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Usability in the Movies -- Top 10 Bloopers
Ant writes "A UseIt.com article talks about user interfaces (UIs) in film that are more exciting than they are realistic, and heroes have far too easy a time using foreign systems. The way Hollywood depicts usability could fill many a blooper reel. Here are 10 of the most egregious mistakes made by moviemakers. From the article: '3. The 3D UI - In Minority Report, the characters operate a complex information space by gesturing wildly in the space in front of their screens. As Tog found when filming Starfire, it's very tiring to keep your arms in the air while using a computer. Gestures do have their place, but not as the primary user interface for office systems.'"
As long as I can just 'overrule' every password that is blocked, I am fine with it.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I know this!
Ok ok, we get the point about the UI in Minority Report, but COME ON, it's not like it's the most implausible thing about the movie. Same with Star Trek... Oh yeah, a computer that speaks and understands English, that's weird. Fifteen space alien races we encounter for the first time that speak and understand English, TOTALLY NORMAL. A kid saving the day with a 3d unix interface. Yeah, that just totally ruined the whole movie for me, because up until that point I was totally believing in THE DINOSAURS...
Methinks a bit of perspective is called for...
My favorite is always the login screens. Someone turns on the computer, and within a second or two a big generic login screen pops up. What's funny is that it usually doesn't have a user name, just a password. Then once logged in, all of a sudden the character can access any file instantaneously.
You've Got Mail is Always Good News is a good one from the list though. I'd love to see the movie of the same name change so that Meg Ryan opens up her Mac notebook to a "You've got mail", which turns out to be 37 advertisements for penis enlargement pills and viagra. Hehehe...
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
I realize that this was more about user interfaces than hardware, but I feel that there are as many hardware blunders in movies as software.
I remember watching "The Lone Gunman" one day (thank God that show didn't make it!) and they needed more processing power to crack a password to take over a hijacked plane. "We could do this if had one of those new Octium 4's!" Well, they get one, right before the plane hits the building, they pull out their existing processor, I assume and Octium 3, and drop in the new Octium 4, without so much as powering the machine off... and BAM! They had their password and saved the plane. Oh, and no processors had any type of thermal anything!
Well, just my $0.02 anyway.
(Oh yea, your mother uses Macintosh!)
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
He forgot the highly accurate Hollywood search engine, which enabled Tom Cruise to put a Bible verse into an Internet search engine in Mission Impossible and get three hits, yet not support Boolean searching until Deanna Troi invents it in Star Trek: the Next Generation.
#!
This guy didn't do his research. It wasn't that specialized of a security system.
http://fsv.sourceforge.net/
"you sonofabitch i didn't know!"
What, am I the only one reading this crap on Christmas Eve?
... click on My Computer ... then My Network Places ... then log in again ... then private -> secret -> projects -> 2006 -> world domination ... and then wait for Office to load.
Think about how tedious a computer scene would be if the user had to navigate Windows, KDE, or even Mac OS X. While the herione was trying to find her husband's company's secret documents she'd log in
The way it works in the movies is the way it should work. Log in, type "find Kyoto meeting minutes", a bunch of matrix-ish characters scroll across the screen, and there it is.
This sig intentionally left blank.
As far as I could tell, that was just the interface for a particular computer. It might be tiring, but I think the idea is to be able to correlate data in a very fast manner. Other computers in the movie appeared to use a more "traditional" interface.
01101001 01100001 01101101 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110111 01111001 01100101 01110010
I do understand what they were driving at but the whole point of drastically advanced technology is that it would require less effort and input. You didn't hear them verbally entering code they were always asking for a complex taste to be performed. That task might require a dozen people normally but the computer is able to do it without assistence. When they performed more intensive tasks they did use a manual interface. Voice is inefficent for data entry but if the system is designed to run on it's own then the most efficent method is voice. Which takes longer writing an email to a coworker in the next cubical to ask if they have performed a task or ask them about it verbally? The computer wasn't a computer as we think of them it was a crewmember replacing dozens if not hundreds of crewmembers.
I do not think this is specific to Unix. Windows is equally as bad. The most consistent modern OS I have encountered is OSX, and even then there are a number of notable exceptions.
Overall it was really a pointless article. Yes, movies frequently play fast and loose with reality. So what? Is that not what movies are all about?
I think it's just a slow news day. Come to think of it, why the heck am I spending time on Slashdot on Christmas Eve??? LOL.
I find it amazing that the computer experts in TV and film never turn off the high pitched sound effects that play whenever a window opens, moves, a key is pressed, or a photo is "enhanced."
That would drive me crazy.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
Almost as useless as this post.
The biggest gaff of all has to be in Independance Day, bringing down the alien Mother Ship with a virus uploaded from a Powerbook. I don't remember the UI but it wasn't a flavour of Mac OS. The best use of 'Access Denied' was in Lawnmower Man
Watch those corners
I can't believe they left out the enhance functionality, making a someones face from twenty feet away appear crystal clear on a 320x240 ATM camera.
Twas the night before Christmas,
As I clicked on my mouse,
Across a pile of old floppies, I had tried to degauss;
Windows kept hanging with a Blue Screen Of Death,
While I cursed out Bill Gates under my breath.
The missus slept, as did the kids and newborn,
So I took the time to surf for some porn.
I found a free site that contained many jpegs,
(So that's just exactly, how chickens can lay eggs!)
When out down the hall I heard a loud noise,
I jumped out of my chair and put back the boys.
I figured the wife must be up and about,
If caught again, she'd toss my ass out.
I laced up my robe and thought of a story
About why I'm up and how to say sorry.
I stuck out my head by the light of the john
(One of the kids must've left the light on)
I squint and I strain to see what is what
When what hove into view was a giant red butt.
The first thing I thought was to reach for a bat
(Wait a minute. A red suit, fur trim and he's fat!)
The Claus man is here with high-tech type gadgets
The latest geek toys that run all the gamuts.
New cell phones! New sound cards! New controllers and games!
For Xbox! For Gamecube! For Playstation and MAMEs!
Wireless Routers! And they're eleven G!
Not slow! Not slow! Not slow like B!
As dial-up was, before we all had high speed,
Time seemed to slow as I watched with my greed.
" All those wonderful toys" as the joker did say,
Where does he get them? Best Buy and Ebay?
And then, with a beeping, off went my pager,
(Some idiot at work with a dumb question, I'll wager)
As I fumbled to stop the beep-beeping sound,
Santa had stopped and now turned around.
It was unfortunate that he tripped the motion detector
Because the police would soon be dispatched to our sector
He dropped the toys to make quick his escape
And he flew 'cross the room like that dude in the cape
His ass -- How it rippled and flapped, I say truly
It's explained in a principle by a guy named Bernoulli.
Yes, he flew 'round the room just like he was Neo
While playing a song by Letters To Cleo
I silenced the alarm and he returned to the floor
I said I was sorry, but boy, was he sore!
He hitched up his belt and headed my way
But I managed to calm him with some Grand Marnier.
We laughed, we talked and he told me his troubles
About a lawsuit, an affair and a chimp named Bubbles.
He was falling down drunk. He walked with a sway.
I thought I had better take the keys to the sleigh.
I pulled out my cell phone and called for a cab
To take the jolly old elf back to his lab.
He spoke not a word, but threw up on my slippers.
By the smell, for breakfast, he must've had kippers.
That's about the time the policemen arrived,
So I went for some coffee to get old Santa revived.
