52 ms·

The Expanse UI Design

521 points by cryo 5y ago

monkeydust 5y ago
Nice site in general. Reminded me of this https://github.com/arwes/arwes https://github.com/arwes/arwes
sen 5y ago
The designers (not just UI but all of them) on The Expanse did such an incredible job. It’s probably my favourite looking Sci Fi series or movie of all time. The attention to detail is incredible too, I’m on my third watch-through of the series and notice new things all the time.
- fenk85 5y ago
  You will love the book series then, goes into much more details and is hard to put down, i binge read the lot
  - alexgmcm 5y ago
    I think some stuff is improved in the series though. For example, the story from Cibola Burn seemed a lot better on the show than the book in my opinion and some of the characters are better. In particular, Ashford's character is massively improved (it helps that David Strathairn plays the role incredibly well). The books are very good though and I can't wait for Leviathan Falls. Also, it seems the series will stop at the end of Babylon's Ashes.
    - rkachowski 5y ago
      I absolutely love how they changed "Ashford" in the books from an elitist obstructive middle manager into "Klaes Ashford" - legendary OPA member, space pirate and "The Ghost Knife of Callisto". The show really gives the opportunity to explore the individual motivations of the characters; the books are also great and they complement each other, but I feel that the books are almost too fast paced to really savour the environment and setting.
      - alexgmcm 5y ago
        Yeah, he's probably my favourite character in the series. The way his character develops and changes is incredible and the acting is really well done.
      - 7sigma 5y ago
        That scene in the behemoth in s3e11 between camina and ashford is one my favourite. Their discussion of what it is that makes belters what they are in that situation, such great writing
    - tspiteri 5y ago
      Some things work differently on TV and on books, and they changed things to make the storytelling better suited to TV. For example Camina Drummer was introduced much earlier in the TV series so that Fred Johnson had someone to talk to on screen, which wasn't needed in the novels. And then the character worked so well that they expanded it to cover more stuff. I really like that they prefer a good story over sticking to the exact "canon" of the novels. And in "they" I include the novel authors, who are very involved in the TV series.
      - alexgmcm 5y ago
        Yeah, I think having the novel authors involved has helped make the series as good as it is. We still have the final season though - let's hope it doesn't do a "Game of Thrones".
        ddxxdd 5y ago
        >let's hope it doesn't do a "Game of Thrones". Don't get your hopes up too high; "The Expanse" is often nicknamed "The Expense" due to its high special effects budget. Amazon Prime may decide that later seasons need to have their budgets cut.
        tspiteri 5y ago
        Game of Thrones did not have a budget problem for the last season; it had a writing problem. While other seasons used the novels for the build-up and for the story to make sense, the last season did not. And while the author does know where he wants to land, he hasn't worked out, or hasn't shared, how to get there completely yet. The tv show went there with no proper buildup, which is what makes that season poor. To me, the final situation, or who wins/dies, is not the problem, nor are the effects. As for The Expanse, it's season not seasons; the next season will be the final season. I cannot see the tv series ending in the same end point as the final novel, that is I cannot see them cramming four novels with one huge time gap in between into one season. But I do believe it will come to a satisfactory conclusion at some alternative end point.
        5y ago
    - manmal 5y ago
      I agree. I read the books after watching the first four seasons, and I felt disappointed how Ashford is described and handled in the books. Also, the books set a very high bar for Naomi's "solo adventure" (let's call it that to prevent spoilers), and the series did such a great job, and stayed very true to the source. It was satisfying seeing this unravel almost exactly as I had imagined it.
    - goatlover 5y ago
      The Cibola Burn book did a much better job of explaining things on Illus, particularly the alien stuff. And the Investigator POV chapters were wild. You don't get as much of that on the show.
      - alexgmcm 5y ago
        That's true, the investigator POV stuff was cool. But all the romance I found really unrealistic and ham-fisted. They cut that completely out of the show.
  - sen 5y ago
    Halfway through my third reading and still not sick of it. It’s without a doubt my favourite Sci Fi of all time.
- patja 5y ago
  They use an incredible number of off the shelf shower grab bars I recognize from Home Depot in the interior of pretty much every ship. I find things like that a bit distracting.
  - lovegoblin 5y ago
    This is true of every show, though. You just happen to know what those specific shower bars look like.
  - kayfox 5y ago
    I like that they thought about that, in a lot of shows and movies you see ships in space where gravity may not exist at times with no visible way for people to move themselves around under zero-g, so its refreshing when a show puts in the work to create a set that looks usable in space.
  - bityard 5y ago
    The grab bars on the Zarya also look like something you'd easily find in Walmart: https://www.nasa.gov/images/content/114306main_iss010e25228_hires.jpg https://www.nasa.gov/images/content/114306main_iss010e25228_... Maybe when it comes to something as simple as a grab bar it's hard to get too imaginative in the first place? Once you start _really_ looking for them, you can pretty easily pick out items on a set and go, "oh yeah, that looks like a repurposed so-and-so."
  - duskwuff 5y ago
    The Expanse uses a lot of repurposed props in general. One of the cryogenic pods in S2 is a roof storage rack for a car. The flight controls in the Rocinante are 3DConnexion mice. I recall seeing one maintenance tunnel with walls covered in laptop cooling pads. And so on. :)
    - ruytlm 5y ago
      As another, many of the spacesuit backpacks/oxygen packs are very lightly disguised Ogio motorcycle backpacks: https://ogiopowersports.com/products/no-drag-mach-5-stealth https://ogiopowersports.com/products/no-drag-mach-5-stealth
Grumbledour 5y ago
I have to say I was much more taken with the description of computers in the books. Maybe it was more me projecting than what was actually there, but what I took away from it were computer systems that worked without networking most of the time, were fault tolerant and had most of their power through programmability, which ordinary people were able to access. This reminded me so much of the ideas and visions of early computing environments and even though the books don't dwell much on computers, I found it really fascinating to see these echos there. In comparison, the visual design of the show is just ... nice? But seems honestly pretty impracticable most of the time and I felt doesn't really set itself apart from other contemporary Sci-fi Shows.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  Near the end of Cibola Burn, there was this part that gave some extra details about the hand terminals they use. I almost cried when reading it. A computer that's designed to work off-line just as well as on-line, that can form mesh networks with other hand terminals on the fly when needed, not tied to any specific vendor in any particular way. It's how smartphones should obviously work, except they don't, because real humanity is shitty in so many subtle ways in which even most dystopian sci-fi humanity isn't.
  - sprkwd 5y ago
    Well, that's something wonderful to aim for.
  - meowster 5y ago
    That's how the computers work in Neal Stephenson's Seveneves too. It serves a purpose in the story.
  - salawat 5y ago
    Welcome to what happens when the common network and routing infrastructure is privately owned. Proprietary standards. Subscriber ident, discriminatory "I will/won't service you today" sets the tone for how things work. Mesh interop is more than doable. It just ain't profitable, nor is it desirable from the centralized controllability perspective.
Qahlel 5y ago
I genuinely hate the impracticable UI design being pushed on TV-&-Movies in the last decade. Normies expect similar interface from everything but don't even understand that it's bad. It's like putting yogurt on Pizza dough instead of mozzarella and calling it New York Pizza. Please stop...
bumbada 5y ago
Why there is no light on space Sci Fi series or movies?. I find it extremely hard to believe that people that master ships at the speed of light, that have nuclear and possible antimatter engines just can't effort proper lighting, like they don't know LED lights, fluorescent lights everywhere. All films just look like submerged nuclear submarines on red alert,but all the time. On nuclear submarines you have way more light most of the time. We know that we need strong light exposure in order not the develop illnesses like myopia. Mood is affected badly by lack of light. I can understand it in games,it was the first trick for hiding a bad 3D engine, make everything dark, but it is not necessary anymore.
- antihero 5y ago
  It looks way cooler.
