Star Trek and the Future of UX
Posted on 8 February, 2010 at 12:08pm
Matt Gemmell asked a very thought-provoking question on Formspring yesterday, and I liked it enough to repost it here. I really think a lot could be said about this topic, and this just scratches the surface.
Q: To what extent has sci-fi (TV, movies, books) influenced your UX work?
A: That’s a great question. I think you can look at science fiction as our collective fantasy about technology. If you want to understand not how people use their computers but how they want to use them, popular sci-fi is the first place you should look.
In the past few years I’ve really moved away from web app design or even traditional desktop app design, favoring touchscreen devices instead. The computers of the future don’t have mice (“Hello computer!”). Rarely do they even have keyboards. We crave ubiquity and personality in our interfaces; something always there, always responsive, controlled as directly and easily as any tangible system. Star Trek predicts all of this, and now more than ever you can see those predictions becoming reality.
Something that I think will be interesting to look for in coming years is the development of the human element in UI. Will we begin to realize our fantasies of the jovial robot butler, or the sweet voice of Majel Barrett-Roddenberry greeting us when we login? Only time will tell!
The Discussion
One Comment on “Star Trek and the Future of UX”Bill Janes
11.02.2010 1:48 pmBut is it at all telling that even the most fantastical visions of communication and interface are limited by what’s currently available? Is that just lack of budget, or is it a limitation of imagination?
Star Trek is a perfect example. I’m a TNG kid, so seeing touchscreen computing, tablets, communicators, and speech translation all finally coming to fruition is really exciting. But then I look back at the original series, with it’s incandescent lights and CRT screens. What so constrained that vision.
It seems like a common theme in sci-fi. We’ve been waiting for flying cars for how long now? Is it the ubiquity of the automobile that makes other forms of transportation hard to even imagine?