HCI International 2014
22 - 27 June 2014, Creta Maris, Heraklion, Crete, Greece
T16: The Past 100 Year of the Future: CHI/HCI/UX in Sci-Fi Movies and Television
Aaron Marcus (short bio)
Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc., Berkeley, California, United States
Tuesday, 24 June 2014, 09:00 - 12:30
Objectives:
Participants in this course will:
- Understand how science-fiction movies and television have/have not incorporated fundamental principles of user-centered design to achieve usability, usefulness, and appeal
- Understand the development of science-fiction in the popular media over the past 100 years
- Understand how to combine their professional knowledge to look at popular media
Content and Benefits:
Abstract
HCI in Sci-Fi Movies and Television will summarize and analyze the past 100 years of human-computer interaction as incorporated into science-fiction cinema and videos, beginning with the advent of movies in the early 1900s (Melies' "A Trip to the Moon," which was recently referenced in the recent movie "Hugo").
For many decades movies have shown technology in advance of its commercialization (for example, video phones and wall-sized television displays, hand-gesture systems, and virtual reality displays). In some cases mistaken views about what is usable, useful, and appealing seem to be adopted, perhaps because of their cinematic benefits. In any case, these media have served as informal "test-beds" for new technologies of human-computer interaction and communication. They provide ample evidence for heuristic evaluations, ethnographic enalysis, market analysis, critique of personas and use scenarios, and new approaches to conceptual and visual design.
The course will explore issues of what is "futuristic" and what is not, gender-role differences, optimism/pessimism, and user-centered design characteristics in more than two dozen films and a half-dozen television shows. Examples from China, India, and Japan will also be referenced.
Participants will be informally quizzed about their recognition of the media examples shown and their analysis of contexts, technologies, business models, user communities, and designs . Discussion with participants throughout the presentation will be encouraged.
Lecture Schedule with Time Allocation
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 09:00 | Tutorial begins |
| 09:00 - 09:15 | Lecture 0: Introduction to Course and Background of Speaker. This period will introduce the presenter, the course organization, and objectives. The speaker will ask about participants’ understanding of the topic and their own related experience especially across media and culture boundaries.
|
| 09:15 - 10:30 | Lecture 1: CHI in Sci-Fi Movies and Televison Lecture sections:
|
| 10:30 - 11:00 | Break |
| 11:00 - 12:15 | Lecture 1: Continued, including discussion by participants at each movie/TV program |
| 12:15 - 12:30 | Closing Discussion: Q+A, and Where do We Go From Here? |
| 12:30 | Tutorial ends |
Post-Conference Activities
Following up from the conference, The speaker plans to send participants who wish to receive them additional papers, as well as an extensive bibliography and list of links relevant to the tutorial topic. They will be able to access and read the free eBook, which they can download, view the one-hour YouTube video, and join sci-fi and HCI discussion groups in the UK, Germany, India, China, and Japan, about which I shall inform them.
Target Audience:
The tutorial is appropriate for:
- people who are new to the topic, especially
- people who have some experience with the HCI and/or SciFi
- people who have lots of experience with HCI
Participant Knowledge and Experience Expected
Participants should be generally familiar with user-interface development steps (planning, research, analysis, design, evaluation, implementation, documentation, training) and user-interface components (metaphors, mental models, navigation, interaction, and experience), but may have little or no experience in science-fiction or the history of movies and television.
Participants can use their knowledge of user-experience design, interaction design, visual design, software/hardware engineering, ethnography, anthropology, and usabilty analysis to find new insights in this course in new ways to apply their expertise and experience .
Audience Participation
After each primary lecture component, especially, the case studies, there will be a discussion period.
Handouts or Other Session Materials
The course will be accompanied by a lecture handouts, which will include a reproduction of almost every slide shown with bullet points and imagery. Even at six images per page, the tutorial notes tend to be 3-5 times longer than most other tutorials simply because of the number of slides shown and discussed. Participants will also be given a reprint of a related article published by the author. Participants will be directed to a free 200-page eBook on this topic published by the speaker and available for downloading at the speaker’s Website. The participants will also be directed to a one-hour Youtube lecture by the speaker about this topic.
Previous Publication or Use of this Material
This course was given in previous versions at HCII 2013, Las Vegas, USA; CHI 2013, Paris, France; UXPA 2013, Washington, DC; APCHI 2012, and Matsue, Japan, August 2012. The course derives from the keynote lecture to about 200 people given by the speaker at Mensch und Komputer Conferenz, Technical University of Chemnitz, Germany, September 2010. Mr. Marcus also gave the key lecture as a keynote lecture to about 600 people for User Friendly 2012, Beijing, China, in November 2012. Mr. Marcus has also published a short article about this theme: In User Experience Magazine, the flagship publication of the User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA), Vol 11, No. 3, pp. 30-31, UX magazine published "Back to the Future: UX in the Past 100 Years of Science Fiction", another of Aaron Marcus' On the Edge column's essays, this one focusing on the state of UX design in science-fiction movies and television over the past century. The article is viewable and downloadable at the UXPA Website. In April-June 2013, Mr. Marcus was a guest special editor of a 32-page issue of User-Experience Magazine on the subject of user-experience design and science fiction; this issue is downloadable at the UXPA website.
References
This course is based on Mr. Marcus’ 200-page published eBook on this topic: The Past 100 Years of the Future: HCI in Science-Fiction Movies and Television, which cites numerous further references.
Speaker’s Background in this Material
Aaron Marcus organized two panels called SciFI at CHI in 1992 and 1999, the latter of which was brought back to CHI by popular demand and was the opening plenary panel for about 2000 people. He also has been a devoted fan of science-fiction books, movies, magazines, and television since childhood.
Bio Sketch of Presenter:
Since 1982, Mr. Marcus has been President of AM+A. He has taught at six universities (Princeton, Yale, UC/Berkeley, Hebrew University/Jerusalem, Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute of Design, and the University of Toronto). In 1992, he received the National Computer Graphics Association's annual award for contributions to industry. In 2000, the International Council of Graphic Design Organizations (ICOGRADA) named him a Master Graphic Designer of the Twentieth Century. In 2007, the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) named him a Fellow of for his work in cross-cultural design. In 2008, he was elected to the CHI Academy. In 2009, he received the UPA Service award for being Editor-in-Chief of UX Magazine for five years. He has given keynote plenary presentations ACM/SIGGRAPH 1980, ACM/SIGCHI 1999, UPA 2005/Montreal, and User Friendly 2012/Beijing. During 2011-2013, he was a Master of the De Tao Academy in Beijing and Shanghai. He is also an International Advisor to the Dragon Design Foundation, Beijing, China.