- lucideer 5y ago
  Not sure if you've seen the Expanse, but two comments: 1. The stills here look edited, possible to focus the UIs for the article. I may be misremembering but I don't remember being unable to make out characters on screen! 2. The protagonists in the show comandeer a Mars ship and most shots take place inside it. For narrative reasons, UN ships are bright, Mars ships are black/dark red (and Belter ships are broken, Star Wars rebels style), so the in-space look changes a lot (though the main set is that one Mars ship).
  - bserge 5y ago
    UN ships were very well lit from what I remember. Martian and Belter ships less so (still, the Rocinante's crew quarters were fine and we've not really seen many ships outside of battle/emergencies) because they were adapted to lower light conditions on their homeworlds, I think that was said once if I'm not mistaken. The Martian delegation to Earth had to wear sunglasses all the time, for example.
  - adeelk93 5y ago
    More than just narrative reasons, I think it makes sense that the planet that receives half the sunlight would be building less brightly lit ships
billynomates111 5y ago
How would having a transparent device improve usability?
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPOhKULOL4o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPOhKULOL4o
- girvo 5y ago
  Spitballing: a large screen in the middle of a space ship being transparent would allow someone to see the entire bridge while still seeing what’s on the screen, maybe? Personal hand held decided though? Not at all
jeether 5y ago
All that transparent displays look good, but it's an awful design choice nonetheless.
eric4smith 5y ago
Very good to watch a “Hard Sci-Fi” show like the expanse. Not many of these out there. Not just the UI, but The tech is realistic and possible and usually backed up by basic scientific principles. The social scenarios are also quite likely in the future. Even the language makes sense - a kind of hodge-Podge universal accent. And it tangentially originates from Larry Niven’s belter stories just before mankind sent the ram robots to distant stars. The Expanse is everything to like.
- hnzix 5y ago
  I love the fact that they goofed the physics involving a wrench in one of the earlier episodes, so they got help fact checking the physics for future shows and the wrench has been included as an easter egg / running joke to remind them to strive for realism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyV3GZ9xnGM&t=3140s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyV3GZ9xnGM&t=3140s (NSFW language)
  - mavhc 5y ago
    They also talked about having to teach the VFX people physics, and they got much better after the first season.
    - shakezula 5y ago
      There is a scene in one of the later seasons where a character pours whiskey into glasses on the moon, and it's very much obscured and in the background, and they _still_ made sure that the liquid pours out more slowly and splashes up much higher than it would normally. Honestly some of the best attention to detail in sci-fi I've ever seen.
- f00zz 5y ago
  I liked the hard sci-fi elements in The Expanse, but the idea of people mining asteroids in poor third world-like conditions makes absolutely no sense to me. Or an evil megacorp that murders millions of people with no adequate explanation. Couldn't get past the first book.
baybal2 5y ago
Transparency, and animation in UIs is terrible. Bad for visibility, bad for usability.
- coldtea 5y ago
  Not in 2050 A.D., where humans have developed medical technologies in the eyes that optimize for transparent UIs...
deleted 5y ago
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cblconfederate 5y ago
I like the Expanse as a story and ideas and for the few characters that are worth it (most are flat drones), but its aesthetic is not very original , most of this stuff has been redone countless times in game design . Still great to look at but i think they could have done better artistically.
gmueckl 5y ago
I remember a comment by Adam Savge on one of his YouTube videos where he visited the sets. He also had a brief cameo in one episode (as a ceew member of the Arboghast, I believe), sitting at a terminal. He remarks that the terminal screen wasn't just showing a random animation, but had a fledged out menu system that changed screens on touch input. So he could actually "use" the station while acting instead of just making stuff up. As far as I know, a lot of films had only blank screens on set and the computer display was added in post, trying to match whatever "interaction" the actors came up with on the set.
- nirui 5y ago
  You must mean this video series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONBWBj9LnXQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONBWBj9LnXQ I was wondering why the view-line of those actors was so on-point. Well, I got my answers.
- nowherebeen 5y ago
  I think programming simple UI has become remarkably easier in the last 6-7 years thanks to programs like Unity3D that a single programmer can probably handle all the UI for the entire show with ease.
  - hulitu 5y ago
    Tell that to Google and Microsoft. MS was forced to abandon Win32 because it was so resource hungry. (bangs head)
    - criddell 5y ago
      Win32 hasn't been abandoned. It's the foundation that everything is built on. And in what way is the API resource hungry? You can write a Win32 hello world that is on the order of 1 KB.
camillomiller 5y ago
I love the Expanse. Yet I think that transparent displays only work in movies. What do we need the transparency for? I can’t find any UX reason that would make such a screen better than a regular superthin opaque display with maybe holographic features. Discuss :)
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  Augmented reality use? Hold the terminal over some wiring and get an overlaid schematic?
  - kingosticks 5y ago
    That spy guy (I don't remember his name) in series 1 has this ability when he's re-wiring the airlock door interface panel in order to escape. He uses his AR ability a few times but I like how it's not overdone.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  We don't need them. They're popular because they allow to film the actor and the screen simultaneously. My personal take: transparent displays are a lazy trick of film makers who overestimate the importance of characters in science fiction, and underestimate the importance of setting. A proper real-world use of transparency would be Augmented Reality - i.e. overlaying contextual UIs on top of the real world the user sees through the glass/hologram.
  - krapp 5y ago
    >transparent displays are a lazy trick of film makers who overestimate the importance of characters in science fiction, and underestimate the importance of setting. Characters are always more important than setting. You can tell a compelling story with a character alone in a room, but without any characters even an interesting setting has nothing to say.
    - dagw 5y ago
      Characters are always more important than setting. Not among sci-fi fans. There are lots of classic and beloved scifi books that are all about the world and setting and technology where the characters are 2d cardboard cut outs that only exist as an excuse to move the story from set piece to set piece.
perryizgr8 5y ago
I liked during the early seasons how Detective Miller's phone screen was cracked. Don't recall seeing that in any other show. It lends credibility to the narrative that these are real people who break their phone screens sometimes and can't be bothered to get it fixed.
chrisweekly 5y ago
I loved the books, and am giving the tv show another chance after being turned off by the casting (Naomi in particular was jarringly, distractingly different from the character in my mind). Glad I revisited it and got past that, bc overall it's really well done. Tangent: can anyone explain the inscrutable titles?
oaiey 5y ago
If you have not seen The Expanse yet, start now! This is the best sci-fi show since Battlestar Galactica. The first three episodes are slow but later the show is so fast you wish back to it.
- robertlagrant 5y ago
  The show is well named. Season 1's story scope expands incredibly out from the initial mystery.
  - oaiey 5y ago
    As a book reader i enjoyed the show a lot. But when I now see YouTube reactors I enjoy so much how clueless they are at any stage of the show. Every week an expanded view of the story reveals to them but the result: They know nothing :)
- marvin 5y ago
  I found that they completely butchered my favorite characters from the book series. Holden is way over the top macho and gets in "check out my ego" screaming matches with folks all the time, Bobby is at least emotionally a weak-willed little girl who lets herself get bossed around by everyone, and especially male authority figues. Etc. Their interpretation of the character gallery was really disappointing. The books' authors have made some really cool non-heteronormative and super competent characters, which is one of the many aspects of the series that I really enjoyed. Does this get better in the latter seasons that were produced by Amazon?
  - sveme 5y ago
    Indeed, Holden was crap in the first season; much improved later, so definitely can recommend continuing to watch it.
  - JonathanFly 5y ago
