? While much of the technology we have is likely to have come about in some form, look back on old sci-fi films and see how much of the feasible technology already exists. Sometimes we are unconsciously trying to design “that cool touch interface from Minority Report”.
http://www.technewsdaily.com/5048-scifi-predictions-countdown.html
I was just browsing casually but the article basically indicates that some of what was once science fiction years ago is now reality. Jules Verne is one of those classic examples of a writer who likely had tremendous impact on technological innovation.
By the way, Sarang, I never heard back about your interest in programming this Cloud-based Network, or Cloud-Net (still working on the name) that I’m working on as a part of 4th wave HCI, or 1st wave CCI.
March 3, 2013 at 1:15 pm
Sarang
I don’t remember hearing anything about you anytime before, but I will be interested to know. Lets talk about this…
March 3, 2013 at 7:15 pm
ydreyban
It was a Terminator joke Sarang.
March 3, 2013 at 10:24 pm
Sarang
It’s called Skynet, and we don’t yet have a John Connors in the Cohort, neither do we have a Kyle Reese to save the world from the doom, but I will love to have a T300 to write my 8000 word paper for interaction culture…!!!