18 replies

1. Ste Grainer 55 min later

   @zachleat Designing holodeck excursions.

2. Brian Baldock 🇨🇦 1 hr later

   @zachleat I’ve tried the pi-hole LCARS theme and was like nope tooo wheel of fortune/insert 80’s-90’s game show video bugs and other onscreen graphics and set design. I do love though the detail of the creative staff that brings those smaller details to a tv series or movie. Fonts, UI and the like just add that extra neat factor.

   1. Zach Leatherman 13 hr later

      @midknight 100% even that they had a consistent design that lasted as long as it did (and still felt futuristic) was impressive

3. Chris Silverman 🌻 1 hr later

   @zachleat same boat. I loved the LCARS aesthetic as a kid—it did look very 24th-century—but the designer in me sees all-caps ultra-condensed light-on-dark lettering and thinks "there is no way I'd want to have mission-critical systems controlled by this thing."

   1. Zach Leatherman 13 hr later

      @csilverman a person of good taste, thank you 🙌

4. Jesse Janowiak 13 hr later

   @zachleat I'm surprised that it's not the default interface for the Cybertruck, honestly.

   1. Zach Leatherman 13 hr later

      @wonkeythemonkey it’s a little too good for that use case

5. ShnizmuffiN 16 hr later

   @zachleat The concept behind LCARS is that the UI is designed by and keyed to each user. Saying it's not good UI is an inditement of the User, not the Interface.

   Kinda like picking up someone else's phone and trying to use it.

   Here's mine, works great, skill issue.

   1. Zach Leatherman 16 hr later

      @shnizmuffin turtle habitat controls hell yeah

6. attila 17 hr later

   @zachleat standing-only work stations also suck... i guess every day is leg day on the holodeck? nobody's back is killing them from squinting at LCARS while standing fore 8 hours at a stretch? the science officer's UX is shite. they need to unionize.

7. Zach Leatherman 1 day later

   @wiredprairie shared this lovely video with me about some of the folks that worked on LCARS and it has me wanting to apologize for how little substance the above critique had — Sorry! Not to say that LCARS isn’t without flaws but I wish I had been more productive in my armchair review.

   Here’s the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D24tYFIVyv0

   1. ChrisChinchilla 1 day later

      @zachleat @wiredprairie Read the fantastic "Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons From Science Fiction", explains this interface plus many others. Lovely book :)

   2. Sascha Karnatz 1 day later

      @zachleat @wiredprairie the video make me think how they made it in the past and how much ahead of their time they were.

      1. Zach Leatherman 1 day later

         @_web_ @wiredprairie *YES* TNG started in 1987!!

   3. Zach Leatherman 1 day later

      Another great point in discussion with @_web_:

      These designs are from 1987 🤯 when the state of the art in operating systems looked like this:

      1. Scott Jenson 1 day later

         @zachleat @_web_ as someone that does haptic design, I was blown away to learn that the LCARS team actually specified haptics in their button designs, back in the 80s! Very impressive work!

         1. Zach Leatherman 1 day later

            @scottjenson @_web_ Yes! Amazing! It’s too easy to look at these things with modern eyes where touchscreens are everywhere

            1. Sascha Karnatz 1 day later

               @zachleat @scottjenson I watched last time Voyager and asked myself how Paris can piloting a ship with a touch screen. Nowadays with touch screens in cars I usually miss haptic feedback. But Voyager first aired 1995 and now, 30 years later, we have these space ship cars…