    Overall they improved characters. Ashford is a cartoon in the books but is absolutely delightful and interesting on the show. Drummer barely exists in the books and might be my favorite show character.
qwertox 5y ago
How are these UIs generated? Is there a software which runs these UIs so that they look like they have a purpose?
- imglorp 5y ago
  It would be so nice if they open sourced the code. Fans could generate spinoff UIs for more terrestrial purposes, and perhaps even contribute back new UIs for future episodes.
molbioguy 5y ago
Love the show and the UI displays on it are no exception. And the post was interesting to read, but was anyone else annoyed by the way images were displayed on the site? You have to click on each image to see it and then use the browser back button to get back to the post! There must be better ways to arrange viewing of groups of images.
- nathanasmith 5y ago
  I haven't viewed the site on a desktop but on the iPad at least you tap on an image and then swipe to see the next ones. Also there's a close button in the top right to get back to the article.
kingosticks 5y ago
I really like how they transition between different screens so seemlessly with guestures (and also voice commands). I'd like to be able to do something similar on my phone so rather than clicking the chromecast icon and selecting which device, I'd like to swipe/flick towards the device I want to use. And ideally I'd like to expand (sorry) this to non-chromecast stuff like Spotify Connect (or MPD etc). Is there anything out there like that for Android? Some kind of location/orientation aware "casting" helper? Relatedly I wish there was less of a delay when trying to cast to the TV. Perhaps it's that, rather than the extra button clicks, that disrupts the flow so much. It's not like my smart TV hasn't got a powerful processor and a super-fast internet connection - why am I still seeing loading screens?!
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > I really like how they transition between different screens so seemlessly with guestures (and also voice commands). The greatest part of this is that they make it look seamless and unselfconscious. In most shows (even sci-fi ones) this is always exaggerated as in "look at how we move our hands on this futuristic surface". In Expanse? It's just an integrated part of what they do. They flick, and swipe, and hold stuff sideways, they drop phones, phones are cracked, and it's never "oh, look carefully at what I'm doing".
- majoe 5y ago
  Speaking about transition of graphical applications from one device to another, I think this is a rather difficult problem in itself. The only project I'm aware of, which tries to enable that in a seamless way, is the Arcan display server. I remember a short clip from the development blog [1], where a window with a running retro game is pulled to the edge of the screen and appears immediately on another device nearby [2]. Unfortunately Arcan is pretty niche and I doubt that will change in the foreseeable future. Using voice commands to control, where your applications is running, would then be relatively easy. Swiping in that direction, while pretty cool, is much harder, as you would need to locate both involved devices. [1] https://arcan-fe.com/2020/12/03/arcan-versus-xorg-feature-parity-and-beyond/ https://arcan-fe.com/2020/12/03/arcan-versus-xorg-feature-pa... [2] https://video.wordpress.com/embed/G3vQbGS0?preloadContent=metadata&hd=1 https://video.wordpress.com/embed/G3vQbGS0?preloadContent=me...
Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
When I was watching the show, I took special notice of gestures, and it was fun how same swipe up was either sending video to everyone around, or putting video feed on a big screen, or sending stuff to one specific person standing nearby. I wondered how those devices understood the context of the action. Also, those devices privacy sucks! Everyone around can see what happens on you glowing screen that is transparent from both sides!! Under no circumstances could such devices be sold to real users.
- Jemaclus 5y ago
  Adam Savage did an interview with one of the prop masters of the show, and he brought up the "privacy" issue and agreed that it sucks. But if they used "realistic" pads, he said 1) they would have to move the camera around in awkward ways so that we could see what the characters were seeing on their screens, and 2) most of what we (the audience) would see would be the black/gray backs of these pads with nothing interesting on them. So it was an intentional choice for convenience and visual effect, rather than an attempt at "realism". Sounds like they totally agree with your statement, though.
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  Since when do people care about privacy?
xbar 5y ago
Well done.
gopherbro 5y ago
look cool.
dekhn 5y ago
I spent an inordinate amount of time while watching the show just thinking about how you manage the computer systems on a spaceship, especially if you're a scrappy crew without a large corp's support. Presumably, every space ship needs bulletproof software routines for calculating trajectories, making burns at the right time, etc- a combination of real time hardware control and sophisticated math. But presumably, ships need to get updated in-flight, and upgraded routinely, and presumably, it doesn't make sense for your own ship to drift too far from the common development tree. This is starting to become a major software engineering problem- how do you manage a fleet of ship firmwares across a solar system?
- NotEvil 5y ago
  It can be an opensource program or a library that everybody uses. And corps can have there own proprietary program
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  Why would it need to be upgraded? Does the math of calculating trajectories and timing change that often?
  - dekhn 5y ago
    No, those don't really change (there might be data updates to include newly discovered celestial objects). But any ship that operates in space will eventually need some custom work and some of that would need to be merged back into mainline or maintained as a patch. It would be necessary to upgrade if, for example, new devices were installed in the ship, which were developed after the original ship firmware was installed. All of this is already a problem, for example for the US Navy, https://news.usni.org/2021/04/12/navy-software-factory-the-forge-wants-to-reshape-how-ships-get-upgraded https://news.usni.org/2021/04/12/navy-software-factory-the-f...
- hrishi 5y ago
  I imagine some futuristic version of git where... basically git but they've got better merge algorithms after they've solve NP and P. You can sync to the trees of ships near you and catch up, and once in a while one of them gets to a station and updates to the tip of wherever development is at.
jancsika 5y ago
Important off-topic The Expanse conundrum: In the very first episodes a tall, stretched-out skinny space-born dude is getting tortured simply by making him stand and be subject to Earth's gravity. Then the rest of the series-- few to no tall, stretched-out skinny space-born peeps anywhere. What gives? I imagine the director realizing how expense it would be to continue seeking out a bunch of tall, skinny extras...
- apocalyptic0n3 5y ago
  I remember an interview with the showrunners that basically said that. There weren't enough tall and skinny people to perform all the roles adequately, not to mention background extras. And it limited them from casting the actors they really wanted to cast, like Jared Harris as Dawes. They do still deal with the disorientation non-natives deal with in Earth conditions, though. There was an episode that spent a significant amount of its story showing Bobby dealing with being on Earth for the first time and seeing unfiltered sunlight and the extra gravity. There's been a few other instances of it, but it has definitely taken a backseat since that torture scene you mentioned.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    Also in the books. In the beginning, belters were hardly able to live on Earth let alone move around. Later, they colonize planets. So I get why that was dropped as a plot device. And since it was only one scene, it didn't have much of an impact anyway.
- kfajdsl 5y ago
  It was because in the beginning they wanted to put the idea that belters were different in people's head, but to do it the entire series would be too expensive. They got rid of the issue in-universe with the bone-growth meds (?) that Miller and probably others took (in the books this didn't exist, and all belters are tall).
- getpost 5y ago
  > how expense it would be Apparently the insider moniker for the show is, “The Expense.”
rgovostes 5y ago
There is a scene in S02E03 where Miller chides a Belter about the music he's listening to, so the Belter picks up his mobile device to turn it off. When he picks it up it must be in the wrong orientation, because he flips it over in his hand. You're telling me there's no autorotate in 2300? Worst. Episode. Ever.
- etxm 5y ago
  If I flip my iPhone over 180° today it doesn’t autorotate. I wouldn’t expect it to in the show given the terminals are asymmetrical with the electronics at the bottom. Plus it’s a cheap belter phone. Poor bastards aren’t getting the expensive feature rich terminals.
- mannerheim 5y ago
  Maybe he turned it off. I usually disable autorotate because it annoys me.
- duskwuff 5y ago
  Belters turn off autorotate because it doesn't work in zero G. Duh. :)
- evandrofisico 5y ago