In his current state and with no ID to display,
The cops had no choice, but to haul him away.
He gave me the finger as the cops drove out of sight,
" HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT.
Cause I could swear my VPN client gives me an access granted message when I enter my password successfully...
Whoever wrote this article needs to get off their high horse.
Merry Christmas!
My teachers (from grade school to college) had no problems gesturing and writing on whiteboards all day, also something tells me that painters, form carpenters, etc. etc. (especially in days gone by, without power nailers and spray guns) can keep their hands up in the air all day long no problem.
-- the cake is a lie
Guestures will never take off as a means of user input. It will be a cold day in hell before Wii see that sort of interface on a home computing system.
More seriously, what is so difficult to imagine a system in the future (ala MR) that can react to slight, minor movements (something the Wii allows for with it's remote - technically you need need to make over the top movements to use it, but that's fun to do). You needen't keep your hands in the air right out in front of you, though subtle and lazy movements might have looked odd on screen.
Not that I think the UI in MR was very good from a practicle point of view - surely a PITA to use (would rather have a decent form interface, tabbed UI and maybe spider charts for searching through data as seen in MR).
This interface from the BBC series 'Torchwood' (a Doctor Who spinnoff) is similar, and quite cool though - based on the interface used in the series itself and has some good bonus / background material for fans of the show. As with Minority Report, the LCD screens in Torchwood can only display varing shades of the colour blue for some reason (even when playing back FMV).
Thankfully it also has a more practical and boring HTML version (the BBC seem to understand the importance of accessibility).
" it's very tiring to keep your arms in the air" I happen to like my Wii, you insensitive bastard.
...the characters operate a complex information space by gesturing wildly in the space in front of their screens.
Either people in the future will be more physically fit than people today to handle these systems or a future user interface designer spent too much time playing the Nintendo Wii as a child.
I'd have to disagree with the article when they say the voice interfaces, such as those used in Star Trek, would be inefficient. If the machine is able to understand natural language, I'd think it would be much easier for a person to simply have a dialog with the computer than it'd be to try and figure out how to properly word the stuff, type it in, and then pick things from the screen. Not to mention the fact that the machine would literally need hundreds of thousands or millions of options, depending on what the user wanted. If you already know what you want, why not just say it?
... wtf? no big boobs option?!
Voice:
"Computer, what's the status of the plasma conduit in section XYZ?"
Alternative:
Okay, Engineering -> Systems -> Energy -> Plasma Conduits -> Section XYZ -> Status
Voice:
"Computer, how many crew members on board are human, female, and single? Oh, and with big boobs?"
Alternative:
Hmmm, Personnel -> Crew Listing -> Filter based on species, gender, marital status ->
Anyway. I just thought it seemed silly. A lot of times it's easier to say what you want than it is to write it out. If the computer can understand written english that isn't specially formatted, then why not take it to the next step and have it accept voice input? After all that is said, they did still have LCARS and all, so it isn't like voice interaction was the only way to work with the computer.
Who writes these things? And why do they get posted on Slashdot endlessly?
First off, I found the 3D interface from Minority Report to be fascinating; and given the unique function of the computer who is to say that it wasn't the most efficient manner of manipulating the data? Second, I noticed that in Star Trek characters generally used keypads/control panels for complex tasks, while others could be dictated more speedily and/or helped the character focus his or her thoughts. This seemed perfectly justifiable to me.
And yes, for the UMPTEENTH time, the UNIX GUI from Jurassic Park was silly. You are not the first person to have noticed this. But the fact is that having much of that incredibly tense scene plunked out on a keyboard in a monochrome command line would have put most audiences to sleep.
Is it necessary to hack apart some of our favorite geek fiction without the slightest suspension of disbelief so that some of us can feel hoity-toity about their computer savvy? Please...
Even on Christmas Eve, I figured someone would have mentioned this by now.
Jeff Goldblum['s character] is able to plant a virus in the computer designed by AN ALIEN SPECIES. This assumes he has a good working knowledge of not only their user interface, but their hardware, software APIs, programming language, and arguably their natural language as well. Oh, and he learned all this in, like, a day. Granted, he had a Mac, but still.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
I can't believe he the article doesn't mention "Independance Day" where Jeff Goldbloom takes a virus on his mac, and uploads it to the alien mothership, which takes down the shields of all the little fighters.
I also liked how the aliens used earth's satelites to send a signal to co-ordinate the time that they would strike. Naturally, an alien race which has mastered faster-than-light travel and can take over our complex satelite system still hasn't figured out how to synchronize its watches.
The claim that it's unrealistic for time travlers from the future to not know about systems of today is rather amusing.
In part because it'd require knowledge of the future to know that... but mostly because it completly ignores the fact that they just traveled through time.
...the system in Minority Report is considered one of the worst UIs in movie history because moving your arms is "very tiring". Maybe having to move your arms is a good thing. Maybe you should have to run on the spot to scroll.
There was an episode of Outer Limits (I think it was Outer Limits) where a race had become so dependent on their technology that their bodies had withered to non-functionality. It was an interesting forecast for ourselves, but it is more likely we will be disabled by obesity rather than withering.
Obviously I'm not actually suggesting something like this will occur, but my God people -is it really that hard to move your arms?
I remember watching Minority Report and having the opposite response. The UI seemed very plausible. If we are talking about writing up word documents, then no. But if we are talking about video editing and imaging, it seemed very realistic. In fact, it was so realistic that someone created a set of input devices very similar to those in the movie. I remember there being an article here about it a few months ago. Someone was playing warcraft.
"Luke, you've switched off your targeting computer. What's wrong?"
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
Well, far before Apple (by about a decade) making Unix available to the common man, there was Linux. What was funny about that then was the unlikelihood of a kid having access to a Unix system. What was even funnier a few years later (by 97 or 98) was the fact that it was no longer unlikely! Kids, even 12-year-olds, had access to Linux and were using it and learning it.
Really, when I saw this one, I had to check the date on the article, because I thought it was quite old. The biggest examples of most of these are things like the first Mission Impossible, Independence Day, and as mentioned, Jurassic Park.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Does anyone else question why we are taking user interface advice from a guy whose website looks like it was designed in notepad? The Minority Report user interface was actually designed by industry professionals at Microsoft Research, MIT, and Sun. These people all have a great pedigree in usability. The author suggests using a 3D interface is tiring but in the movie the police are required to parse through a large amount of 4-dimensional data in very short periods of time. This is because they need to stop the crime before it occurs. That interface is built around speed and control which is not something the critic considers. I find it ironic how the author derides gestural input while Slashdot has stories almost every day about how great that interface has worked for the Wii.
it exists
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
He forgot how movie computers are always beeping and emitting other odd sounds at useless moments.
Penny - plain text accounting
Great, now that you've brought that up, the next remaster of Episode IV will have the computer saying...
"It looks like you're trying to target a two-meter exhaust port with proton torpedoes.
Would you like some help with that?"
"Spirit," said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, "tell me if *BSD will live."
"I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, *BSD will die."
"No, no," said Scrooge. "Oh, no, kind Spirit! say it will be spared."
"If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race," returned the Ghost, "will find him here. What then? If it be like to die, it had better do it, and decrease the surplus operating system population."
Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief. It was sad to see any operating system die, even one so obviously flawed and useless as *BSD.
God bless us, every one.
This website was refreshingly easy to read, honestly. Nicely contrasted text in a reasonably large font.
