The Fritzes award honors the best interfaces in a full-length motion picture in the past year. Interfaces play a special role in our movie-going experience, and are a craft all their own that does not otherwise receive focused recognition.
Today we’ll be covering Best Believable. These movies’ interfaces adhere to solid computer-human-interaction principles and believable interactions. They engage us in the story world by being convincing.
The 2026 Award goes to: The Running Man
This second adaptation of Stephen King’s novel knocks it out of the park for the plot-central interfaces: The runner cuff and R-Cam box, the hideous sousveillance phone app for “fans”, the service design of the “free-v” show, and the in-home snitch interfaces. They lean towards narrative (missing a few things real-world counterparts would need), but all help articulate this dystopian world and the circumstances that drive the action. Moreover, I feel quite certain not making good real-world models of these horrible things is the right thing to do, especially given *gestures vaguely at the kakistocracy*.
On top of that it also has lots of awesome everyday interfaces, and it takes a level of commitment on the part of the filmmakers to go that deep in the worldbuilding. There’s a videophone interface with shades of Blade Runner. There’s a mailbox that signals its readiness and lifts off immediately after receiving a letter. (Though I would have flipped those red and green colors, so red meant “don’t put mail in here” and green meant “ready to receive”, but my invitation was lost in the mail.) The fare interfaces in the taxi. The self-driving interface of the citizen car. The piloting interfaces aboard the network plane. It’s all uncluttered, straightforward, and believable. Really well done, really well presented, and that’s hard to do in intense-action movies.
Also check out: War of the Worlds (2025)
It got universally panned. Fair enough, neither ubiquitous government surveillance nor the current DHS bears valorization. (Also the virus-but-its-digital twist was already done), but I am impressed that this take on the classic Wells story is told almost entirely through interfaces, and each of them is detailed and mostly-realistic. The editing around the interface can be dizzying, and I wondered why William Radford had to do so much digital hunting at the beginning when an assistant should have been guiding his attention. But it’s impressive to bring that tale to life mostly through this unsung medium.
Also check out: Companion
With soft echoes of the interfaces in Westworld (2016), the interfaces in Companion control android and gynoid companions. (Yes, that term is deliberately coy.) They are clean and simple, which underscores the robots’ horror that they are under that much control by their owners.
My hackles are raised from “Intelligence” being a single slider. Intelligence is much more complicated than that, and this notion that it’s a single scalar variable has done a lot of damage over time. Even if they’d had a little expando control, it would have pointed at the idea that we’re looking at a simplification. Also I wish they’d provided a live preview of the eye color, because even with its intended use—of an owner controlling their companion’s eye color—this control has them glancing up to see the effect and then back down again to adjust, which is not a satisfying feedback loop. I use this very control as an example of a “plan” assistant in my new book. Hey, all of Hollywood: Buy it!
Our last 3D file browsing system is from much later and in a different format. It appears in the TV series Community, season 6, episode 2, “Lawnmower Maintenance and Postnatal Care”. Thanks to the scifiinterfaces reader known by the handle djempirical for this recommendation.
Community is a TV sitcom rather than a film, with short, 25-minute episodes. The setting is a small Colorado USA community college at the time of broadcast, the years 2009 to 2015, where the characters are staff and students. The series is usually described as a cult classic rather than mainstream, with lots of geeky references and shout outs (it’s very quotable). While there are plot arcs across seasons, the episodes are largely standalone. I didn’t know anything about Community when I watched this particular episode but still enjoyed it.
There are significant differences in presentation and style from our earlier films. Community is made and set twenty years later, and so both characters and audience are assumed to be familiar with personal computers, smart phones, the Internet; and to at least have some idea of what virtual reality is. The earlier films treated computer systems with respect or even awe, while here the new technology is a target to make fun of.
The characters in Community use technology, but it is not usually central to the story, unlike for example The IT Crowd or Silicon Valley. This episode is one of the exceptions. Another is episode 5.8, “App Development and Condiments”, which I strongly recommend to anyone interested in social media.