  It may be a case of apologetics, but autorotate only makes sense when there is a discernible gravational field, and as belters are often in low/simulated gravity, i would make sense.
etxm 5y ago
Imaginary Worlds[1] had a great episode on the origin of the books and politics in the Expanse 1. https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/politics-of-the-expanse https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/politics-of-...
firefoxd 5y ago
One thing highly underrated in the show is the AI interactions. You ask the computer for something, and it provides the answer. No voice, no conversation, no sass, and most importantly, no anthropomorphism. Imagine every single time you write a CLI command or perform a mouse click, the computer says "great! Let me do that for you". That's how Siri, Alexa interact. In the Expanse, giving the AI a command is like double clicking on a file. Fast, consise, no fuss.
- RootReducer 5y ago
  I love this. When I use Google assistant to start a timer, it always says "Sure, 5 minutes. And we're starting now." This takes about 5 seconds, and the timer doesn't start until it's done. It's a minor annoyance, but I'd prefer a simple chime.
  - biztos 5y ago
    "Put down your weapon. You have four minutes fifty-five seconds to comply." https://youtu.be/A9l9wxGFl4k https://youtu.be/A9l9wxGFl4k
- dfinninger 5y ago
  I'd always thought that it was just a "nice" way to hide processing/network latency. I'd certainly prefer some small chirp of acknowledgement, but I think we need to reduce latency first.
  - stouset 5y ago
    It’s also because the rate of mistakes is high. You wanted a fifteen minute timer but got a fifty minute one? Whoops. Or worse, asking for driving directions for me typically has a 25% success rate, with me having to attempt multiple times to get directions to the place I’m actually trying to go to and not some similarly-named location six states over.
jordache 5y ago
This shop also does tremendous sci-fi UI design. https://territorystudio.com/project/the-martian/ https://territorystudio.com/project/the-martian/
systemvoltage 5y ago
IMO pinnacle of UI/IX is the F-15 cockpit: https://youtu.be/zikI2fazPLo https://youtu.be/zikI2fazPLo Completely opposite of what the Expanse UX/UI is. No touchscreens, no transparency, no sexy decoration, zero ambiguity, no distractions. Everything is functional first, ergonomic, clear and straightforward. I kind of wish Sci-fi authors would propel analog UIs. Touchscreens and manipulating things at an arms length - try it for 10 mins and see how tired your arm gets. I’d like to see a future that’s totally opposite of what everyone is praising in this thread.
- cbm-vic-20 5y ago
  Even reality is moving in the "glass cockpit" direction. For example, the SpaceX Crew Dragon doesn't appear to have much of any "steam" controls or displays. Most of the control is preplanned however, so there isn't as much pilot input than a F-15C would use.. https://twitter.com/alteredq/status/1266853705632145409/photo/1 https://twitter.com/alteredq/status/1266853705632145409/phot...
- m4rtink 5y ago
  Technicaly the HUD on modern fighter planes is a transparent LCD. ;-)
lxe 5y ago
My favorite is Belter video call app called "Showxating" -- it shows a thing!
- tootie 5y ago
  If you close up on the UIs of any Belter ship all the screens are translated into Belter. When the Roci gets a ship directly in it's sights, the targeting system will signal "Hammer Lock". The Belter ships say "Hamma Lok".
chrisin2d 5y ago
I want to add a comment I haven't seen anyone has touched on yet. There is a lot of storytelling done through computer interfaces in the show: revealing secrets, showing in-universe propaganda, showing ships and missiles move through the vastness of space, and so on. The show also makes a point in juxtaposing shots of UIs against shots of the realities those UIs represent. It paints a stark contrast the cleanliness and sterility of computer interfaces against the grittiness and horror of the Expanse world. We get to see the decision makers seeing missiles as dots traveling along holographic arc lines, but then we also get to see civilians and military personnel being blown up and shredded.
wruza 5y ago
Viewing maps of space is perfectly suited to holographic displays. A 2D map is simply not adequate. Having a map of space projected in a hologram or even VR allows you to grasp the position of objects accurately in three dimensions. On the other hand, you have to rely on moving your head around to get a perspective. 3d is probably better, but these [1,2] animated images allow to see it in static as well. Can’t find better examples quickly, but I hope one can get the idea. [1] https://www.google.ru/search?q=animated+parallax&tbm=isch&hl=ru-ru&chips=q:animated+parallax,online_chips:gif:e8WoxbTiHO4%3D&client=safari&prmd=visn&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwihwons3OfwAhX-BxAIHUW1CDoQ4lYoAHoECAEQBQ&biw=375&bih=553#imgrc=kTvtohBQmg_3xM https://www.google.ru/search?q=animated+parallax&tbm=isch&hl... [2] https://www.google.ru/search?q=animated+parallax&tbm=isch&hl=ru-ru&chips=q:animated+parallax,online_chips:gif:e8WoxbTiHO4%3D&client=safari&prmd=visn&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwihwons3OfwAhX-BxAIHUW1CDoQ4lYoAHoECAEQBQ&biw=375&bih=553#imgrc=neLpqvf4rCIukM https://www.google.ru/search?q=animated+parallax&tbm=isch&hl...
itronitron 5y ago
It's funny how some of the interior decor items look like their right off Zillow.
d_burfoot 5y ago
One of the most unrealistic things about depictions of futuristic computer systems and UI design is that they almost always do exactly what the character wants with a minimum of hassle. No, technology in the future is going to cause as many problems and as much frustration as it does today. And those problems will be more keenly felt, because in space, your life depends on the technology working properly. There should be episodes where, for example, the main challenge and risk doesn't come from aliens or hostile humans, but from the fact that the OS running the ship's engines crashes and needs to be restarted every 5 minutes.
- tootie 5y ago
  That was more or less the plot of 2001
  - imhoguy 5y ago
    Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL. HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
    - tootie 5y ago
      Dave opens the debugger and starts stepping through 900 million lines of code
- block_dagger 5y ago
  Excellent point. Note that Solomon "Sol" Epstein dies as a direct result of his engine working too well and pressing him against his seat such that he couldn't turn it off.
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  I doubt they’ll be running Windows 98. Now, I could see some poor interfaces that allow you to delete safety precautions by mistake…
- SkyMarshal 5y ago
  > but from the fact that the OS running the ship's engines crashes and needs to be restarted every 5 minutes. I would hope by the 23rd century that they’ve figured out that formally verified micro-kernel OSs are the way to go for mission-critical use cases like that.
nharada 5y ago
I love the title sequence (even though that was a different design shop): https://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-expanse/ https://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-expanse/ They clearly drew from some other highly technical areas in their design: for example incorporating Réseau plates or drawing on the visual layout of air traffic control screens.
PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
My biggest issue with the visual aspects of The Expanse is one that I don't think can be fixed. The story is set approximately 3-400 years in the future. All of the technology, however, looks, if not immediately familiar, then more or less "around the corner from now". Go back to 1621, and imagining projecting a future 2021 based on "minor tweaks to what we're using now". Clearly, it would be absolutely nothing remotely like the actual 2021 that we live in. I enjoy the Expanse a lot, but if there are humans around in 2400 or so who get a chance to see it again, I'm fairly sure they will be besides themselves with laughter at its "vision" for their time.
- manmal 5y ago
  They do have the Epstein drive, holographic displays, anti-cancer-cell „dialysis“, a solar-system-wide internet, miniaturized electron microscopes, and insanely long-lasting batteries. But, I must admit that eg the terminals look like phones from 2050. And I‘m sorely missing AI, humanoid robots, and way more bionic implants a la Cyberpunk. However I think those were left out deliberately to allow the story to be mainly about the human experience. AIs like the one in „Her“ might be realistic on a 400 year time scale, but I find stories like that rather awe-inspiring than relatable.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    Yes, the tech developments have happened, no question. But the look of the vessels, the homes, the offices, the computing devices ... these are all circa 2030 (or maybe even 2024).
  - nirav72 5y ago
    >I‘m sorely missing AI, humanoid robots I remember reading somewhere that the authors of the book series intentionally left out AI in the story - as to not take away from the human aspects of the story. AI is there, just in the background with context specific voice activated commands.
- biztos 5y ago
  Or maybe they'll be sad their present isn't as cool as we thought our future would be?

