After Alphy sings to wake her from her 154-hour sleep, Barbarella turns to one of a pair of transparent plastic domes beside her bed. As Alphy announces that she should “prepare to insert nourishment,” a tall cylindrical glass, filled with a purple fluid, rises from a circular recession. All Barbarella has to do is lift the hinged dome, grab the glass, and drink. When she’s done she puts the glass back into the plastic dome, and Alphy takes care of the rest.
Sharp-eyed readers may note that there are two sets of rectangular buttons in the dome. Each set as one black, one gray, and one white button. We don’t see these buttons being used.
As an interface, this is about as simple as it gets.
- Human has need.
- Agent anticipates need.
- Agent does what it can to address the need.
- Agent provides respectful, just-in-time instructions to the human on her part.
- Human has need satisfied.
Seriously, this bit from 1968 is the future.
One suggestion I’d make is, based on the screenshots, that the drink isn’t very pleasant. An improvement would be to make it taste good, so as to provide positive feedback for performing the task.