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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
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.
Actually, every computer professional has a midi footpad under every computer desk, so they can control beeping noises. Sort of like whenever I slide a lighting slider I say "woooosh" or "wht" depending on how fast I slide it.
I have freaks! I did something right...
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.
On the other hand, most of the people watching those experts in TV and film aren't experts and haven't the slightest idea how a real expert would behave. The idea in a movie is to make the action appear realistic to the majority of the audience. Whether it is actually realistic is secondary. Yes, that will alienate some small percentage of the said audience who have the experience to perceive the error, but from a cinematic perspective that's a small price to pay. Hey, this is Slashdot and most of us are computer-literate far beyond the norm, but you can bet your boots that there are many people from other disciplines that just want to rip their eyes out when they watch scenes that would just make us think, "Whoa ... cool."
By way of example, in the original pilot of Star Trek (original series) the test audience felt the opening sequence felt unnatural, because when the Enterprise was zooming into view there was no sound. That was as it should have been, this being a starship traveling through vacuum parsecs from anything resembling an atmosphere. However, as soon as Roddenbery's people added the swoosh! sound effect, everybody was happy. I've seen both sequences and I must admit I prefer it with the sound, even though I know better.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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.
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
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.
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
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?"
"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.
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
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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
~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!
It's hilarious that you mock that particular Lone Gunmen episode for not being correctly prophetic for something so marginal as the chip for their computer. It's like chastising a tv show for the characters always knowing exactly how to cock, reload, aim and use an assault rifle.
That episode, by the way, was about terrorists hijacking a commercial plane and crashing it into the World Trade Center. It aired like six months before 9/11. Makes me wonder what sort of other depressing crap those other movies are going to get right.
If only we had one of those new Octium 4's. indeed.
No, I wouldn't want to watch someone debug or "bond" with a difficult system either. I'd rather see the results.
Speaking of The Matrix, it actually contains some of the most realistic use of computers seen in movies: nmap, a too old version of ssh, and some buffer overflow exploit code (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sshnuke; it's about 1h43m into the movie).
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.
and not a Bolian search? ;)
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
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.