You never know. Someone just may use the Wii controllor as an alternative computer input device. Me, I think these articles simply show that a lot of people have little imagination. WIMP is so entrenched, any alternative will have to look and behaive like it. Thereby stagnating any UI development for decades. The movies just may be the only place free to experiment despite the ridicule.
I think a voice interface would still be a problem. It's the content of the spoken message that is important.
I can type "Show me the status of the plasma conduit in section XYZ", and I can also speak it aloud. Once it gets past speech recognition, it winds up essentially a list of tokens. English language words. Unless your speech recognition is so good it can glean different information from inflection.
Really, what I think is best would be the ability for a computer to truly parse a spoken language.
The reason why I think a voice interface wouldn't be as good - imagine what an office would be like if everyone was chattering at their computer all the time. And the side effects of that.
"Computer, show me the latest articles at Slashdot."
What if the boss is walking by? And even if you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, who wants to have to listen to it all day?
I'd take an english parser and a keyboard over that, myself.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Gestures do have their place, but not as the primary user interface for office systems.'"
yawn...ok someone just mod me funny. you know the joke.
--- widget evolution: enhanced, plus, super, ultra, extreme, exxxtreme, ultra-extreme,
"In contrast, it's highly unlikely that anyone from 2207 would have ever seen Windows Vista screens."
Well with the current rate of MS software development, Vista will likely still be in use in 2207....
now Vista SP2, that might be something that someone in 2207 might not have seen (well, maybe in beta version...)
At least "The Voyage Home" got #2 right.
"I remember watching "The Lone Gunman" one day (thank God that show didn't make it!) and they needed more processing power to crack a password to take over a hijacked plane. "We could do this if had one of those new Octium 4's!" Well, they get one, right before the plane hits the building, they pull out their existing processor, I assume and Octium 3, and drop in the new Octium 4, without so much as powering the machine off... and BAM! They had their password and saved the plane. Oh, and no processors had any type of thermal anything!"
Nothing odd. On mainframes you can pull complete assembies off, and add without powering down. Some of the old timers here can tell you of hardware that could take almost anything and survive. It's just consumer equipment that has lowered everyone's expectations.
So what are you saying -- movies are different from real life? Now it all makes sense; I was wondering why Wolverine and James Bond hadn't teamed up to destroy those giant asteroids hurtling towards Earth.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am master of my fate and captain of my soul.
I would have a problem with waving around my arm full time on the job. I suppose that would make it a good excuse to avoid work at home.
Most people describe the UI of the air traffic control system I work on as dull but thats because you need to give it your total attention for six hours straight without your eyes getting tired.
Different requirements from your example, with the totally opposite outcome, but the argument that the UI has to suit the application is a good one.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The movie Disclosure http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109635/ had the single most worst stupid 3d interface.
In the movie they had to walk through a virtual database while walking. Then try to find something that was filed in virtual drawers, then bring the virtual file to a place to print the stupid file.
Let me see . . . activate Spotlight (okay I am using a Mac) type in few words and bing my file pops up, double click and I am gone. Total time 5 seconds.
The movie Disclosure . . .
Put on virtual gear (10 minutes)
Step on the pad and start walking
Search around a database while walking(hours)
FInd the file (10 minutes)
Send the virtual file to the screen or printer (10 seconds)
Get the virtual gear off (10 Minutes)
Fill out a form explaining why you broke the %#(#)&%%^&#@)@*% goggles. (2 hours)
Explain to boss why you broke the ^%^*(@#*)#@&%@(* goggles (4-5 hours)
Go to make a change in the file (2 minutes)
-- A computer without Windoze is like a choclate cake without mustard
How a Macintosh computer interfaces nicley with an alien computer in ID4 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116629/
Even better . . . how a virus written on a Macintosh works on an alien system.
-- A computer without Windoze is like a choclate cake without mustard
Does anyone else question why we are taking user interface advice from a guy whose website looks like it was designed in notepad?
You're right. He should've used vi.
Top 10 Usability Bloopers in the Movies:
m l
1. The Hero Can Immediately Use Any UI: All movie stars know how to use alien UIs
2. Time Travelers Can Use Current Designs: Someone from 500 years from now being able to use DOS? Someone from 500 years ago using Windows?
3. The 3D [Gesture-based] UI: "3D is for demos. 2D is for work."
4. Integration is Easy, Data Interoperates: "Microsoft Works"
5. Access Denied / Access Granted: Why tell them "Access Granted" in equally the same font/color/size as DENIED?
6. Big Fonts: HUGE Fonts = Unrealistic UI + Eyestrain
7. Star Trek's Talking Computer: Harder to specify in words vs. a 3D interface
8. Remote Manipulators (Waldo Controls): Car remote control via a cell phone: high speed control, and accurate? BS
9. You've Got Mail is Always Good News: Never any spam in the movies
10. "This is Unix, It's Easy": Case in point: The kid in Jurassic Park haxing teh Unix. 'nuff said.
From http://www.useit.com/alertbox/film-ui-bloopers.ht
No. Do you find it hard to read, or something?
Your UID is even higher than mine, which betrays that you're new here. This is Jakob Nielsen we're talking about. He's not just some random dude with a website written in Notepad. He's a well-known UI expert with a (simple and) easy to read website which looks like it could very well have been written in Notepad. There's a big difference. He may not always be right, but he does have significant credentials.
Be a PATRIOT--because the only thing we have to fear is the lack thereof.
"And how much expensive hardware is going to be used to support the "mouth watering graphics" of Vista?
And for the billionth time, not as much as slashdotters would like you to believe.
"How much more work will that help the user get done?"
With PCI-X's bidirectional interface and usage of the GPU? I'd say more than you think.
For a bunch of nerds you all have the worse imaginations I've ever seen.
Ok. It was kind of hard reading yet another person who does not understand that movies are NOT reality. But at times it was mildly amusing, and almost credible. I say almost, because right at the end of the article there is a one line sentence that made me realize the author of this piece has ZERO comprehension of the real world. Most likely because the author is too busy trying to force reality on an obviously non-reality based for of entertainment. The line was this;
Users blame themselves when they can't use technology
Im sorry, but having worked in IT for almost a decade now, I have yet to hear one person who blames themselves instead of the 'stupid computer'. Hell, in this society, we even call car wrecks 'accidents' because nobody has the stones to take responsibility. Yet, this guy somehow believes that people are blaming themselves that they dont know how to use a PC? The only thing I can even think comes close to this is the people who walk around using the phrase "Im computer illiterate" as some sort of badge of honor. To which I always think "If you cant take the time to educate yourself about something you know you should be trying to learn, do you think its a great idea to BRAG about it?"
That one line in the article is more fanciful than ANY of the movie situations presented.
Let's take the ATM machine for example. Initially the machine was created to reduce the load on tellers for easily automated tasks. These machines would often directly generate revenue by charging customers for the transactions. Therefore, these machines pretty quickly had well designed interfaces that allowed relatively rapid transactions. The rapid transactions were important because the higher the rate of transactions, the more money. As time went by, however, the charges for most transactions were eliminated, the marketing people realized that a person at an ATM machine was a captive audience, so the primary purpose of an ATM became to advertise services. The result is that the current generation of ATM have horrible interfaces in terms of customer usability and rapid transactions, which really puts the customer at a unnecessary risk, but wonderful a wonderful interface in terms of forces customers to view advertising. In terms of the purpose, aside from the fact that the customer is endangered, there is nothing wrong with the interface
Likewise, a web page has to be judged to it's purpose. If one is a newspaper, then one is going to want to present news, but equally important generate revenue to support the page. Therefore the page must be complicated not only to organize the news, but to display pictures, and to display enoug ad content to pay for the page. Much of the complexity of any commercial page in fact comes from the need to integrate ads and content.
