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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.'"
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...
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.
#!
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.
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...
The interface to "unix" if you follow the GNU standards is incredibly consistant. Figure out what command you want to run (this is consistant, just not very user friendly). run "man command" and find the flag you care about, chances are you can guess most of the flags you want. Type the command with the flags after it. Every unix system has sh installed. That sounds pretty consistant to me. In the rare case where "man" does work run "command --help | less", if there's no less it's "command --help | more", but now were getting into old system compatability, and I don't think that counts. There are annoying exceptions like "mplayer" and "cdrecord" but we all bitch about them, and the good fight is being faught.
See, that IS the UI for a unix system. Everything else is just fluff. When you say UI you mean what microsoft and apple call a UI, that is a GUI. Seriously though, how much serious unix work gets done via a GUI? The real applications that unix is designed for are vi, emacs, sh, awk, perl, gcc, and the whole gnu toolchain. The GUI is just for multiplexing terminals. It's not standard because it doesn't need to be standard. The main reason I use Linux is that the GUI ISN't standard, so I can customize it to my hearts content. At the core though the system is always the same, so I can still use a random console that I walk up to. The problem is that the standardization isn't at the level of abstraction that normal users want, but that's because the entire UI isn't at the level of abstraction that normal users want. I'm not saying that the system is "GOOD" in any global sense, or user friendly either, but as soon as you realize what the killer apps in unix really are it's quite clear that the main applications (sh, and the toolchain) are very consistant. Claiming the interface sucks is debatable and probably true, but claiming that it isn't consistant is just bullshit.
"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.
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
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.
No, I wouldn't want to watch someone debug or "bond" with a difficult system either. I'd rather see the results.
Leaving aside the plausibility of a 12-year-old knowing Unix,
What an arrogant remark. What, 12-year-olds can't read, or something?