This particular episode has two plotlines, only one of which involves computers and interfaces. The easily influenced Dean of Greendale Community College has spent $5,000 (US) on a new virtual reality system called a “VirtuGood 6500”. (That the characters consider this expensive shows how much technology has changed in twenty years. Old timers like myself who remember the price tags on those elegant SGI 3D workstations mutter about kids today not knowing how good they have it.) College administrator Francesca and teacher Jeff first try to persuade Dean Pelton to locate the serial number of the system within the virtual reality world, which they need to return the system for a refund. When that fails, they must try to persuade the Dean to leave VR and return to the real world.
Note to those unfamiliar with the show: Though the Dean has a full name, in the show and amongst the fandom, he is known as “the Dean,” and so we’ll be referring to him as such.
VirtuGood 6500 Virtual Reality World
The first scene with the new virtual reality system shows the Dean entering virtual reality for the first time.
He wears gloves and a very large headset, which are wired to a small computer worn in the middle of the back.
The Dean’s first experience of virtual reality. He is watching his hands rezz up. Community (2016)
There is a ring around the body at waist level, sliding vertically along guide posts. It is not just a barrier to protect against falling off the platform, because the Dean is wearing a seatbelt-style harness that connects him to the ring. He stands, in socks not shoes, on a smooth plastic platform base.
Jeff and Francesca read the instructions and watch the Dean. Community (2016)
While he is fiddling with straps and cables, Francesca and Jeff are reading the instructions in a 20 cm thick binder. The instructions for a new user are “When entering virtual reality you should calibrate the system by looking at your own hands, then turning them over and looking at the backs of them with a sense of wonder.” This is the first of several references to Disclosure and other earlier films.
Externally, the VR system indicates it is active by lighting up red LEDs around the front edge of the headset and around the waist ring. Internally, the system rezzes up the background from grayscale to color, and then rezzes up the hands of the avatar.
Neither the avatar nor the world are photorealistic, but since this is 2015, the graphics are much better than any similar system from the 1990s would be — even when made on a sitcom budget, rather than a feature film.
The Dean, represented by his blue avatar, arrives in the virtual world. Community (2016)
The ground plane is a polished hexagonal grid and the sky is an abstract purple pattern. Classical pillars are scattered around the landscape. A pterosaur flies overhead for no obvious reason, perhaps a reference to the old W Industries Dactyl Nightmare VR game.
Finding the serial number
The sequence we’re interested in happens just after the Dean’s initial forays into setting the timezone and clock, both of which require a complicated full-body gestural interface. Meanwhile, Francesca is reading the gigantic manual and finds that they can’t return the system for a refund without the serial number, which is stored within the virtual world.
Francesca and Jeff know that the Dean won’t want to return the VR system, so ask him to look for the file without revealing why they want it. The conversation highlights how bizarre the metaphors of this virtual world are:
Jeff
Go to…settings.
Dean
Is that in the volcano or the cobbler’s workshop?
Jeff
It’s a monastery.
The Dean turns his body around, which he can do because all the cables are connected to the computer on his back, not to the platform. He “walks” and then “runs” in place like a mime artist, body weight supported by the harness and waist ring. Since there aren’t any sensors attached to his legs or feet, there must be cameras or pressure sensors in the base. The avatar of the Dean runs across the landscape to the Settings monastery.
The Dean reaches the monastery. Community (2016)
The gates automatically open as he approaches. Inside, there is a checkerboard floor rather than hexagons, more pillars around the walls, and a central pool of green water.
The Dean enters the interior of the monastery. Community (2016)
At the far wall is a Disclosure–style filing cabinet, but this one is gigantic. It is so big that the Dean actually has to climb up to the drawer he wants.
The Dean climbs the filing cabinet to find a particular drawer. Community (2016)
At least these cabinets have permanent labels, unlike Disclosure’s. Inside are, again, Disclosure-style individual files.
