Tag Archives: call

Snitch phone

by

1

If you’re reading these chronologically, let me note here that I had to skip Bea Arthur’s marvelous turn as Ackmena, as she tends the bar and rebuffs the amorous petitions of the lovelorn, hole-in-the-head Krelman, before singing her frustrated patrons out of the bar when a curfew is announced. To find the next interface of note, we have to forward to when…

Han and Chewie arrive, only to find a Stormtrooper menacing Lumpy. Han knocks the blaster out of his hand, and when the Stormtrooper dives to retrieve it, he falls through the bannister of the tree house and to his death.

SWHS_generalalert-09.png
Why aren’t these in any way affiiiiixxxxxxeeeeeeed?

Han enters the home and wishes everyone a Happy Life Day. Then he bugs out.

SWHS_generalalert-12.png
But I still have to return for the insane closing number. Hold me.

Then Saun Dann returns to the home just before a general alert comes over the family Imperial Issue Media Console.

SWHS_generalalert-07.png

This is a General Alert. Calling Officer B4711. Officer B4711. We are unable to reach you on your comlink. Is there a problem. [sic] You are instructed to turn on your comlink immediately.

Dann tells the family he can handle it. He walks to the TV and pulls a card out of his wallet. He inserts it into the console, mashes a few buttons and turns his attention to the screen. After a moment of op-art static, General Alert person appears. He says, “We have two way communication, traitor Saun Dann. Is this a report about the missing trooper?”

Dann (like so many rebels) lies, saying the stormtrooper robbed the house and fled for the hills. GA says, “Very well, we’ll send out a search party.” Sean thanks him and the exchange is over. Sean hits a button, pulls his card out of the console, and returns it to his wallet.

Sadly I must bypass the plot questions about the body of the Stormtrooper that is still lying in the forest floor beneath them that will surely be found, or that GA will eventually not find B4711 in the forest and return demanding answers, or why everyone is acting like welp that’s fixed. For this blog is about interfaces.

Whether the card was meant as identification or payment, the interaction is pretty decent. Saun has no trouble fitting it in the slot, and apparently he has no trouble recalling the number to dial the Empire. The same guy in the message answers the call quickly. After the exchange, it’s quick to wrap up. Pull out card, and call is over. Seriously, that’s as short and simple as we could make it.

What was the card for?

If it was payment, we would expect some charges to appear during and after the fact, so let’s just presume it was an identification card for the Empire to track. Since the Empire is evil, they might hide or not provide feedback that the caller has been identified. So it’s not diegetically surprising to note that there’s none.

For all the interfaces that are utter crap in this show, this one actually passes muster. It tempts me to establish some sort of law—that the more mundane interfaces in a show will always be the more believable ones. I’ll think on that. It would need a name.

rat-prompt.png

If I was to add any improvement, it would be to not burden the citizen’s memory with remembering the general alert or how to act on it. What if you’d just caught the end of it? Rather than burdening memory, the Empire could add a crawl to the feed, that persistently repeats the call to action including contact information. Persuasively, it would be an annoyance that would cause citizens watching TV to really want B4711 to hurry up and turn his damn comlink on, or for someone to rat him out.

There are probably some fascist tactics for incentivizing either the Stormtrooper or a snitch’s compliance, but I’m not a fascist, so let’s not go there.

Instead let’s rejoice that there is but one more interface to review, and we can stop with the Star Wars Holiday Special.

Videoconferencing

by

0

BttF_122

Marty Sr. answers a call from a shady business colleague shortly after coming home. He takes the call in the den on the large video screen there. As he approaches the screen, he sees a crop of a Renoir painting, “Dance at La Moulin de la Galette,” with a blinking legend “INCOMING CALL” along the bottom. When he answers it, the Renoir shrinks to a corner of the screen, revealing the live video feed with his correspondent. During the conversation, the Renoir disappears, and text appears near the bottom of the screen providing reminders about the speaker. This appears automatically, with no prompting from Marty Sr.