So, if ads are not critical, and the content is straightforward, how complex does a page have to be, and is complexity itself a goal? I fear many believe that complexity is a virtue. On one intranet page I work with, at least a third of the real estate is wasted on branding and other non content. Often less that half the area is available for the content one is interested in. Nothing is linked properly. All the energy and money is spent on useless branding and cool design.
Now, look at useit.com again. The site itself is an ad, so needs no additional ads. The branding is clear, and avoids banner blindness by using text for the titles. Each section is clearly marked, and the one picture clearly promotes Nielsen. There are no other extraneous pictures to distract from this promotion. Since Nielsen offers tips on how to attract and keep customers through the user interface, and not the technical details on how to develop the interface, there is not benefit to whiz bang programming.
So here is the deal. The parent post is right and wrong. It is wrong to criticize the useit webpage, falling into the oft citing fallacy that a more complex web page is more usable. This fallacy will likely be the cause of the failure of many new web pages, and is already the cause of waste of million, if not billions, in public funds. However, the parent is correct that the minority report interface is not significantly defective, but not for the reasons cited. As a computer interface, it is probably lacking. However, the interface is not meant to be a communication protocol. Rather, it is a dramatic tool. Therefore, if Nielsen is judging is as a computer interface, then this is another example where Nielsen has completely missed the point. The only reasonable measure of success or failure can be if the interface communicated the intentions and results to the audience. And, as much as we hate the big login screen, it is what the audience needs.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Gestures do have their place, but not as the primary user interface for office systems.
Neo: How about I give you the finger.... and you give me my phone call?
It is at this point that Agent Smith blocks Neo's VoIP ports, and... well, you know the rest.
As a disclaimer, I found most of the points in the article to be exceptionally boring. A fair deal of it is true, but some of it--like complaining that font sizes are too big--seem like a stretch to fill a Top 10 list rather than a legitimate complaint.
As to your question: No, because the issue is usability, not aesthetics. Sometimes really pretty things help you get things done; often times they do not. His article was exceptionally easy to read. The navigation definitely stood out. It was ugly, in my opinion, but it was definitely usable.
If you want to nit pick his usability, a quick glance over his markup show the lack of use of things such as access keys, which is a usability issue for blind users. Also things like useless ALT tags, etc.
Well, he doesn't deride gestural input unless you're taking some liberties with assumptions. What he says is that "it is very tiring to keep your arms in the air while using a computer." He also says that 2D is better than 3D in most cases, but also explicitly points out that 3D interfaces have their places. Video games would seem like a fair place to use them.
For one thing, you're not necessarily keeping your arms up. If you're having, say, a sword fight, you may keep your arms up; bowling doesn't require that. Tennis requires it a little bit (serves) and after that it can be anything from an underhand to a backhand motion. Plus, the word "requires" is a bit much since it says explicitly that exaggerated movements aren't really necessary. Most people also are probably not playing video games for 8 hours (nearly straight) every day such as they would be doing at work.
~If you're wondering how he eats and breathes And other science facts, Just repeat to yourself "It's just a show, I should really just relax~ Just enjoy the movie!
Don't forget Office Space! The OS goes from a Mac OS 9ish UI (sans Apple menu with a Windows hour-glass cursor) to a DOS prompt on old Apple hardware (never possible, even on a LC 630. Still one of the best movies ever, though.
I read this exact same comment a week or so ago when Slashdot posted another story about movie computer blunders.
I mean it was word for word the same as this one!
Plagiarism or unoriginality? Who cares...
No, I wouldn't want to watch someone debug or "bond" with a difficult system either. I'd rather see the results.
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=210 780&cid=17170654/
What a loser. Jealous of Chris Carter much?
Whenever an actor goes "Okay, I hack, and poof I'm done!" -- it's really not meant to be an unrealistic portrayal, but, rather an "edited" portrayal -- i.e., the boring stuff between "hack" and "and poof" have been edited out by a well-paid editor. What's wrong with that?
Forget Vista & OSX, what the world is clearly clamoring for is the Hollywood interface! I can just see my parents, aunts & uncles gesturing their way through powerball.com or the weather channel's site. And wouldn't ebay be so much easier if you could just shout your bid at the computer? ;D
Any tool that Cruise, Goldblum or Sutherland can use to save the world better be good enough for my Grandma!
Seriously, despite the cracks about the author's site being designed on notepad, clean & simple - however unsexy - is almost always preferable. The less icing you have to cut through, the quicker you get to the cake.
And meanwhile, on the Death Star, shortly before Luke launches his torpedoes...
Commence primary ignition...
Bleep...Bleep...Vrrrrrmmmmmm...
Stand by... Stand by...
This is followed by a BSOD filling up the big view screen with the message:
"This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down."
This then gives Luke the time needed to actually get his torpedoes into the exhaust port, which sets up a chain reaction, and destroys the station.
This space unintentionally left blank.
The Gesture-Based Interface is for users who have an extra input peripheral; alongside their keyboard and mouse, they have a Nintendo WiiMote or a similar device.
The WiiMote has started a revolution. Today, it costs 40$ USD for a device with an accelerometer, and IR camera with a motion dot tracking ASIC, 7 buttons, a D-Pad, a speaker, a rumble motor, a BlueTooth radio and controller with a built-in 8051 microcontroller, connected directly to an expansion port that lets you add peripherals to the base WiiMote... Soon, prices will fall, and similar motion-sensitive devices will be available easily. BlueTooth USB adapters can be found for 5$, I hear.
Take Joe, your average Linux poweruser. He got himself a WiiMote because he heard that there was great Linux support for it, as well as compatibility with other, less open-source politically correct platforms that shall not be named here.
On his home Linux box, he installs a WiiMote Handling Application, which gives his WiiMote a life of its own: it remains connected 24/7; the batteries last up to 60 hours. The WiiMote becomes a "Presence Tool". When he he at his seat in front of the computer, the WiiMote is resting horizontally. When he gets up to go to the kitchen or elsewhere, he picks up the WiiMote and brings it along with him. It is detected, by motion detection, that he now is away from his seat.
After say three minutes spend in the Kitchen, Joe feels the WiiMote in his pocket buzzing. He takes it out quickly, and does a gesture that indicates he'll be away for at least 15 minutes, and to set an away message that says this. He could have done it with a series of button presses, too. Or, he could have simply shaken his hips and legs in a way that the WiiMote, still in his pocket, would have detected it as a command gesture.
While inputting commands, the WiiMote can give feedback through the Rumble Motor, Four Leds and a Speaker. But why would you use a Wireless Gesture Sensing Interface at all? Isn't it going to be less productive than the keyboard and mouse?
Yes. It's going to be slower. It's going to be more tiring for the arms. However, you'll have certain types of commands that you can program on the WiiMote, that can then be performed more quickly than with the keyboard. Also, you won't be tied behind your desk on a chair. You'll be able to get up and walk, WiiMote still in hand.
Combine this with a 3D window manager, such as Beryl. You will be able to control the mouse very well from a few feet away, using either IR or tilting the WiiMote to control the cursor, you'll be able to zoom in any window, and arrange windows with a wireless gesture based interface. You can use normal applications from a greater distance, because of easy zooming in. If you want to look at something and be walking around the room, taking a break from being at your chair, this is it.