521 points by cryo 5y ago

Nice site in general. Reminded me of this https://github.com/arwes/arwes https://github.com/arwes/arwes

sen 5y ago

The designers (not just UI but all of them) on The Expanse did such an incredible job. It’s probably my favourite looking Sci Fi series or movie of all time. The attention to detail is incredible too, I’m on my third watch-through of the series and notice new things all the time.

fenk85 5y ago
You will love the book series then, goes into much more details and is hard to put down, i binge read the lot
- alexgmcm 5y ago
  I think some stuff is improved in the series though. For example, the story from Cibola Burn seemed a lot better on the show than the book in my opinion and some of the characters are better. In particular, Ashford's character is massively improved (it helps that David Strathairn plays the role incredibly well). The books are very good though and I can't wait for Leviathan Falls. Also, it seems the series will stop at the end of Babylon's Ashes.
  - rkachowski 5y ago
    I absolutely love how they changed "Ashford" in the books from an elitist obstructive middle manager into "Klaes Ashford" - legendary OPA member, space pirate and "The Ghost Knife of Callisto". The show really gives the opportunity to explore the individual motivations of the characters; the books are also great and they complement each other, but I feel that the books are almost too fast paced to really savour the environment and setting.
    - alexgmcm 5y ago
      Yeah, he's probably my favourite character in the series. The way his character develops and changes is incredible and the acting is really well done.
    - 7sigma 5y ago
      That scene in the behemoth in s3e11 between camina and ashford is one my favourite. Their discussion of what it is that makes belters what they are in that situation, such great writing
  - tspiteri 5y ago
    Some things work differently on TV and on books, and they changed things to make the storytelling better suited to TV. For example Camina Drummer was introduced much earlier in the TV series so that Fred Johnson had someone to talk to on screen, which wasn't needed in the novels. And then the character worked so well that they expanded it to cover more stuff. I really like that they prefer a good story over sticking to the exact "canon" of the novels. And in "they" I include the novel authors, who are very involved in the TV series.
    - alexgmcm 5y ago
      Yeah, I think having the novel authors involved has helped make the series as good as it is. We still have the final season though - let's hope it doesn't do a "Game of Thrones".
      - ddxxdd 5y ago
        >let's hope it doesn't do a "Game of Thrones". Don't get your hopes up too high; "The Expanse" is often nicknamed "The Expense" due to its high special effects budget. Amazon Prime may decide that later seasons need to have their budgets cut.
        tspiteri 5y ago
        Game of Thrones did not have a budget problem for the last season; it had a writing problem. While other seasons used the novels for the build-up and for the story to make sense, the last season did not. And while the author does know where he wants to land, he hasn't worked out, or hasn't shared, how to get there completely yet. The tv show went there with no proper buildup, which is what makes that season poor. To me, the final situation, or who wins/dies, is not the problem, nor are the effects. As for The Expanse, it's season not seasons; the next season will be the final season. I cannot see the tv series ending in the same end point as the final novel, that is I cannot see them cramming four novels with one huge time gap in between into one season. But I do believe it will come to a satisfactory conclusion at some alternative end point.
        5y ago
  - manmal 5y ago
    I agree. I read the books after watching the first four seasons, and I felt disappointed how Ashford is described and handled in the books. Also, the books set a very high bar for Naomi's "solo adventure" (let's call it that to prevent spoilers), and the series did such a great job, and stayed very true to the source. It was satisfying seeing this unravel almost exactly as I had imagined it.
  - goatlover 5y ago
    The Cibola Burn book did a much better job of explaining things on Illus, particularly the alien stuff. And the Investigator POV chapters were wild. You don't get as much of that on the show.
    - alexgmcm 5y ago
      That's true, the investigator POV stuff was cool. But all the romance I found really unrealistic and ham-fisted. They cut that completely out of the show.
- sen 5y ago
  Halfway through my third reading and still not sick of it. It’s without a doubt my favourite Sci Fi of all time.
patja 5y ago
They use an incredible number of off the shelf shower grab bars I recognize from Home Depot in the interior of pretty much every ship. I find things like that a bit distracting.
- lovegoblin 5y ago
  This is true of every show, though. You just happen to know what those specific shower bars look like.
- kayfox 5y ago
  I like that they thought about that, in a lot of shows and movies you see ships in space where gravity may not exist at times with no visible way for people to move themselves around under zero-g, so its refreshing when a show puts in the work to create a set that looks usable in space.
- bityard 5y ago
  The grab bars on the Zarya also look like something you'd easily find in Walmart: https://www.nasa.gov/images/content/114306main_iss010e25228_hires.jpg https://www.nasa.gov/images/content/114306main_iss010e25228_... Maybe when it comes to something as simple as a grab bar it's hard to get too imaginative in the first place? Once you start _really_ looking for them, you can pretty easily pick out items on a set and go, "oh yeah, that looks like a repurposed so-and-so."
- duskwuff 5y ago
  The Expanse uses a lot of repurposed props in general. One of the cryogenic pods in S2 is a roof storage rack for a car. The flight controls in the Rocinante are 3DConnexion mice. I recall seeing one maintenance tunnel with walls covered in laptop cooling pads. And so on. :)
  - ruytlm 5y ago
    As another, many of the spacesuit backpacks/oxygen packs are very lightly disguised Ogio motorcycle backpacks: https://ogiopowersports.com/products/no-drag-mach-5-stealth https://ogiopowersports.com/products/no-drag-mach-5-stealth

Grumbledour 5y ago

I have to say I was much more taken with the description of computers in the books. Maybe it was more me projecting than what was actually there, but what I took away from it were computer systems that worked without networking most of the time, were fault tolerant and had most of their power through programmability, which ordinary people were able to access. This reminded me so much of the ideas and visions of early computing environments and even though the books don't dwell much on computers, I found it really fascinating to see these echos there. In comparison, the visual design of the show is just ... nice? But seems honestly pretty impracticable most of the time and I felt doesn't really set itself apart from other contemporary Sci-fi Shows.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
Near the end of Cibola Burn, there was this part that gave some extra details about the hand terminals they use. I almost cried when reading it. A computer that's designed to work off-line just as well as on-line, that can form mesh networks with other hand terminals on the fly when needed, not tied to any specific vendor in any particular way. It's how smartphones should obviously work, except they don't, because real humanity is shitty in so many subtle ways in which even most dystopian sci-fi humanity isn't.
- sprkwd 5y ago
  Well, that's something wonderful to aim for.
- meowster 5y ago
  That's how the computers work in Neal Stephenson's Seveneves too. It serves a purpose in the story.
- salawat 5y ago
  Welcome to what happens when the common network and routing infrastructure is privately owned. Proprietary standards. Subscriber ident, discriminatory "I will/won't service you today" sets the tone for how things work. Mesh interop is more than doable. It just ain't profitable, nor is it desirable from the centralized controllability perspective.

