Usability in the Movies -- Top 10 Bloopers 382
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.'"
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This is a Unix system. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This is a Unix system. (Score:5, Funny)
Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Linux (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Jurassic Park (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Technical Difficulties Diversion? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, I wouldn't want to watch someone debug or "bond" with a difficult system either. I'd rather see the results.
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Agreeing to say lines like that, it's not surprising that she did more work _before_ jurassic park than _after_ it.
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What an arrogant remark. What, 12-year-olds can't read, or something?
Ridiculous... (Score:5, Insightful)
Methinks a bit of perspective is called for...
Re:Ridiculous... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ridiculous... (Score:4, Insightful)
Movies, ESPECIALLY Hollywood sci-fi movies, aren't made primarily to be depictions of reality. Verisimilitude has its place, but not when it's going to slow down the narrative progress.
Re:Ridiculous... (Score:5, Interesting)
but then, in Pulp Fiction, whenever something serious is going down, John Travolta is in the can.
i) Robbery at the diner.
ii) Mia ODing
iii) Bruce Willis returning to his apartment to fetch his daddys watch - consequently ends up shooting Travolta while he is *in the can*.
So, just wanted to point out that there is at least one movie where 'can usage' is central to the story.
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Re:Ridiculous... (Score:4, Funny)
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1) You don't consider it feasible to go 2 solid hours without taking a leak.
2) You think that, perhaps, in a 2 hour movie whose plot spans an entire month, watching the characters urinate will be more important than other material. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for pee -- I make quite a habit of it myself. But c'mon. Does it matter for the story?
Re:Ridiculous... (Score:4, Funny)
Well, most of the time, anyway. "So much for the seashells. See you in a few minutes." [imdb.com].
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And also, I don't agree with the original article on the Minority Report UI. It's not an UI for office work, if he stands there waving his hands for more than 15 minutes then he already failed. And the information presented did not appear easily processed for display in 2D.
I liked the UI in Minority Report (Score:3, Interesting)
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Yeah. The article was about user interfaces, not impluasible movie science in general. There is a serious point towards the end, that because we see these magical UIs so often on TV and in the movies, a lot of people, and decision makers, want them in real life, no matter how impractical or counter productive they'd be. Life imitates art, and that's not always good. I've seen several stories about implementations of the "Minority R
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Login screens (Score:5, Funny)
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...
Hardware issues. (Score:2)
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
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Actually, my mother uses a PC. My wife uses the Macintosh...
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Old Hardware issues. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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"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.
Also maybe the Octium 4's had quantum subprocessors which allowed them to crack the password!
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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
searching is easy too (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you sure that was a Boolean search... (Score:4, Funny)
#10? (Score:4, Informative)
This guy didn't do his research. It wasn't that specialized of a security system.
http://fsv.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
Grandfather (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
How it should work (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:How it should work (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How it should work (Score:5, Interesting)
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=)
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Re:How it should work (Score:5, Informative)
I guess you don't use OS X. Apple aready has this feature, it is called Spotlight. Commnad-Space <saerch term> and OS X will provide a list of matching files based on Meta data and file contents. Okay, it is missing the matrix style characters, but it is close.
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Uh, in the movies, as in real life, there would probably be a nice icon on the desktop. Now, only in the movies would the
Flailing arm interface (Score:2)
Disagree with the Star Trek reference (Score:2)
Unix (Score:2)
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 Chri
Sound effects? (Score:2)
That would drive me crazy.
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Re:Sound effects? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Firearms
Physics
Chemistry
The Military
Women
Children
Men
Automobiles
Computers
Then it's nearly impossible to watch a TV show or movie and not be constantly rolling your eyes. It's really hard to suspend disbelief when Jennifer Garner's semi-auto PISTOL runs out of ammo and then CLICKS when she pulls the trigger. The goddamn slide locks back, Hollywood assholes! Clicking only happens with revolvers!
Thank you, I feel much better.
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Hey, the fact that you even know that there's a difference between a pistol and a revolver puts you in a tiny little minority, even here.
Re:Sound effects? (Score:4, Funny)
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However, as soon as Roddenbery's people added the swoosh! sound effect, everybody was happy
...and yet, the lack of sound in the parts of 2001: A Space Odyssey is very effective in communicating the emptiness of space. During the sequences where the astronauts take the pods outside the spaceship, the sound cuts in and out depending on whether the scene is depicting the inside of the pods or the area around the spaceship. The technique is especially dramatic when Bowman enters through the emergency door, w
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Firefly used the silence of space very nicely and Battlestar Galactica at least muffles the sound a bit.
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I fixed that for your.
What about enhance? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Twas the night before xmas... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:Twas the night before xmas (fixed the cadence) (Score:3, Informative)
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 br
Too hard to keep your hands in the air? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Errr, no. Teachers are exhausted after a full day's teaching for a reason. I used to work in the pit at an oil change place and I can tell you, keeping your hands up in the air ain't no picnic. In fact, after awhile on a busy day, you just want to go up top so you can let your arms hang slack.
Guestures will never work! (Score:2)
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
Voice interfaces inefficient? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Voices maybe, but not plain english (Score:2)
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
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Just cross-reference your results with the uniform size database. One more reason for custom-tailored uniforms.
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"Computer, how many crew members on board are human, female, and single? Oh, and with big boobs?"
"I think you want to query the crew database, filtering for species: human, gender: female, marital status: single, physical attributes: big-breasted. If this is correct please say yes."
We *have* these systems, but their error rates are high enough that the computer must take ages to confirm every single minor action with the user, this is beyond annoying. Once we can trust the computer to never (or rather
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And therein lies the issue. *If* your system is able to parse natural language correctly, all your interface problems are solved. The problem is that saying "understand natural language" actually means "think like a human", which means the problem is AI-complete. At that point the statement becomes less interesting - it say
Another list article... great... (Score:2, Insightful)
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 justifiab
...and for the UMPTEENTH time... (Score:4, Informative)
No "Independence Day" references? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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More plausible than most of the movie. They've been studying an Alien fighter in the Area 51 bunker since 1947 (I assume it's the Roswell ship). So they had
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The fighter was part of a recon group sent a little faster than the rest of the fleet, so that they would arrive earlier. The rest of the fleet was also traveling at relativistic speeds, and for them, the time difference between parting with the fighters, and arriving to Earth orbit could've been several weeks.
What about "Independance Day" (Score:2)
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.
this is why so many computer users are overweight (Score:2)
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 th
Best movie usability scene ever. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Don't give George Lucas any more ideas!!! (Score:2, Funny)
"It looks like you're trying to target a two-meter exhaust port with proton torpedoes.
Would you like some help with that?"
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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 giv
User Interface? Minority Report. (Score:5, Insightful)
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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 g
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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 [useit.com] 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 differen
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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 reve
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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
Beeps (Score:2)
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Star Trek gets it right again! (Score:2)
Almost credible... until right at the end. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Oblig. Matrix (Score:2)
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.
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so what? (Score:2, Funny)
The Gesture-Based Interface is Coming (Score:2)
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 WiiMo
If only paper archives were as useable (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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I think I've seen it all of twice in 20 years...both times dealing with floppies on MS-DOS machines.