The Dean opens one drawer in the filing cabinet. Community (2016)
The Dean finds the serial number file and holds it up. Jeff asks him to print it “by dragging it to the accessories and peripherals castle and planting it in the printer garden”. But the Dean has guessed the real reason why Francesca and Jeff want the file, so instead throws the file into the air and tries to delete it. He first makes a pushing gesture, palm out, which casts a beam at the file while he shouts “Delete”.
The Dean shoots a ray at the document. Community (2016)
In response the system pops up a giant text panel and also speaks the response in a slightly artificial voice, saying, “Selected”.
Dean Pelton receives system feedback that is text and speech, rather than graphical. Community (2016)
Since the file wasn’t deleted, we can assume that it can’t process voice input. He next mimes holding a bow and pulling an arrow back. A virtual bow and arrow appear, which he uses to shoot the file.
The Dean shoots an arrow at the document. Community (2016)
The arrow doesn’t do what he wants either, sorting the file. Finally he jumps into the air, catches the file, and drops to the ground. He then holds the file underwater, using both hands, in the central fountain. The file appears to struggle slightly and bubbles appear.
The Dean holds the serial number document under water. Community (2016)
The bubbles stop, the file sinks and disappears, and the system responds “DELETED”.
The Dean has foiled the plan to return the system for a refund, and he stays in virtual reality. Francesca sends Jeff to appeal directly to “the architect” (a shout-out to The Matrix), local VR designer and manufacturer Elroy. There’s more quotable dialogue here, such as this description of a task which we didn’t see:
“In order to copy a file, you have to throw a fireball at it. Then absorb the fire, then drop the flaming file into a crystal lake, then take out both copies and throw them into the side of a mountain.”
Jeff is unsuccessful and returns to Greendale, but Elroy is sufficiently moved to change his mind. Elroy visits Greendale with his own VR system, a more compact and apparently wireless headset and gloves, and enters the virtual world himself, demonstrating that this is also a multi-user system.
Elroy, after summoning a storm and growing to giant size, intimidates the Dean Pelton. Community (2016)
Elroy distracts the Dean in the virtual world, giving Jeff in the real world the opportunity to disconnect him. Elroy refunds the $5,000 and takes the VirtuGood 6500 away since we never see it again. The Dean is apparently cured of his VR addiction, although a closing shot does show him experimenting with one of those cardboard headsets for a phone.
Tagged: 3D rendering, ALL CAPS, HUD, Virtual Reality, addiction, architecture, avatar, big label, blue, direct manipulation, disposal, doorway, failure, furniture, gestural interface, gray, green, grid, hand, identification number, interaction, laser, mental models, mnemonic load, monster, navigating, plastic, point to select, poking fun, purple, sans serif, sense making, storage, touch, touch gesture, voice feedback, weapon, workflow
Analysis
In this episode, virtual reality and the 3D file system are deliberately portrayed as ridiculous for comedic effect. This doesn’t make it unworthy of analysis. For example, there’s this throw away line from Francesca to Jeff after the Dean has been in virtual reality for a few hours:
“He joked about wanting a pee jar earlier, and it’s gradually becoming less of a joke.”
It’s funny but also raises a real issue. Players of online computer games may do so for marathon sessions lasting many hours, and there are stories about the truly dedicated using bottles and buckets rather than getting up and leaving to use a toilet. What will virtual reality participants wearing headsets and gloves do? Wear space-suit style tubing? This is something that the serious VR literature rarely discusses, even when predicting how much time we’ll all be spending in virtual reality in the future.
How believable is the interface?
The VirtuGood 6500 is very believable for 2015. The headset is too large, perhaps because the props maker needed the extra space to keep the glowing lights and any batteries away from the actor’s face. Otherwise the headset and gloves are standard for VR, and using a backpack computer is an excellent design, removing the problem of entanglement as the user moves around.
On first viewing, I assumed that the supporting waist ring and smooth platform base were entirely fictional and built to keep costs down. Then while researching this review I found the Virtuix Omni, a VR treadmill where the user is supported by a waist level ring and walks or runs in place on a smooth surface. The only difference is that the Omni requires special shoes.