Qahlel 5y ago

I genuinely hate the impracticable UI design being pushed on TV-&-Movies in the last decade. Normies expect similar interface from everything but don't even understand that it's bad. It's like putting yogurt on Pizza dough instead of mozzarella and calling it New York Pizza. Please stop...

bumbada 5y ago

Why there is no light on space Sci Fi series or movies?. I find it extremely hard to believe that people that master ships at the speed of light, that have nuclear and possible antimatter engines just can't effort proper lighting, like they don't know LED lights, fluorescent lights everywhere. All films just look like submerged nuclear submarines on red alert,but all the time. On nuclear submarines you have way more light most of the time. We know that we need strong light exposure in order not the develop illnesses like myopia. Mood is affected badly by lack of light. I can understand it in games,it was the first trick for hiding a bad 3D engine, make everything dark, but it is not necessary anymore.

antihero 5y ago
It looks way cooler.
lucideer 5y ago
Not sure if you've seen the Expanse, but two comments: 1. The stills here look edited, possible to focus the UIs for the article. I may be misremembering but I don't remember being unable to make out characters on screen! 2. The protagonists in the show comandeer a Mars ship and most shots take place inside it. For narrative reasons, UN ships are bright, Mars ships are black/dark red (and Belter ships are broken, Star Wars rebels style), so the in-space look changes a lot (though the main set is that one Mars ship).
- bserge 5y ago
  UN ships were very well lit from what I remember. Martian and Belter ships less so (still, the Rocinante's crew quarters were fine and we've not really seen many ships outside of battle/emergencies) because they were adapted to lower light conditions on their homeworlds, I think that was said once if I'm not mistaken. The Martian delegation to Earth had to wear sunglasses all the time, for example.
- adeelk93 5y ago
  More than just narrative reasons, I think it makes sense that the planet that receives half the sunlight would be building less brightly lit ships

billynomates111 5y ago

How would having a transparent device improve usability?

cblconfederate 5y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPOhKULOL4o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPOhKULOL4o
girvo 5y ago
Spitballing: a large screen in the middle of a space ship being transparent would allow someone to see the entire bridge while still seeing what’s on the screen, maybe? Personal hand held decided though? Not at all

jeether 5y ago

All that transparent displays look good, but it's an awful design choice nonetheless.

eric4smith 5y ago

Very good to watch a “Hard Sci-Fi” show like the expanse. Not many of these out there. Not just the UI, but The tech is realistic and possible and usually backed up by basic scientific principles. The social scenarios are also quite likely in the future. Even the language makes sense - a kind of hodge-Podge universal accent. And it tangentially originates from Larry Niven’s belter stories just before mankind sent the ram robots to distant stars. The Expanse is everything to like.

hnzix 5y ago
I love the fact that they goofed the physics involving a wrench in one of the earlier episodes, so they got help fact checking the physics for future shows and the wrench has been included as an easter egg / running joke to remind them to strive for realism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyV3GZ9xnGM&t=3140s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyV3GZ9xnGM&t=3140s (NSFW language)
- mavhc 5y ago
  They also talked about having to teach the VFX people physics, and they got much better after the first season.
  - shakezula 5y ago
    There is a scene in one of the later seasons where a character pours whiskey into glasses on the moon, and it's very much obscured and in the background, and they _still_ made sure that the liquid pours out more slowly and splashes up much higher than it would normally. Honestly some of the best attention to detail in sci-fi I've ever seen.
f00zz 5y ago
I liked the hard sci-fi elements in The Expanse, but the idea of people mining asteroids in poor third world-like conditions makes absolutely no sense to me. Or an evil megacorp that murders millions of people with no adequate explanation. Couldn't get past the first book.

baybal2 5y ago

Transparency, and animation in UIs is terrible. Bad for visibility, bad for usability.

coldtea 5y ago
Not in 2050 A.D., where humans have developed medical technologies in the eyes that optimize for transparent UIs...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

cblconfederate 5y ago

I like the Expanse as a story and ideas and for the few characters that are worth it (most are flat drones), but its aesthetic is not very original , most of this stuff has been redone countless times in game design . Still great to look at but i think they could have done better artistically.

gmueckl 5y ago

I remember a comment by Adam Savge on one of his YouTube videos where he visited the sets. He also had a brief cameo in one episode (as a ceew member of the Arboghast, I believe), sitting at a terminal. He remarks that the terminal screen wasn't just showing a random animation, but had a fledged out menu system that changed screens on touch input. So he could actually "use" the station while acting instead of just making stuff up. As far as I know, a lot of films had only blank screens on set and the computer display was added in post, trying to match whatever "interaction" the actors came up with on the set.

nirui 5y ago
You must mean this video series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONBWBj9LnXQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONBWBj9LnXQ I was wondering why the view-line of those actors was so on-point. Well, I got my answers.
nowherebeen 5y ago
I think programming simple UI has become remarkably easier in the last 6-7 years thanks to programs like Unity3D that a single programmer can probably handle all the UI for the entire show with ease.
- hulitu 5y ago
  Tell that to Google and Microsoft. MS was forced to abandon Win32 because it was so resource hungry. (bangs head)
  - criddell 5y ago
    Win32 hasn't been abandoned. It's the foundation that everything is built on. And in what way is the API resource hungry? You can write a Win32 hello world that is on the order of 1 KB.

camillomiller 5y ago

I love the Expanse. Yet I think that transparent displays only work in movies. What do we need the transparency for? I can’t find any UX reason that would make such a screen better than a regular superthin opaque display with maybe holographic features. Discuss :)

ceejayoz 5y ago
Augmented reality use? Hold the terminal over some wiring and get an overlaid schematic?
- kingosticks 5y ago
  That spy guy (I don't remember his name) in series 1 has this ability when he's re-wiring the airlock door interface panel in order to escape. He uses his AR ability a few times but I like how it's not overdone.
TeMPOraL 5y ago
We don't need them. They're popular because they allow to film the actor and the screen simultaneously. My personal take: transparent displays are a lazy trick of film makers who overestimate the importance of characters in science fiction, and underestimate the importance of setting. A proper real-world use of transparency would be Augmented Reality - i.e. overlaying contextual UIs on top of the real world the user sees through the glass/hologram.
- krapp 5y ago
  >transparent displays are a lazy trick of film makers who overestimate the importance of characters in science fiction, and underestimate the importance of setting. Characters are always more important than setting. You can tell a compelling story with a character alone in a room, but without any characters even an interesting setting has nothing to say.
  - dagw 5y ago
    Characters are always more important than setting. Not among sci-fi fans. There are lots of classic and beloved scifi books that are all about the world and setting and technology where the characters are 2d cardboard cut outs that only exist as an excuse to move the story from set piece to set piece.

perryizgr8 5y ago

I liked during the early seasons how Detective Miller's phone screen was cracked. Don't recall seeing that in any other show. It lends credibility to the narrative that these are real people who break their phone screens sometimes and can't be bothered to get it fixed.

chrisweekly 5y ago

I loved the books, and am giving the tv show another chance after being turned off by the casting (Naomi in particular was jarringly, distractingly different from the character in my mind). Glad I revisited it and got past that, bc overall it's really well done. Tangent: can anyone explain the inscrutable titles?

oaiey 5y ago

If you have not seen The Expanse yet, start now! This is the best sci-fi show since Battlestar Galactica. The first three episodes are slow but later the show is so fast you wish back to it.

robertlagrant 5y ago
The show is well named. Season 1's story scope expands incredibly out from the initial mystery.
- oaiey 5y ago
  As a book reader i enjoyed the show a lot. But when I now see YouTube reactors I enjoy so much how clueless they are at any stage of the show. Every week an expanded view of the story reveals to them but the result: They know nothing :)
marvin 5y ago
I found that they completely butchered my favorite characters from the book series. Holden is way over the top macho and gets in "check out my ego" screaming matches with folks all the time, Bobby is at least emotionally a weak-willed little girl who lets herself get bossed around by everyone, and especially male authority figues. Etc. Their interpretation of the character gallery was really disappointing. The books' authors have made some really cool non-heteronormative and super competent characters, which is one of the many aspects of the series that I really enjoyed. Does this get better in the latter seasons that were produced by Amazon?
- sveme 5y ago
  Indeed, Holden was crap in the first season; much improved later, so definitely can recommend continuing to watch it.
- JonathanFly 5y ago
  Overall they improved characters. Ashford is a cartoon in the books but is absolutely delightful and interesting on the show. Drummer barely exists in the books and might be my favorite show character.

qwertox 5y ago

How are these UIs generated? Is there a software which runs these UIs so that they look like they have a purpose?

