What Can designers learn from science fiction?

Movie image of the dispatch report directed by Pearson

 

Devices or manipulators that appear in sci-fi movies and novels often become reality: Flight instruments from Star Trek's communicator, war game computer to Terminator.

Chris Noessel and Nathan Shedroff believe that designers can get realistic design inspiration from these sci-fi devices.

Last year, they published Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons from Science Fiction. Later, we launched a design topic blog, regularly include design concepts from "Fifth Element", "Metropolis", and some classic sci-fi novels such as "taboo planet" and "Space hero ina.

In an interview with foreign media, they talked about their understanding of Excellent Sci-Fi interfaces and the relationship between the interfaces we use on a daily basis and the conceptual interfaces we see on the screen.

 

Why is it necessary to think about the screen display interface for a long time? What can we learn from it?

Chris nosel: as consumers and designers, we will be influenced by the bold technological applications on the screen. We should not feel these feelings. On the contrary, after careful analysis, we can do more. We can find elements related to design in real life: things we already know, but the sci-fi context prompts new samples for discussion and reference; it may also be new things related to daily work that are abstracted from amazing techniques on the screen. We can get a lot of inspiration from future science fiction technologies.

Nensen Xie Zhuo: sci-fi novels will also affect culture. It affects people's expectations and aspirations. We cannot ignore this impact because it may lead to a product failure, such as Motorola's MicroTAC phone. It may also be the reason for the success of another product: for example, StarTAC, Motorola's next mobile phone. StarTAC is the first flip phone, inspired by the flip of the "communicator" in Star Trek. Sci-fi novels are consumed by humans, so many of the interface standards are the same as the interface standards we use. On this basis, interfaces in sci-fi novels are developed to meet (or cannot meet) our needs. It will become a good medium. Through it, we can simulate or discuss some problems before they become the key issues of real products.

What should be the best interface in sci-fi novels?

Chris nosel: there are many ways to answer this question. In terms of features, this interface should enable people to achieve their goals as efficiently as possible. For the audience, this interface should be attractive and enlightening, so that they can be amazed at "Great, I hope I can also operate on this interface. For sci-fi fiction authors, this interface can make the narration smooth and concise, and allow readers to think about the direction of technological development and what they can do. For me personally, the great sci-fi interface should provide perfect, futuristic solutions, or huge and rare mistakes.

What kind of interface in a movie is the most novel, not only pulling you into the scene, but also very practical?

Nansen Xie Zhuo: I like the surgical interface in butterfly deployment, the emoticons in the moon, Holodeck (especially when it is used to simulate and solve problems) it's just a bit of it with the communicator in Star Trek: The Next Generation. They have their own characteristics and achieve success in different ways. What we can put into use in a short time is the voice control gun in space. When John Robinson picked up a gun in the first battle with an out-of-control robot, he said "unlock security mode" to unlock the gun. As soon as his voice Ripple was identified, the gun fired and executed the command.

Instead of criticizing the reality of these interfaces, you can sort out how interfaces interact with roles in a movie context. What makes you fascinated by watching movies in this way?

Nensen Xie Zhuo: if we adopt a critical attitude towards these technologies, these criticisms will be worthless until they are truly realized. Let's face this problem, something we see in a movie won't happen at all-at least in my lifetime. No matter which author will tell you that science fiction is not about the future, but about the present. It just uses the future as a platform that carries comments from authors, directors, and product designers on our current life. This is what Chris and I are working on. We can use "future goals and environments" to evaluate the current interface design opportunities.

Which devices do you think have used to learn from sci-fi novels for redundant or impractical design and functions?

Chris nosel: the dispatch report allows many people to use gestures to control everything. But anyone with Wii or Kinect knows that the gesture control mode is wild and exhausting, even if it may be interesting. Imagine how unfortunate it would be to write a book on the gesture interface.

Nansen scherow: many sound control interfaces fall into the same trap. They are only useful on the screen, which facilitates narration. But we are all the protagonists of our own lives. Imagine that in an open office, everyone is issuing commands to computers, apart from privacy considerations (whether you are Twitter or Facebook at work), the voice of colleagues is also a challenge. The sound control interface is only valid in some scenarios: in a car, on a mobile phone (if you are close to your mouth and you are relatively quiet, it will not disturb others ), or at home (if you live alone ). Many other applications are not practical, but we keep seeing them in science fiction, even in noisy places.

From forgotten planet to Prometheus, everything is increasingly dependent on touch screens. Distortion, buttons, and clicks are being refreshed and replaced by gestures. In this process, what have we lost?

Chris nosel: The gesture control interface does not provide tactile data, but it is a rich channel of information. But the touch and gesture features "movie genes" (they will look good on the screen) and still make people feel new. The touch is difficult to pass through the screen, so it is difficult for people who observe it to feel excited. Before we can feel the movie, we can still play an important role in watching beautiful things.

Nansen Xie Zhuo: In fact, I don't quite agree that we are losing physical control. However, if you see physical control in Star Trek or other latest movies and TV series, this control is actually a mixture of physical control and virtual control. This is a good solution that maximizes the advantages of each control method.