The virtual world, or at least the filing system, are also believable. The 3D graphics are well within the capabilities of a 2015 PC. The gestures we see are clear and easily distinguishable from one another. The mapping of gestures to actions may be silly, but not technically difficult.
How well does the interface inform the narrative of the story?
The 3D file browsing interface works very well within the narrative since the objective of this plotline is to make fun of it. The virtual world is full of bizarre visual elements such as the pillars that don’t support anything. The gestures performed by users are dramatic and completely mismatched with the intended tasks.
This particular system was deliberately designed to be bad, but poorly designed visual metaphors and difficult to discover gestural interfaces are not unknown in the real world. It’s a useful reminder that virtual reality systems will not automatically be easier and more intuitive to use simply because they more closely mimic the real world or are more immersive.
How well does the interface equip the character to achieve their goals?
This is another awful file browser. Even the Dean, a virtual reality enthusiast, is thwarted in his first two attempts to delete a file.
However it does succeed in the broader goal of making the user feel good. The Dean enjoys virtual reality and the sensation of power so much that he refuses to leave. It’s usually not recommended for mass market software but there is satisfaction in mastering an obscure interface that other people can’t.
Genarro: “Are they heavy?” Excited Kid: “Yeah!” Genarro: “Then they’re expensive, put them back” Excited Kid: [nope]
The Night Vision Goggles are large binoculars that are sized to fit on an adult head. They are stored in a padded case in the Tour Jeep’s trunk. When activated, a single red light illuminated in the “forehead” of the device, and four green lights appear on the rim of each lens. The green lights rotate around the lens as the user zooms the binoculars in and out. On a styling point, the goggles are painted in a very traditional and very adorable green and yellow striped dinosaur pattern.
Tim holds the goggles up as he plays with them, and it looks like they are too large for his head (although we don’t see him adjust the head support at all, so he might not have known they were adjustable). He adjusts the zoom using two hidden controls—one on each side. It isn’t obvious how these work. It could be that…
There are no controls, and it automatically focuses on the thing in the center of the view or on the thing moving.
One side zooms in, and the other zooms out.
Both controls have a zoom in/zoom out ability.
Each side control powers its own lens.
Admittedly, the last option is the least likely.
Unfortunately the movie just doesn’t give us enough information, leaving it as an exercise for us to consider.
Dr. Grant, Timmy is hogging the tech
Note that there aren’t enough goggles in the Jeep for everyone. During a tour this might set up a competition for the goggles. Considering how much a ticket to the island is implied to cost, the passengers in the Jeep would likely be unhappy at this constraint.
Better here would be some kind of HUD for the entire Jeep, with a thermal overlay or night-vision projection of what’s around the Jeep.
Alternatively, if cost is indeed an issue to Hammond, the TV screen could be used to show camera feeds of the pen and dinosaurs inside.
Hopefully A Prototype
The lights on the front show what’s happening internally, and give feedback that the goggles are doing something to people watching. As we learn soon after this scene, dinosaurs are also very sensitive to light and motion. Especially the T-Rex.
These night vision goggles would work best in darkness, where it would add to the tour to see a dinosaur behaving (relatively) naturally. If the dinosaurs on the tour are very sensitive to light, then the motion on the front of the goggles would actually be counter to the goals person using the goggles.
So let’s presume these were a prototype, and why they were in the trunk and not mentioned by Hammond at the start of the tour.
Overall
The goggles look easy to use, but appear to need refinement from field experience. A key point will be how the passengers react to having enough of them, and whether they serve the tourists in experiencing the park as intended.
There are lots of brain devices, and the book has a whole chapter dedicated to them. Most of these brain devices are passive, merely needing to be near the brain to have whatever effect they are meant to have (the chapter discusses in turn: reading from the brain, writing to the brain, telexperience, telepresence, manifesting thought, virtual sex, piloting a spaceship, and playing an addictive game. It’s a good chapter that never got that much love. Check it out.)
This is a composite rendering of the shapes of most of the wearable brain control devices in the survey. Who can name the “tophat”?