Why sit at a desk many hours a day? There are times where you use the computer without having a need for a keyboard. Then, you can get off your chair and move to a gesture-based interface. For more complex work, you will want to use a two-handed system.
You could simply get a pair of WiiMotes. Or, you could get a WiiMote and a Nunchuk. Alternatively, you could get a WiiMote and a Classic Controller; there are some interesting one-handed grips you can have on the Classic Controller with a little practice. But the WiiMote + Nunchuk combination is the most interesting and ergonomic. You gain one additional set of accelerometers; you now have 3-axis sensing for each hand. You gain two buttons, and a great analog Joystick. Add this to the IR camera for pointer control, and the Wiimote's D-Pad.. And you've got a very powerful two-handed, gesture-sensing interface.
This article seems to assume that UI design has already reached its peak, that no new innovations can work. It's easy to see where that assumption comes from; my Ubuntu desktop still presents an interface that basically conforms to the same paradigms used in Windows 95. I agree that current UI design has gone about as far as it can go, but only _for existing hardware_. There's an excellent video on YouTube showing an interface somewhat reminiscent of Minority Report; it takes the interface to the next level by first advancing the hardware.
This story is over eight years old... There wasn't anything else slightly more recent that could be dug up for us to read in our eggnog induced drunkeness?
Everybody remembers the unix thing, but equally ridiculous were the videoconferencing scenes that were obviously just QuickTime movies playing, complete with a progress bar moving towards the end. Gave me a laugh at age 12.
What really impress me is the hero's ability to navigate through an old-fashioned paper archive.
The hero and the heroine break into the very big company, find the small room with the "Archives" sign on the door, open the drawer "E-G", browse through the nicely arranged folders, and pick the folder with the incrimination evidence.
Where I work, we have paper archives all over the place. Even though we know the system, it can take a day finding the information we are looking for.
What is an "alert box"? The name doesn't describe anything to me.
Where's the site map link? If this is Jacob Nielsen's page, why is it called useit.com?
Blah blah blah.
Minority Report UI was good. Using a mouse for such tasks would make Tom C. head pop out.
Star Trek talking computer is good too. It doesn't interfere with your other routines. You can multitask while talking, it's easy. While using the mouse etc. it's no so simple. The computer is a tool, not a shrine to worship and focus.
Other than those, his points are mostly valid and I like his simple, yet clear design.
Does anyone else question why we are taking user interface advice from a guy whose website looks like it was designed in notepad?
Because while spartan it is elegant and simple?I realized halfway through reading this that, much like the problem the author faces when a film references some technology that is impossible and ruins the movie, I too was getting irked at the author's misconceptions surrounding film and technology.
//e, and was starting to get into working with machine language. I'm pretty sure that if I was born 15 years later, by 12 years old I'd understand a Unix based OS pretty well (not well enough to access and modify proprietary security systems, something he was right on), but it's just silly to assume that something is impossible for a kid to do but an adult could handle it.
3D is stupid in movies (even movies about the future) because 2D works better? Really? He can know without a shadow of a doubt that we'll never develop a 3D interface that is more efficient or easier to use (or both) then a traditional 2D one?
It would be like him complaining about a movie shot in 1979 about the future that shows everyone talking on wireless phones. He'd write something like "Even if we could make mobile wireless communications possible, the cost would be so high that your average man on the street couldn't afford it".
The thing about movies that take place in the future is that you can allow for a little leeway under the assumption that it could, perhaps, be made possible many years from now. Just because 3D user interfaces or virtual reality is the stuff of trade shows today doesn't mean they'll be that way tommorow. While it's hard to perceive the 3D/VR as usable today, we simply don't know what sort of thing could happen in the future.
He complains about the 'Access Granted' message that finds its way into movies. To me, that's a minor fault. What really gets me (and what he ignores), is the fact that in movies, a person can have nothing to go off of except a user/pass screen, and a skilled 'hacker' can gain access in short order (while an unskilled one has no chance of getting in). Also, this skilled hacker can give a realistic time frame of how long it's going to take to break into a system with just a user/pass. "This is a protected system. It'll take me 8 minutes to gain access". Are we to guess that the movie hacker knows exactly how long it'll take before he guesses the password?
Probably the number one thing I read that convinced me that the guy doesn't really know what he's talking about was in his complaint that there was no way a 12 year old could know Unix. Does he not realize that young children might actually know something about computers? When I was 12, I knew how to program in BASIC on my old Apple
Finally, how could he possibly fault the voice controlled computers in Star Trek? Remember, this is a show about the future. It's quite possible that in another hundred years or so, most functions of a computer could be controlled by voice command. Don't forget that the Enterprise's computer could also be accessed via touch based consoles.
The Internet is generally stupid
I read this a couple of years ago, only it was writen funnier, It was funny even.
I do not really see the need for this Captain Obvious story to be highlighted at all.
The idea is not origional and even worse it is executed poorly.
retep
and not a Bolian search? ;)
Michael Bolton: "PC Load Letter"? What the fuck does that mean?
I agree that was the worst "modern" stupidity. The movie was supposedly not based on Welles' story, but an end by virus? The ending completely ruined the movie for me. Besides the deus ex machina copout, a Mac uploading to an alien mainframe completely dispelled any suspension of disbelief that I had. [insert obligatory joke about Macs (esp. pre-Intel Macs) being incompatible with everything in the known universe...]
the big font thing is so that the movie viewers can read what's on the screen. I it used the size fonts most people do, they'd have to zoom an awful lot. This article = moronic twiddle.
Please don't presume to tell me what the future is going to look like if you don't know what the past looked like! The only think we safely say about future UIs is that eventually they'll catch up with NextStep. Maybe.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
I've watched the Outer Limits in the past, but got a bit bored with them rehashing the same "being dependent on technology is bad" message in different stories.
see a Text Widget
In fact, what Nielsen is overlooking is that movie UIs are extremely well designed--they serve exactly the purpose and user community they are meant to serve: the movie audience. But ignoring that point for a moment and actually looking at them as real user interfaces, Nielsen's analysis leaves a lot to be desired.
1. The Hero Can Immediately Use Any UI [...] The fact that all user interfaces are walk-up-and-use is probably the single most unrealistic aspect of how movies depict computers
It sure is unrealistic given the kind of UI designs that are currently being created (and to which Nielsen contributes). But the fact that current UI designs are hard to learn and hard to use doesn't mean that it has to remain so in the future. Civilizations that have figured out antigravity and faster than light travel hopefully will also have figured out how to build UIs that are easier to learn than Windows and Macintosh.
2. Time Travelers Can Use Current Designs [...] If you were transported back in time to the Napoleonic wars and made captain of a British frigate, you'd have no clue how to sail the ship: You couldn't use a sextant and you wouldn't know the names of the different sails, so you couldn't order the sailors to rig the masts appropriately. [...] In contrast, it's highly unlikely that anyone from 2207 would have ever seen Windows Vista screens.
Well, as Nielsen's unwarranted dig at UNIX shows, he himself certainly doesn't bother studying historically significant systems. But he shouldn't generalize from his own ignorance and prejudices. People who time travel in movies are usually actually quite good at what they are doing. In fact, studying classical approaches is part of the curriculum in most fields, from physics to navigation. A modern captain knows how to use a sextant, just like a modern photographer learns about film cameras, and a modern mathematician learns about constructive geometry. And once computer science has become a field with a tradition, computer engineers from 2207 will learn about Windows Vista (provided DRM and copyrights permit it), because it is historically significant.
