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The LCARS (and its various IRL implementations) is also among the least usable UIs, so I wouldn't exactly call it "true innovation".
by creshal 11y ago
The LCARS (and its various IRL implementations) is also among the least usable UIs, so I wouldn't exactly call it "true innovation".
- TeMPOraL 11y agoAt least it's consistent and non-distracting, which is something you can rarely say nowadays about IRL user interfaces.
- zyxley 11y agoImagine the logistics of pushing LCARS updates to God-knows-how-many starships and Federation installations.
- noir_lord 11y agoThat could make a fun fanfic. Starfleet Tech Support.
- gvurrdon 11y agoViz magazine (http://viz.co.uk/ http://viz.co.uk/) recently did a strip wherein a thinly-disguised Enterprise and crew are obliged to beam up Captain Thomas T. Cook and his landing party in the face of danger, but his messages requesting help come through via email to Outlook Express...
- ArkyBeagle 11y agoThey have had full natural language AI in every Star Trek franchise - except maybe the Scott Bakula one ( Enterprise? ) which I didn't watch . So I'd think updates would be largely a solved problem. Heck, the computer might patch itself.
- ivoras 11y agoThe thing is: whenever you see it on-screen, the people using it are happy with it, not frustrated, not fighting it, and that is truly "good UX" (within the suspension of disbelief of the show). In other words: it shows that, if people react to a UI like they do in the show, that's the perfect UI.
- jdbernard 11y agoThat's a critical assumption though and I'm not sure it holds. People in shows are scripted to react that way, it's not a natural reaction.
- throwanem 11y agoBut that's just the point. If you have real-world users reacting to your real-world interface in the same way that TNG's scripted users (generally) react to their prop interface, you're probably doing something right.
- jdbernard 11y agoDefinitely. I agree. I just meant that you just can't go the other way: use the reactions from the shows as endorsement of the interface.
- djsumdog 11y agoI've only seen LCARS themes, but I do like the concept that everything is displayed on a screen, at once, with no overlapping windows. Overlapping windows are the worst possible UI decision ever. I've been using tiling window managers for four years now and I never want to go back.
- barrkel 11y agoOverlapping windows in a cascade (so the bottom left corners act a bit like a tab selector) are my preferred window layout. Random overlapping doesn't work particularly well. Any time you have to manage the z-index of more than one window, something has gone wrong. Thus cascading. I can't stand tiling though. Either everything is too small, or you can't get enough stuff on screen at once.
- creshal 11y ago> I can't stand tiling though. Either everything is too small, or you can't get enough stuff on screen at once. Or everything has the wrong aspect ratio.
- r00fus 11y agoWhy would you want cascading windows over tabbed interfaces (e.g.: any modern browser)? What does it actually buy you?
- yoz-y 11y agoFor me overlapping windows are better for using two applications at the same time - copy pasting, drag and dropping between them etc. This is because their position is deterministic. Tabs are better when I have a boatload of unrelated pages (e.g.: tabs). This is also why I find tabbed interfaces in code editors useless.
- elsurudo 11y agoI find tabbed editors useful in that they allow you to open the current "working set" of files, and then disregard the rest of the project files. After I open up the working set, I usually close the tree view (Sublime, in my case) so my code has more room.