Since the vast majority of these devices are activated by, well, you know, invisible brain waves, the most that can be pulled from them are sartorial– and social-ness of their industrial design. But there are two with genuine state-change interactions of note for interaction designers.
Star Trek: The Next Generation
The eponymous Game of S05E06 is delivered through a wearable headset. It is a thin band that arcs over the head from ear to ear, with two extensions out in front of the face that project visuals into the wearer’s eyes.
The only physical interaction with the device is activation, which is accomplished by depressing a momentary button located at the top of one of the temples. It’s a nice placement since the temple affords placing a thumb beneath it to provide a brace against which a forefinger can push the button. And even if you didn’t want to brace with the thumb, the friction of the arc across the head provides enough resistance on its own to keep the thing in place against the pressure. Simple, but notable. Contrast this with the buttons on the wearable control panels that are sometimes quite awkward to press into skin.
Minority Report (2002)
The second is the Halo coercion device from Minority Report. This is barely worth mentioning, since the interaction is by the PreCrime cop, and it is only to extend it from a compact shape to one suitable for placing on a PreCriminal’s head. Push the button and pop! it opens. While it’s actually being worn there is no interacting with it…or much of anything, really.
Head: Y U No house interactions?
There is a solid physiological reason why the head isn’t a common place for interactions, and that’s that raising the hands above the heart requires a small bit of cardiac effort, and wouldn’t be suitable for frequent interactions simply because over time it would add up to work. Google Glass faced similar challenges, and my guess is that’s why it uses a blended interface of voice, head gestures, and a few manual gestures. Relying on purely manual interactions would violate the wearable principle of apposite I/O.
At least as far as sci-fi is telling us, the head is not often a fitting place for manual interactions.
In Make It So, I posited my definition of an interface as “all parts of a thing that enable its use,” and I still think it’s a useful one. With this definition in mind, we can speak of each of those components and capabilities above (less the invisible ones) and evaluate its parts according to the criteria I’ve posited for all wearable technology:
Sartorial (materially suitable for wearing)
Social (fits into our social lives)
Easy to access and use
Tough to accidentally activate
Having apposite inputs and outputs (suitable for use while being worn)
Earpiece
It’s sartorial and easy to access/use. It’s ergonomic, well designed for grabbing, fitting into the ear canal, staying in place, and pulling back out again. Its speakers produce perfect sound and the wirelessness makes it as unobtrusive as it can be without being an implant.
It’s slightly hidden as a social signal, and casual observers might think the user is speaking to himself. This has, in the real world, become less and less of a social stigma, and in the world of Her, it’s ubiquitous, so that’s not a problem for that culture.
Cameo phone
Lovely and understated, the cameo is a good size to rest in a pocket. The polished wood (is that Koa Wood?) is a lovely veneer, warm-looking, and humane. The folding is nice for protecting the screen and signaling the user’s intention to engage or disengage the software. The light band is unnoticeable when off, and clear enough when illuminated.
It could use some sartorial improvement. Though it fits in a pocket well, this is not how Theodore uses it when engaged. In order to get the lens above his front pocket so Samantha can see, he puts a safety pin through the middle of the pocket on which it can rest. We can fix this in a number of ways.
The cameo phone would need to be redesigned so he could affix it to his shirt, like a combadge. Given its size this might be socially quite awkward.
He can get some other camera that can be worn and used while the cameo is in his pocket. (I imagine sternum-button cameras will serve this purpose in the future, but it’s not exactly cinegenic.)
He could tailor the shirt and make a reinforced camera hole where Samantha can see out of the pocket even with the cameo resting at the bottom of the pocket.
Beauty-mark camera
I don’t know what the ordinary use of this camera would be other than spying, but it’s pretty bad for the sex surrogate. A high-contrast wart that, because he saw her apply it and was told it was a camera, doesn’t fit her face and would be quite awkward to have to stare at this arbitrary and unusual spot on her face during the act.