3. The 3D UI [...] it's very tiring to keep your arms in the air while using a computer. Gestures do have their place, but not as the primary user interface for office systems.
The Minority Report UI is being used by in-shape young police officers, not out of shape geezers or armchair UI designers. Besides, maybe the reason that the Minority Report users are in shape has something to do with the fact that their UI actually makes them move. I very much hope that our UIs will change such that they will require more physical exertion.
8. Remote Manipulators (Waldo Controls) [...] Many other films feature other types of remote control, which always work with high speed and accuracy despite input devices that are suboptimal for the task.
Geez, maybe Nielsen failed to notice that the remote control was special-purpose designed and had to fit into a cell phone. Also, it's not designed to be used by some nerd, it's designed to be used by 007, the kind of person who leaps out of an airplane, and not only survives, but lands in the arms of a beautiful woman while picking up a martini on the way down.
10. "This is Unix, It's Easy" [...] Leaving aside the plausibility of a 12-year-old knowing Unix, simply knowing Unix is not enough to immediately use any application running on the system [...] Leaving aside the plausibility of a 12-year-old knowing Unix, simply knowing Unix is not enough to immediately use any application running on the system
In fact, 12-year olds do know UNIX (I did), and even better, what I knew back then still applies nearly perfectly to today's UNIX systems, decades later. In fact, it even applies to Macintosh, while little of the original Macintosh survives. And the UNIX command line is highly consistent. UNIX is probably the single best choice the script writers could have made for the movie plot, since, although it may seem a little confusing to the likes of Nielsen and home users, among existing, widely-used operating systems, it has the longest-lived and most consistent design and conventions.
Why on earth would we want movies to get the difficulty of computer interfaces right? I for one don't want to have Jurasic Park turn into a 13 hour movie cause the 12 year old girl has to spend 10 hours looking up Unix command line codes. Just like nearly everything in movies, computers (their interfaces, their capabilities, their form, ect) are archetypes. They are concepts that let the movie tell it's story. We should no more expect movies to show computers accurately than we expect them to show dragons that obey physics Try to make a 2 ton dragon flap it's wings for a take off, I dare you. As long as they serve to advance the plot, I could careless if the computer interface would work in the real world or not.
Of course all those computer UIs are unreal or impractical. Movies are made, or at least should be made, to boost our imagination and take to different places. And, some of these impossible things that were created by sci-fi stories are inspirations to real world tecnology, like voice recognition, motion sensors, and possibly much of the eye candy we see in the OSs of today.
one of the best film / TV UI's I've seen
:)
(even though it depends on linking to a persons brain which we can't do yet)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibGFLbdrzTQ
about 1:35 in
If we can get KDE 5 to look like this I'll be happy
alright maybe version 6 then
Swordfish (yeah, cracking is that easy while getting a blowjob) Sneekers (break any encryption and have any UI, to me this seemed the most implausible)
And back in the 80s, there was OS-9, a UN*Xish OS which was available for Radio Shack Color Computers.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
They are at the huge workstation that allows hand gestures, they made a bunch of wild ass gestures to do whatever, then saved it all to a clear plastic card, walked about 6 steps, then copied the contents to another machine.
Ever heard of wireless networking?
The one thing that creeped me out was the IRL ads changing as you walk past them. That crap is coming to us faster than what any of us wants to acknowledge. It's going to be much worse than what it is now with web ads.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
Even the amount of spam in 1996 would have the phone ringing off the hook!
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
I was an electrician for a while working in new home construction; spent most of my day with my arms in the air, turning a screwdriver, etc. Was it tiring for the first few weeks? Sure. After that, no prob.
They're called deltoids. Deltoids are a member of an anatomical system called the "muscular system." Just because the submitter and the writer of the artical haven't heard of such a thing as muscles, doesn't make it impossible.
I guess that means Star Trek 4 was being realistic when Scotty couldn't figure out the mouse...
Its not movies, but has anyone watched any of the CSI shows and noticed that they have a *different* interface on their lab computers every episode? Their IT and IS guys must be working some serious overtime upgrading constantly.
.
You might think that people coming from the future would have an easier time using our current systems, given their supposedly superior knowledge. Not true.
That's assuming computer science will advance drastically while genetics stays stagnant. I can pretty much figure out any interface a monkey can, and in a couple of hundred years -- and assuming we don't kill ourselves off -- that will be the equivalent of the average future human compared to the average person today.
6. Big Fonts :)
;)
I site the article as an example supporting the use of big fonts. For further reference visit any "Web 2.0" site
3. 3D UI
Though it may be tiring to use your whole arms - gesturing - to use a computer, it sure beats the hell out of the amount of exercise you are getting right now sitting at your keyboard. Give it a couple weeks - you'll be be stronger for it... and you'll look like Hugh Jackman in Swordfish
motif the movies throw at us is the one where, on seeing a crusty pixelated image, the user uttering a simple "enhance" command accompanied by an nonchalant, open palmed gesture towards the screen is presented with not only a closer view of the image but also crystal clear one. There's also the magic from Enemy of The State that allows the computer fiends to rotate 360 degrees along the horizontal and vertical inside a shop to get a clear view of the bag and contents responisible for the rest of that god awful movie. Damn you Hollywood, Damn you.
What I think is funny is that, in a movie that features dinosaurs, cloned using frog DNA, running amok and basically eating a theme park, the biggest complaint here is that a kid can figure out how to use a computer.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
This may be related to the talking computer thing, but how about how that, in every sci-fi series, there is always a scene where people have to do something really important (initiate or deactivate self-destruct, hand over controls to some stranger, shut-down life support), and the scene requires at least two people to verbally give the most high-priority password they have.
They literally shout it out across the room, sometimes, so that anyone with a cheap recorder can save it for future use. And, it's always something easy like "username: walker, password: texas ranger"
"In the movie they had to walk through a virtual database while walking. Then try to find something that was filed in virtual drawers, then bring the virtual file to a place to print the stupid file."
No worse than in Tron (the game) an NPC has to levitate over to the E-Mail you need in the archives. Did I mention your being fired at?
I agree.
I've never heard that signing was an exhausing form of communication. If indeed it is, for certain individuals, perhaps they should get off their asses and work out a bit?
And we use 2D interfaces to design 3D environments BECAUSE we don't have any 3D interface devices. The author extended the logical argument exactly backwards, essentially saying 'We don't have 3D interface devices because we use a 2D environment to design'. Wrong. Hell, it isn't even true that we use 2D CAD for 3D; much of what is done in CAD today IS done in a fully 3D environment. Catia? ProE? Yeah, you jump to 2D to create pic-points, but much of the real work is done in the 3D editor. The Joint Strike Fighter simply would not exist as such without 3D modeling (provided by Catia, IIRC). They modeled the ability of tools to get to every nut and bolt, the time it would take for (3?) mechanics to replace an engine, and certainly far more.
Imagine being able to sculpt a 3D model like clay, using both hands. A 3D workbench beside the virtual hands which allows you to zoom in and out (letting you sculpt a massive structural column as if it were the size of your thumb), select shaping tools. When you want to 'save' a piece of a model you 'set it on a shelf', which you can reach for later when you need it.
Now go fuck with Blender. Yeah, Blender is sweet... but really, which would you prefer?
