LCARS Themes in Development

mr100percent writes "I'm sure most Slashdot readers remember the computer UI from the Star Trek universe. Now, a number of developers are at work making LCARS themes, including one for Nokia tablets. There's even a Standards Board, with a flash LCARS demo." Several of us here in the office had the opportunity to test out the Nokia 770 at LinuxWorld San Francisco. The "cool factor" of a UI like this may even outweigh some of the downsides to the device since most of them were interface difficulties.

Comments

And here I was...

[oKtosiTe]

...thinking Star Trek was dead.

Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't wait to hear Jakob Nielsen or Tog put this abomination 6 feet under before anyone wastes time on it. A third of the screen is taken up by the menu. Another third consists of mostly non-working buttons with random numbers, while more random numbers serve to distract your attention. The font is so narrow that it's unreadable.

"Functional" and "Futuristic" don't go necessarily hand in hand, and the latter always has to take a backseat to the former.

Enlightenment DR16 theme

[diodegod]

There exists an LCARS theme for Enlightenment DR16 at http://themes.freshmeat.net/projects/lcars/

Some freshmeat searching reveals that there's themes for GTK+ too at http://themes.freshmeat.net/projects/lcars_/

I used to use this theme years ago to show off, although the thick vertical bar at the left of the windows sort of wasted space on the 800x600 monitor.

Can be useful

[jackharrer]

That system can be quite useful for specific purposes. Especially in hospitals, factories and silmilar places where nice GUI is not so important as clear and informative one. By using certain colors and patterns for displaying data you can easily notify user about information and changes. That can be very useful.
Think that you have 5 warnings and one 1 critical message. On PC that would take 6 message boxes popping on screen. In LCARS you can blink some some of the buttons for warnings and pop-up message with critical information. It looks more uniformed that icon in tray blinking. Or MS Clippy :)

Another good advantage is that system is designed to use touch screen. So nice big buttons and everything generally easy to read.
Which is good in places you don't have space for fully blown PC + monitor + keyboard. Like in hospitals. It's much easier to clean and disinfect screen that keyboard. Not to mention that staff don't need to learn how to use computers, only some fancy GUI.

The only thing that project needs is proper standardization - if not all users will be totally lost. And every company will use it's own model.

Re:Can be useful

[Anonymous Coward]

Hospitals? You must mean sickbays!

I don't understand the purpose of it.

[master_p]

What's the purpose of developing an LCARS specification? putting aside the fantasies of travelling in other planets on the USS Enterprise, I do not see playing role in the development of user interfaces. It looks cool, but it is confusing: it is not easy to see what is clickable and what is not, since the flat graphics give no indication of what can be clicked (I had to move the mouse on every element to see if it is clickable). The LCARS interface is nothing more than the old style text mode menu navigational system with flashier graphics. And overlapping windows where developed for a purpose: to allow the user to manage more information than what a computer screen can hold at one time.

Don't get me wrong, I am a Star Trek fan and certainly LCARS is very exciting to use, especially while imagining being on a starship (!). It may also be useful for certain real-life situations like Star Trek conventions or even in tactical systems' consoles in military ships or airport terminals...but it does not seem useful as an altenative for desktop GUI.

I also did not understand the term 'LCARS hardware'. They say in a link that they are developing such a thing. If it is not part of the fantasy, then what is it? it certainly can not be a massively parallel computer with AI like the one of the USS Enterprise, because such a beast is not possible yet.

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The LCARS interface is nothing more than the old style text mode menu navigational system with flashier graphics.

Did anyone ever stop to think that the old text menu navigation systems were in fact very usable indeed. Ncurses interfaces are typically extremely straightforward to use and uncluttered. You get what you want without all that mucking about with the mouse, and buttons, and menus, and submenus, and bips and bops and etc, etc.

Text, is the new GUI.

Re:I don't understand the purpose of it.

[sumdumass]

What's the purpose of developing an LCARS specification? putting aside the fantasies of travelling in other planets on the USS Enterprise, I do not see playing role in the development of user interfaces.

The purpose would likely be to address the concerns you latter mention and provide a uniform way of avoiding them.

It looks cool, but it is confusing: it is not easy to see what is clickable and what is not, since the flat graphics give no indication of what can be clicked (I had to move the mouse on every element to see if it is clickable).

There once was a time not far long ago were a user was expected to know how to use the computer. The user was expected to know that if you click this or type that, something would happen and you actualy had an expectation of what would happen.

I say this not to ridicule you but to point out that you could figure it out. and you would probably only need to figure it out once or read the documentation that came with it like in the old days. If your not willing to do this, then it apears it isn't marketed to you. However, the interface design is quite clean if you have a specific application intended for it. Using it with a touch screen as a KIOSK or control interface for some machinery of some sorts would be ideal. I can imagine a game console with web browsing support fitting well. you could use it for about anything but as you later point out, there are some drawbacks so keeping them in mind when using it will probably suite you best.

Don't get me wrong, I am a Star Trek fan and certainly LCARS is very exciting to use, especially while imagining being on a starship (!). It may also be useful for certain real-life situations like Star Trek conventions or even in tactical systems' consoles in military ships or airport terminals...but it does not seem useful as an altenative for desktop GUI.

imagine a world without star treck, now imagine a desktop with a user who only uses 3 maybe 4 applications. The user doesn't need MSPaint, Wordpad, the Startmenu, My Documents or any of that, just a few programs that do certain things directly related to thier job. would it make more sence now?

I think your concetrating too much on the star trek connection. Even though the connection is a "video game" UI that gave the user control of a few functions specific to achieving a few tasks. (see above for reference). I think you might have been burned by a treky in the past or maybe forced to convert from being one your self. Maybe treky reality training conflicted with your D&D

You seem to think trek fans aren't hip or something. but they designed most of the stuff you enjoy today. Everything from cordless phones and cell phones- because of star trek. cdroms and thier respective child devices built from them(like DVD and SO on) were inspoired by trek. And this is just the start, there are tons of things you use that started as a "if they could do it in star trek, why shouldn't we be able to do it now" thought.

LCARS is the Lotus Notes of the 24th century

[QuantumG]

Everyone knows it blows but Starfleet mandates its continued use.

Awesome and intuitive!

[Rob T Firefly]

On no other theme could you just press whatever random buttons you like, and have it do exactly what you need it to do to get to the next part of the plot. So what if you pressed the upper left button to launch a browser last week? This week you'd rather press the middle right one to do it, and it'll damn well launch your browser!

The only downside is the extremely dramatic expression of concentration you need to exhibit while using it.

Intersting concept, but really missing the point

[jbarr]

OK, I know that Star Trek was just a TV show (and movies) but the concepts shown were often meant to demonstrate "what could be" technologically. But why do LCARS developers insist on incorporating all the supeerfluous Star Trek branding stuff when they could better focus on designing a user interface that was truely useful and productive?

After looking at the Flash demo, I think it's an interesting concept. I've seen the LCARS concept tried on the PalmOS, and on the PC, but I think they always miss the point. LCARS implementations are always filled with Star Trek logos and references. Why? And they're always filled with lots of meaningless, superfluous eye candy that simply serves no purpose other than to closely imitate a Star Trek screen. (For example, the upper right section with the flashing numbers.) Yes, it looks cool, but what's the point? Are LCARS designs supposed to make us roleplay Star Trek, or are they supposed to leverage concepts to provide a more productive and useful user interface?