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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.
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.
"an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often, quite often, picturesque liar" - Mark Twain
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.
Everyone knows it blows but Starfleet mandates its continued use.
How we know is more important than what we know.
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.
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