Personally I belive that using hand gestures and 'interaction motion' (sculpting, etc) would reduce the strain placed on the human body from sitting in almost exactly the same position for 1/2 or more of the waking day.
If voice activation is inefficient, why do so many people have secretaries? Granted, boob size may very well reduce the efficiency at which the information is transmitted to the responding device, i.e., the male executive either forgetting what he had to say, or having to repeat himself. That doesn't negate the validity of voice activation though.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Not to be a grammar nazi, but the cadence was off in too many places. Rather than just bitch about it, I'm submitting a revision for your consideration. I tried to stay true to the original intent. [sigh] The silly "characters per line" restriction is preventing me from posting, so I'm going to ramble here a bit to get the stats up. Yep, nothing relevant to read here, so just skip down a bit.
More crap for the "characters per line" restriction, dammit: Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate--we can not consecrate--we can not hallow--this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
MM
- - - block separator - - - bypassing Slashdot's "too few characters per line" restriction - - - I have good karma, why can't I post "skinny" text? - - -
Twas the night before Christmas,
As I clicked on my mouse,
Across some old floppies, I'd tried to degauss;
Windows kept hanging with Blue Screen Of Death,
While I cursed out Bill Gates
The missus was sleeping, with kids and newborn,
So I took the opportunity to surf for some porn.
I found a free website with many jpegs,
(So that's just exactly, how chickens lay eggs!)
When out down the hall I heard a loud noise,
I jumped out of my chair and put back the boys.
I figured the wife must be up and about,
If she caught me again, she'd toss my ass out.
I laced up my robe and thought of a story
About why I'm up and how to say "sorry."
I stuck out my head by the light of the john
(One of the kids must've left the light on)
I squinted and strained to see just what was what
When what hove into view but a giant red butt.
The first thing I thought was to reach for a bat
(Wait a minute - red suit, fur trim and he's fat!)
The Claus man is here with high-tech type stuff
The latest geek toys without all the fluff.
New cell phones! New sound cards! New controllers and games!
For Xbox! For Gamecube! For Playstation and MAMEs!
Wireless Routers! They're eleven-dot-G!
Zippy and quick, not slow like dot-B!
I pondered the gifts, and considered my needs,
Time seemed to slow down as I watched with my greed.
"All those wonderful toys" as the Joker did say,
"Where does he get them? Best Buy, Amazon and Ebay?"
And then, with a beeping, off went my pager,
(Some idiot at work with a question, I'll wager)
I fumbled to stop the beep-beeping sound,
But Santa had stopped and had now turned around.
His actions had set off the motion detector
And in minutes the cops would be in this sector
He dropped all the toys to make quick his escape
And flew 'cross the room li
Her grandfather ran the place. If I were a rich grandfather, and my granddaughter loved computers, I would get her the same computers I used at my super-duper dino ranch. Duh. So she would've known Unix, and she would've known the interface they used at the installation.
All this griping because the kid knew Unix was stupid. It makes sense in the context of the movie, which is all that matters. I mean, filling in dino DNA with frog DNA was ridiculous, but it worked within the confines of the movie.
At twelve, I was programming assembly language on the Apple ][ for high-speed 3D wireframe graphics (like Bill Budge's cool toolkit, only sucky). It's not surprising a bright kid wouldn't know how to fly through a 3D interface on which she already had experience thanks to her understanding and very rich grandfather.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
They are MOVIES! They don't have to be 100% correct. Let's disect some of these whines.
1) Hello?!? Try walking up to 1000 random computers and see what is running on them. Chances are it will be Windows or something Windows-like. This article assumes that the "hero" has never used a computer or an application like the one that needs to be used.
2) It is reasonable to assume that UIs will get easier to use as technology matures. That is the way things have been so far. But, more importantly, I have never seen a time traveler from the past go to the future and use a computer. Time travelers from the future know when they are going and have a chance to learn the technology of the period.
3) Of course, if one has been using a 3D interface from childhood, it would not be difficult because one would be used to having one's hands up like that. There is also no prohibtion from putting one's hands down and resting for a few minutes. And, as the article pointed out, it LOOKS better. Don't forget movies are a VISUAL medium.
4) The author glosses over two important facts. The first is that just because something is not shown happening, there is no proof it didn't happen. The data conversion could occur behind the scene. Second is that no one wants to watch a character sit around waiting for a file to down load. Remember, we are talking entertainment here.
5) Once again, reality is sacrificed for entertainment. People go to the movies to see things and audiances like those big flashing signs.
6) See #5
7) 10 years ago voice recognition technology was crap. Today, anyone can call into a voice activated menu that does a good job of understanding most people. I can believe there will be a voice based computer interface.
8) see #5 but substitute "big flashing signs" with "impossible action sequeces".
9) My mail filter does a good job of pulling out the important stuff. I also filter my mail into separate folders. I don't have the problems you are describing.
10) Meh. I don't really remember this scene.
What irritates me about this column, and other like it, is that the column insists on 100% accuracy, when the point of the movies in question is Fantasy. Don't complain that tech is not accurant in a movie about aliens, or dinosaurs or superspies. Just enjoy the fun and/or STFU.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
This reminds of the time Scotty travelled back in time, picked up a mouse (with a cord!) and expected THAT to be the voice input device.
But that's not the problem.
Autodesk tried this in the late 1980s, when it looked like "virtual reality" was the next big thing. It looked like a potential interface for 3D CAD. A system with multiple PC chassis and some special purpose hardware was built, and there was a VR test system, the first on PC-type hardware.
The "hands in the air" thing isn't very precise. That's the problem. Much CAD work involves precise cursor positioning, and CAD tools are all about putting entities exactly where you want them, for which there are elaborate tools and modes. Various kinds of "snap" mechanisms help, but when drawing something complicated, getting close to the right entity to snap to can be tough. The 3D positional sensors from Polyhemus weren't accurate enough for that. (They never really were very good. I used to see them at graphics shows, usually with a dancer wearing the sensors and a screen showing the motion capture results. They'd never quite match, and the slow sensor rates were taking the life out of dance moves. Hard stops turned into mush. The sensors weren't even consistent; I'd ask the dancer to touch her fingers together, and on the screen, they'd be several inches from touching. That's hopeless for fine work. They didn't improve much over the years, either. The current generation of motion capture uses multiple cameras, and Polyhemus seems to have disappeared.)
The really wearing thing was VR goggles with lag. Turn head, wait for scene to settle, repeat. Everything needed to go about 10x faster for that to be tolerable.
Have you ever noticed how the other person seem to respond immediately after someone send the message? How can a human being have the ability to respond with a full sentence in just a split second?
It was UNIX all along! You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you! Damn you all to hell!
I'm surprised one of my biggest annoyances wasn't in the list: missing cursor. Is it that hard to add a cursor to show where the user is typing?
One can easily assume the HQ computers and PDAs are all part of some integrated system contracted out by the gimmint. Overbudget and way late, but integrated nonetheless. :-) They may also have their own large pipe classified freqs.
The interface in Minority Report *did* seem to be a short term use thing. The ball would drop, and the operator would, as quickly as possible, sort through the images until they could make a positive ID. Then off they go. A trade betwween physiscal exertion and speed perhaps? Not all that unbelievable. No one has put such an interface into regular use yet, so it remains to be seen. Maybe the Wii will provide real data here?
I remember the exact wordings in the post above from from another discussion on computers in movies, about 2-3 back. If you can't demonstrate novelty by writing something new, how can you expect Hollywood, of all places, to do it for you?