Needles, Douglas J.
Occupation: Sys Operations
Age: 47
Birthday: August 6, 1968
Address: 88 Oriole Rd, A6t
Wife: Lauren Anne
Children: Roberta, 23 Amy, 20
Food Prefence: Steak, Mex
Food Dislike: Fish, Tuna
Drinks: Scotch, Beer
Hobbies: Avid Basketball Fan
Sports: Jogging, Slamball, Tennis
Politics: None

A man in a brown suit stands in front of a large television, reacting to a scene featuring another man smiling. The background contains a brick wall and various objects like a globe and a sound system.
A scene featuring a man standing in front of a large screen displaying a character named Douglas J. Needles with the caption 'Occupation: Sys Operations'. The setting appears to be a home or office with a brick wall.
A large television screen displays a man's face with a caption showing his name, Douglas J. Needles, and age 47. A person in a suit stands nearby, looking at the screen.

This is an augmented reality teleconference, as mentioned in Chapter 8 of Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons from Science Fiction. See more information in that chapter. In short, it’s a particularly good example of one type of augmentation that is very useful for people having to interact with networks of people much larger than Dunbar’s number equips us for. Unfortunately, the information appears in a distracting scroll across the bottom, and is not particularly pertinent to the conversation, so could benefit from a bit of context awareness or static high-resolution display to be really useful.

When the conversation is done, the screen fades to black, and an animated AT&T logo appears as a female voice offers Thank you for using AT&T. Afterwards, another odd crop of a famous impressionist artwork appears on screen. (1887-88 Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hatby Van Gogh, if you’re curious.) This must be a preference set by the McFlys.

During the conversation, Needles convinces Marty Sr. to front some money for a shady deal. To provide the money, he grabs his briefcase and presses one of several lit buttons on its surface. A thin reader raises from the surface on mechanized accordion arms. The slot glows white, and Marty inserts his ID card into the recess and yanks it to the right. Marty presses another button and the reader retracts.

A person sitting on a couch watching a television screen displaying a character named Douglas J. Needles with details about their preferences, including drinks and hobbies.
A scene depicting a living room with a projector displaying a character named Douglas J. Needles, who is smiling. The screen lists personal information, including children's names and ages. A man in a suit is sitting in a chair, holding a briefcase and looking at the screen.
A person sitting on a couch gestures towards a large television screen, which displays a smiling man with information about his food preferences. The room has a cozy, lived-in appearance with bookshelves, a globe, and casual furniture.
A person sitting in a living room, looking at a digital screen displaying a man's profile with food preferences and dislikes.
A person sitting at a table with a notepad, looking at a television displaying a man named Douglas J. Needles, detailing his drinks and hobbies.

Though pretty cool, this portable authenticator seems multimodal, the two objects are both of the same type, i.e. something he possesses, and so is only marginally more secure than unimodal systems.

BttF_131

Almost instantly, Marty is caught in the act and fired by his boss over the same video phone. To bring home the news, Fujitsu-san presses some button off screen and large letters YOU’RE FIRED appear overlaid on the screen, animating repeatedly for emphasis. Simultaneously, he sends Marty faxes, which Marty receives numerous times in the faxes in his suitcases and others which are installed all over the house, including the in the closet where Jennifer is hiding.

A person in a suit is shown from behind, reacting to a large screen displaying the text 'YOU'RE FIRED' in bold letters, with a dimly lit room in the background.
A black briefcase on a chair with a sign reading 'YOU'RE FIRED!!' next to it, and a yellow paper strip saying 'YOU'RE' in the background.
A paper sign reading 'YOU'RE FIRED!!!' is displayed on a wall-mounted message board.

I’m not sure what would lead Needles or Marty(2015) to engage in something illegal that is obviously and instantly discoverable by authorities, but that is not a matter of interaction design.

VR Goggles

by

1

BttF_118

At the dinner table, both Marty Jr. and Marlene have VR goggles. Marty wears his continuously, but Marlene is more polite and rests hers around her neck when with the family. When she receives a call, red LEDs flash the word “PHONE” on the outside of the goggles as they ring. This would be a useful signal if the volume were turned down or the volume was baffled by ambient sounds.

BttF_120

Marty Jr’’s goggles are on, and he announces to Marty Sr. that the phone is for him and that it’s Needles.

This implies a complete wireless caller ID system (which had only just been released to market in the United States the year before the movie was released) and a single number for the household that is distributed amongst multiple communications devices simultaneously, which was not available at the time (or hey, even now), so it’s quite forward looking. Additionally, it lets the whole social circle help manage communication requests, even if it sacrifices a bit of privacy.