After reading Make it so, and about science fiction, I both agree and disagree. Yes, science fiction is loaded with imagination and creativity, and it is rooted in what we have in present; however, I think science fiction became not only predictive but also very cliché. The technology we see and feel from Iron Man may be fascinating, yet the technology from those movies always brushes the mechanism of “how” it works under the rug and shows the sci-fi genius Tony Stark. (and it is always the job of modern-day real engineers to figure out the “how” part.) The depressing part of this, though, is that people just glances and walks pass thinking “meh, I’ve already seen Tony Stark doing it.”
And Make it so also goes over about the interface design and interaction. As great as it seems from the sci-fi movies, it may not be as amazing. For example, those holographic screens that moves with the user’s action. Interaction wise, maybe it’s great that it involves natural interaction, meaning that like Wii from Nintendo, the user naturally figures out because it is in their physical movement. However, the user experience wise, it is not great, indeed, it is very opposite to being friendly. Those hologram panels always appear to be exclusive for those nerdy characters in the movies.
Like I mentioned in my bath buddy presentation, users happen to have some sort of mental model in their minds. The mental model for high-tech panels would be those hologram panels; therefore, the designers present something like a laser keyboard. The thought of it was great, and it perfectly matched the users’ mental model; however, it wasn’t quite successful because the user experience of the keyboard wasn’t a good representation of what people sought for other than looking cool. That is why I think the conceptual model should sometimes look away from people’s expectations because it does not always promise that was exactly what they are looking for.