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What point is one supposed to get from Minority Report? Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKh1Rv0PlOQ Above clip is Jeff Han give a demo at TED about multi-touch sensing. Combine this with "Wii UI" and one has Minority Report UI. (TED - Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference http://ted.com/
The author of the article is generally wrong on many of the bullet items. A computer system *should* be as easy to interact with as a door handle, a stone, or a glass of water. That it is more complicated is just because it is still in its infancy.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
I can live with the stupid UIs in movies. I can deal with hackers working in some weird 3-D world where you can gain access to a system by basically playing Doom. I can deal with the ridiculous login prompts that don't shut out the user and raise an alarm after 3 failed login attempts.
What I can't deal with is the stupid fucking bullshit about how any image can be easily scaled and enhanced to the point where you can easily make out a face from shitty VHS security camera footage. You'd think graphics artists who've worked in Photoshop before would know that it's not that easy. Sure, it's mathematically possible to scale an image and maintain nearly-full resolution, but it's absurdly expensive. The CSI team would have to wait a good week before the image scaling algorithm was done. Even more if they were actually equipped with the kind of computers the government gives their employees. (Read: garbage from 5 years ago.)
Wonder how true is that.
They have an article explainig it, and its cited as base for the argument on "why 3d never makes it the RL end product".
I wonder if the slashdot reader recalls the use of 3d in consumer product UI, or applied ina good manner in games.
If an interface is drag and boring I actually find it more tiring to use.
OSX's interface has a lot of eye candy that makes it appear more "friendly" encouraging the user the explore more of the interface.
The point I was trying to make was that if UIs in the movies looked like his web site it would be a disservice to the audience.
"Our current computers are organised into files, but future computers may well abandon the idea of discrete files for more abstract agglomerations of information. At which point, using a GUI to interact with them will pretty much consist of a graphical "Enter query" text box which functions just like a command line."
Not really.
Using datagloves, I did quite a bit of work in 1993 to see how the sort of UIs that we see in the Minority Report could work.
It turns out that there are 2 issues to overcome:
- Fatigue: the gesture vocabulary had to consist only of short sequences.
- "immersion syndrome": whatever I do can be interpreted against my will.
By designing the gesture vocabulary so that it would require alternating tense postures and relaxed aiming gestures, it was possible to overcome those issues in a pretty satisfactory way. Tension is particularly important, as it conveys intention: if you stress "Go There", people (and machines) can detect the fact that you want something to happen, as compared to using a monocord voice.
see Charade: Remote Control Of Objects Using Free-Hand Gestures published in Communications of the ACM in 1994 for more details.
In fact, 12-year olds do know UNIX (I did), and even better, what I knew back then still applies nearly perfectly to today's UNIX systems, decades later. In fact, it even applies to Macintosh, while little of the original Macintosh survives. And the UNIX command line is highly consistent. UNIX is probably the single best choice the script writers could have made for the movie plot, since, although it may seem a little confusing to the likes of Nielsen and home users, among existing, widely-used operating systems, it has the longest-lived and most consistent design and conventions.
The UNIX command line was really the first user-friendly user interface actually put into large scale use, at least it's the first one I know of designed for users who had to run multiple programs to do their work, rather than being designed around efficiently running standalone applications over and over again.
Now, 36 years later, the consistency at the command line level is still there, even on Mac OS X.
As for "this is a UNIX system"... that 3d user interface was SGI's 3d navigator. It's completely reasonable for a kid who'd been exposed to SGI's version of UNIX would find it familiar.
You're an idiot. Go learn some anatomy and you'll find out why it's hard work. As for working out, I'll lay money on my being more fit (and stronger, and having greater stamina) than you, and I have issues with holding my arms above my heart for 8 hours at a time.
root@securitysystem ~ # less .bash_history ....................
*search for interesting stuff*
root@securitysystem ~ # man secctrl
/shutdown
| --emergency-shutdown Shuts the entire security system off. To be usink with great caution.
root@securitysystem ~ # secctrl --emergency-shutdown
Are you beink sure (yes/no)?
y
Please to be typink "yes" or "no" please.
root@securitysystem ~ # secctrl --emergency-shutdown
Are you beink sure (yes/no)?
yes
Bringink down all systems gracefully
!! Camera 7 in Area "Central Building, Main Hall" is not respondink!
Ignorink leetle camera zlotnik.
!! Caution: There are 42 gates open.
!! Critical warnink: There are damages to various parts of the system.
To be runnink full diagnostics check, dha?
root@securitysystem ~ # _
Even though its not a human-computer interface thing, I'd like to remind everybody of the alien virus upload in Independence Day. Let's all hang our heads in shame and cry a silent tear.
I am constantly irritated by the incorrect use of the word "download". Requesting data to be sent from one machine to your machine is "downloading". Sending data from your machine to another machine is "uploading". I don't think Hollywood will ever understand that difference.
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
> Heck, the invaders in war of the worlds died of the flu. Perhaps the aliens designed it perfectly, optimizing it without anticipating 'bad' imput.
Four Word Film Review: Independence Day
"Virus crashes Alienware machines."
To the mac fanboy who modded this "offtopic":- you're supposed to leave your personal preferences to one side when you moderate, you wazzock :)
1. The Hero Can Immediately Use Any UI
2. Time Travelers Can Use Current Designs
3. The 3D UI
4. Integration is Easy, Data Interoperates
5. Access Denied / Access Granted
6. Big Fonts
7. Star Trek's Talking Computer
8. Remote Manipulators (Waldo Controls)
9. You've Got Mail is Always Good News
10. "This is Unix, It's Easy"
'In contrast, it's highly unlikely that anyone from 2207 would have ever seen Windows Vista screens.'
:-)
I dunnno, depends how long they put the release date back.
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
Wouldn't it be cool if regular programs had some kind of "move interface" mode? Clicking the send button could animate a folding up airletter and then *whoosh* as it transmitted? Cad software that made annoying beeps as you rotated the image? Funny, cycle-wasting beeps and whirling graphics as you performed some CPU-intensive operations?
It would make trade shows more fun and be great BOFH fodder!
And we use 2D interfaces to design 3D environments BECAUSE we don't have any 3D interface devices.
Wrong. We don't have any 3d OUTPUT devices. INPUT devices, however, are available.
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
You must use context to interprete meaning, and if you have no context upon which to make a logical assumption, attempt to gain some. An illogical assumption would be: 'I don't really understand this, so this poster is a moron'.
There exist 2D CAD drafting software, and 3D CAD software.
The human eye, interpreting 3D on a 2D screen vs. isographic views (2D on a 2D screen).
There are indeed 3D output devices: they are called models. You can even print small ones directly from 3D CAD programs now using those nifty epoxy based 'printers'. Holographic projection has existed for at least a decade, in a form that is affordable enough to use in business... if it were actually useful enough to make it worthwhile anyway.
The 3D input devices that do exist, for use in CAD, are generally crap. Nice to have, I'm sure, but the are generally little more than a large mouse ball that lets you rotate your model about the current pick-point.
Funny, I've seen plenty of sign, and even learned a little. What additional context or meaning do you add by signing from above your head?
What annoys me is when someone uses a computer on TV, and it makes that annoying chirp when they open a window. Then it chirps some more when they resize or move a window. And if they have the operator, "clean that image up" it chirps a bunch more times.
I think they have something seriously wrong with their monitors.