imglorp 5y ago
It would be so nice if they open sourced the code. Fans could generate spinoff UIs for more terrestrial purposes, and perhaps even contribute back new UIs for future episodes.

molbioguy 5y ago

Love the show and the UI displays on it are no exception. And the post was interesting to read, but was anyone else annoyed by the way images were displayed on the site? You have to click on each image to see it and then use the browser back button to get back to the post! There must be better ways to arrange viewing of groups of images.

nathanasmith 5y ago
I haven't viewed the site on a desktop but on the iPad at least you tap on an image and then swipe to see the next ones. Also there's a close button in the top right to get back to the article.

kingosticks 5y ago

I really like how they transition between different screens so seemlessly with guestures (and also voice commands). I'd like to be able to do something similar on my phone so rather than clicking the chromecast icon and selecting which device, I'd like to swipe/flick towards the device I want to use. And ideally I'd like to expand (sorry) this to non-chromecast stuff like Spotify Connect (or MPD etc). Is there anything out there like that for Android? Some kind of location/orientation aware "casting" helper? Relatedly I wish there was less of a delay when trying to cast to the TV. Perhaps it's that, rather than the extra button clicks, that disrupts the flow so much. It's not like my smart TV hasn't got a powerful processor and a super-fast internet connection - why am I still seeing loading screens?!

dmitriid 5y ago
> I really like how they transition between different screens so seemlessly with guestures (and also voice commands). The greatest part of this is that they make it look seamless and unselfconscious. In most shows (even sci-fi ones) this is always exaggerated as in "look at how we move our hands on this futuristic surface". In Expanse? It's just an integrated part of what they do. They flick, and swipe, and hold stuff sideways, they drop phones, phones are cracked, and it's never "oh, look carefully at what I'm doing".
majoe 5y ago
Speaking about transition of graphical applications from one device to another, I think this is a rather difficult problem in itself. The only project I'm aware of, which tries to enable that in a seamless way, is the Arcan display server. I remember a short clip from the development blog [1], where a window with a running retro game is pulled to the edge of the screen and appears immediately on another device nearby [2]. Unfortunately Arcan is pretty niche and I doubt that will change in the foreseeable future. Using voice commands to control, where your applications is running, would then be relatively easy. Swiping in that direction, while pretty cool, is much harder, as you would need to locate both involved devices. [1] https://arcan-fe.com/2020/12/03/arcan-versus-xorg-feature-parity-and-beyond/ https://arcan-fe.com/2020/12/03/arcan-versus-xorg-feature-pa... [2] https://video.wordpress.com/embed/G3vQbGS0?preloadContent=metadata&hd=1 https://video.wordpress.com/embed/G3vQbGS0?preloadContent=me...

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago

When I was watching the show, I took special notice of gestures, and it was fun how same swipe up was either sending video to everyone around, or putting video feed on a big screen, or sending stuff to one specific person standing nearby. I wondered how those devices understood the context of the action. Also, those devices privacy sucks! Everyone around can see what happens on you glowing screen that is transparent from both sides!! Under no circumstances could such devices be sold to real users.

Jemaclus 5y ago
Adam Savage did an interview with one of the prop masters of the show, and he brought up the "privacy" issue and agreed that it sucks. But if they used "realistic" pads, he said 1) they would have to move the camera around in awkward ways so that we could see what the characters were seeing on their screens, and 2) most of what we (the audience) would see would be the black/gray backs of these pads with nothing interesting on them. So it was an intentional choice for convenience and visual effect, rather than an attempt at "realism". Sounds like they totally agree with your statement, though.
mixmastamyk 5y ago
Since when do people care about privacy?

xbar 5y ago

Well done.

gopherbro 5y ago

look cool.

dekhn 5y ago

I spent an inordinate amount of time while watching the show just thinking about how you manage the computer systems on a spaceship, especially if you're a scrappy crew without a large corp's support. Presumably, every space ship needs bulletproof software routines for calculating trajectories, making burns at the right time, etc- a combination of real time hardware control and sophisticated math. But presumably, ships need to get updated in-flight, and upgraded routinely, and presumably, it doesn't make sense for your own ship to drift too far from the common development tree. This is starting to become a major software engineering problem- how do you manage a fleet of ship firmwares across a solar system?

NotEvil 5y ago
It can be an opensource program or a library that everybody uses. And corps can have there own proprietary program
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
Why would it need to be upgraded? Does the math of calculating trajectories and timing change that often?
- dekhn 5y ago
  No, those don't really change (there might be data updates to include newly discovered celestial objects). But any ship that operates in space will eventually need some custom work and some of that would need to be merged back into mainline or maintained as a patch. It would be necessary to upgrade if, for example, new devices were installed in the ship, which were developed after the original ship firmware was installed. All of this is already a problem, for example for the US Navy, https://news.usni.org/2021/04/12/navy-software-factory-the-forge-wants-to-reshape-how-ships-get-upgraded https://news.usni.org/2021/04/12/navy-software-factory-the-f...
hrishi 5y ago
I imagine some futuristic version of git where... basically git but they've got better merge algorithms after they've solve NP and P. You can sync to the trees of ships near you and catch up, and once in a while one of them gets to a station and updates to the tip of wherever development is at.

jancsika 5y ago

Important off-topic The Expanse conundrum: In the very first episodes a tall, stretched-out skinny space-born dude is getting tortured simply by making him stand and be subject to Earth's gravity. Then the rest of the series-- few to no tall, stretched-out skinny space-born peeps anywhere. What gives? I imagine the director realizing how expense it would be to continue seeking out a bunch of tall, skinny extras...

apocalyptic0n3 5y ago
I remember an interview with the showrunners that basically said that. There weren't enough tall and skinny people to perform all the roles adequately, not to mention background extras. And it limited them from casting the actors they really wanted to cast, like Jared Harris as Dawes. They do still deal with the disorientation non-natives deal with in Earth conditions, though. There was an episode that spent a significant amount of its story showing Bobby dealing with being on Earth for the first time and seeing unfiltered sunlight and the extra gravity. There's been a few other instances of it, but it has definitely taken a backseat since that torture scene you mentioned.
- hef19898 5y ago
  Also in the books. In the beginning, belters were hardly able to live on Earth let alone move around. Later, they colonize planets. So I get why that was dropped as a plot device. And since it was only one scene, it didn't have much of an impact anyway.
kfajdsl 5y ago
It was because in the beginning they wanted to put the idea that belters were different in people's head, but to do it the entire series would be too expensive. They got rid of the issue in-universe with the bone-growth meds (?) that Miller and probably others took (in the books this didn't exist, and all belters are tall).
getpost 5y ago
> how expense it would be Apparently the insider moniker for the show is, “The Expense.”

rgovostes 5y ago

There is a scene in S02E03 where Miller chides a Belter about the music he's listening to, so the Belter picks up his mobile device to turn it off. When he picks it up it must be in the wrong orientation, because he flips it over in his hand. You're telling me there's no autorotate in 2300? Worst. Episode. Ever.

etxm 5y ago
If I flip my iPhone over 180° today it doesn’t autorotate. I wouldn’t expect it to in the show given the terminals are asymmetrical with the electronics at the bottom. Plus it’s a cheap belter phone. Poor bastards aren’t getting the expensive feature rich terminals.
mannerheim 5y ago
Maybe he turned it off. I usually disable autorotate because it annoys me.
duskwuff 5y ago
Belters turn off autorotate because it doesn't work in zero G. Duh. :)
evandrofisico 5y ago
It may be a case of apologetics, but autorotate only makes sense when there is a discernible gravational field, and as belters are often in low/simulated gravity, i would make sense.

etxm 5y ago

Imaginary Worlds[1] had a great episode on the origin of the books and politics in the Expanse 1. https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/politics-of-the-expanse https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/politics-of-...

firefoxd 5y ago

One thing highly underrated in the show is the AI interactions. You ask the computer for something, and it provides the answer. No voice, no conversation, no sass, and most importantly, no anthropomorphism. Imagine every single time you write a CLI command or perform a mouse click, the computer says "great! Let me do that for you". That's how Siri, Alexa interact. In the Expanse, giving the AI a command is like double clicking on a file. Fast, consise, no fuss.

RootReducer 5y ago
I love this. When I use Google assistant to start a timer, it always says "Sure, 5 minutes. And we're starting now." This takes about 5 seconds, and the timer doesn't start until it's done. It's a minor annoyance, but I'd prefer a simple chime.
- biztos 5y ago
  "Put down your weapon. You have four minutes fifty-five seconds to comply." https://youtu.be/A9l9wxGFl4k https://youtu.be/A9l9wxGFl4k
dfinninger 5y ago
I'd always thought that it was just a "nice" way to hide processing/network latency. I'd certainly prefer some small chirp of acknowledgement, but I think we need to reduce latency first.
- stouset 5y ago
  It’s also because the rate of mistakes is high. You wanted a fifteen minute timer but got a fifty minute one? Whoops. Or worse, asking for driving directions for me typically has a 25% success rate, with me having to attempt multiple times to get directions to the place I’m actually trying to go to and not some similarly-named location six states over.

jordache 5y ago

This shop also does tremendous sci-fi UI design. https://territorystudio.com/project/the-martian/ https://territorystudio.com/project/the-martian/

systemvoltage 5y ago

IMO pinnacle of UI/IX is the F-15 cockpit: https://youtu.be/zikI2fazPLo https://youtu.be/zikI2fazPLo Completely opposite of what the Expanse UX/UI is. No touchscreens, no transparency, no sexy decoration, zero ambiguity, no distractions. Everything is functional first, ergonomic, clear and straightforward. I kind of wish Sci-fi authors would propel analog UIs. Touchscreens and manipulating things at an arms length - try it for 10 mins and see how tired your arm gets. I’d like to see a future that’s totally opposite of what everyone is praising in this thread.

cbm-vic-20 5y ago
Even reality is moving in the "glass cockpit" direction. For example, the SpaceX Crew Dragon doesn't appear to have much of any "steam" controls or displays. Most of the control is preplanned however, so there isn't as much pilot input than a F-15C would use.. https://twitter.com/alteredq/status/1266853705632145409/photo/1 https://twitter.com/alteredq/status/1266853705632145409/phot...
m4rtink 5y ago
Technicaly the HUD on modern fighter planes is a transparent LCD. ;-)

lxe 5y ago

My favorite is Belter video call app called "Showxating" -- it shows a thing!

tootie 5y ago
If you close up on the UIs of any Belter ship all the screens are translated into Belter. When the Roci gets a ship directly in it's sights, the targeting system will signal "Hammer Lock". The Belter ships say "Hamma Lok".

chrisin2d 5y ago

I want to add a comment I haven't seen anyone has touched on yet. There is a lot of storytelling done through computer interfaces in the show: revealing secrets, showing in-universe propaganda, showing ships and missiles move through the vastness of space, and so on. The show also makes a point in juxtaposing shots of UIs against shots of the realities those UIs represent. It paints a stark contrast the cleanliness and sterility of computer interfaces against the grittiness and horror of the Expanse world. We get to see the decision makers seeing missiles as dots traveling along holographic arc lines, but then we also get to see civilians and military personnel being blown up and shredded.

wruza 5y ago

Viewing maps of space is perfectly suited to holographic displays. A 2D map is simply not adequate. Having a map of space projected in a hologram or even VR allows you to grasp the position of objects accurately in three dimensions. On the other hand, you have to rely on moving your head around to get a perspective. 3d is probably better, but these [1,2] animated images allow to see it in static as well. Can’t find better examples quickly, but I hope one can get the idea. [1] https://www.google.ru/search?q=animated+parallax&tbm=isch&hl=ru-ru&chips=q:animated+parallax,online_chips:gif:e8WoxbTiHO4%3D&client=safari&prmd=visn&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwihwons3OfwAhX-BxAIHUW1CDoQ4lYoAHoECAEQBQ&biw=375&bih=553#imgrc=kTvtohBQmg_3xM https://www.google.ru/search?q=animated+parallax&tbm=isch&hl... [2] https://www.google.ru/search?q=animated+parallax&tbm=isch&hl=ru-ru&chips=q:animated+parallax,online_chips:gif:e8WoxbTiHO4%3D&client=safari&prmd=visn&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwihwons3OfwAhX-BxAIHUW1CDoQ4lYoAHoECAEQBQ&biw=375&bih=553#imgrc=neLpqvf4rCIukM https://www.google.ru/search?q=animated+parallax&tbm=isch&hl...

itronitron 5y ago

It's funny how some of the interior decor items look like their right off Zillow.

d_burfoot 5y ago

One of the most unrealistic things about depictions of futuristic computer systems and UI design is that they almost always do exactly what the character wants with a minimum of hassle. No, technology in the future is going to cause as many problems and as much frustration as it does today. And those problems will be more keenly felt, because in space, your life depends on the technology working properly. There should be episodes where, for example, the main challenge and risk doesn't come from aliens or hostile humans, but from the fact that the OS running the ship's engines crashes and needs to be restarted every 5 minutes.

tootie 5y ago
That was more or less the plot of 2001
- imhoguy 5y ago
  Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL. HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
  - tootie 5y ago
    Dave opens the debugger and starts stepping through 900 million lines of code
block_dagger 5y ago
Excellent point. Note that Solomon "Sol" Epstein dies as a direct result of his engine working too well and pressing him against his seat such that he couldn't turn it off.
mixmastamyk 5y ago
I doubt they’ll be running Windows 98. Now, I could see some poor interfaces that allow you to delete safety precautions by mistake…
SkyMarshal 5y ago
> but from the fact that the OS running the ship's engines crashes and needs to be restarted every 5 minutes. I would hope by the 23rd century that they’ve figured out that formally verified micro-kernel OSs are the way to go for mission-critical use cases like that.

nharada 5y ago

I love the title sequence (even though that was a different design shop): https://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-expanse/ https://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-expanse/ They clearly drew from some other highly technical areas in their design: for example incorporating Réseau plates or drawing on the visual layout of air traffic control screens.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

My biggest issue with the visual aspects of The Expanse is one that I don't think can be fixed. The story is set approximately 3-400 years in the future. All of the technology, however, looks, if not immediately familiar, then more or less "around the corner from now". Go back to 1621, and imagining projecting a future 2021 based on "minor tweaks to what we're using now". Clearly, it would be absolutely nothing remotely like the actual 2021 that we live in. I enjoy the Expanse a lot, but if there are humans around in 2400 or so who get a chance to see it again, I'm fairly sure they will be besides themselves with laughter at its "vision" for their time.

manmal 5y ago
They do have the Epstein drive, holographic displays, anti-cancer-cell „dialysis“, a solar-system-wide internet, miniaturized electron microscopes, and insanely long-lasting batteries. But, I must admit that eg the terminals look like phones from 2050. And I‘m sorely missing AI, humanoid robots, and way more bionic implants a la Cyberpunk. However I think those were left out deliberately to allow the story to be mainly about the human experience. AIs like the one in „Her“ might be realistic on a 400 year time scale, but I find stories like that rather awe-inspiring than relatable.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  Yes, the tech developments have happened, no question. But the look of the vessels, the homes, the offices, the computing devices ... these are all circa 2030 (or maybe even 2024).
- nirav72 5y ago
  >I‘m sorely missing AI, humanoid robots I remember reading somewhere that the authors of the book series intentionally left out AI in the story - as to not take away from the human aspects of the story. AI is there, just in the background with context specific voice activated commands.
biztos 5y ago
Or maybe they'll be sad their present isn't as cool as we thought our future would be?