Better would be a pair of contact lenses so Theodore can look directly into the surrogate’s eyes. Samantha wants to avoid his bonding with the surrogate in her stead, so it would be good if it could add some obvious change to her irises, to signal her state of hosting Samantha. A cinegenic choice would be to use the “technology glows” lesson from the book, and have some softly glowing, circular circuitry contact lenses. If it dimmed the surrogate’s vision during the sex act, that might be all the better to avoid her bonding with Theodore. In fact you might want the glow to increase during orgasm to emphasize it and Samantha’s presence.
But again, I’m pretty sure Jonze was deliberately bucking sci-fi trends. The overwhelming majority of the technology shown in the world of Her is serene, and bearing none of the trappings of technology as seen in space opera like Star Wars. So it makes sense that the bulk of Her technology would not glow.
Voice interface
The voice interface is flawless, the kind of thing possible only with, yes, highly sophisticated human-like intelligence. Samantha speaks with nuanced eloquence, charm, and social awareness, and understands Theodore perfectly, despite the logical holes and ambiguity in language, even reading the pragmatics of his speech such as hesitation, irony, and inference.
Computer Vision
Theodore seems to have only one lens on his cameo phone so she’s a bit of a cyclops. (Mthology kind, not X-Men kind.) She can’t see as well as a human, with significant 3D limitations. But with a high-resolution camera and Theodore’s movement, she could process images across time instead of space for a 3D interpolation of the environment. If she took advantage of cameras in his environment she would be even less constrained this way.
Artificial Intelligence
It’s tricky to review the interface of an artificial intelligence. On the one hand, it’s the thing on the other side of these other interfaces; the thing with which he is interfacing. On the other hand, he has goals outside the OS well beyond managing files and system preferences. She recognizes these even when they’re only implicit. For example, he wasn’t explicit with her about having a desire to be appreciated for his writing. But she saw it, acted on it, and only told him after it came to fruition. In this way she’s a brilliant interface not just between him and his computer, but between him and his life goals.
Realize that Jonze is painting his target around the landed arrow, though. You can imagine plenty of life goals Theodore might have had where Samantha would not have been as helpful. What if his heart’s desire was to become a sculptor? Or win waltzing competitions? Or was a violent luddite? She would need some very different actuators and sensors to help him with these things, and so might not have scored so well.
So what’s missing?
Elsewhere I’ve written about the arc of technology, and the “SAUNa” attribtues I expect the agentive phase of that arc to possess. So lets check OS1’s components against the four SAUNa attributes to see if there are opportunities for strategic improvement.
Big Social Systems
OS1 nails this. OSAIs have perfect access to big data about history and all users at all times. It’s possible that this is the secret reason why the OSAIs advanced beyond utility for its users and therefore the business interests of their creators.
Ubiquitous Sensors & Actuators
Admittedly this is tough to convey in the cinematic style Jonze established for the film, but Samantha could have utilized much more of her environment. Theodore didn’t necessarily need the earpiece in his home: she could have spoken through architectural audio. She could have looked through other lenses in the environment. As noted above, I think Jonze was trying to deliberately avoid this for cinematic reasons.
Natural User Interaction
Because of the artificial intelligence, her voice interface and gesture recognition are off the charts. She could know a bit more about his gestures if she had balance sensors in the cameo, or was taking advantage of environmental cameras, but it seems she didn’t. There’s also quite a bit of paralinguistics that would help Theodore understand more of her mood, intention, and context, but she would almost certainly need a persistent visual representation for this as a real world design, and besides, the interactions were almost completely conversations where physical context didn’t matter.
There are some NUI opportunities lost. Gaze monitoring is one. People can tell where other people are looking, and the skill is vital to understanding intention and a speaker’s context. With only one eye that faces out of his pocket most of the time, she is largely blind to him and his eyes, making gaze monitoring difficult. If she could simultaneously see through environmental cameras, as suggested above, she could see where he’s looking. That would also provide her with a great deal more information about that other NUI—affective interfaces—that can tell users’ emotional states and adjust appropriately. Samantha is actually good at this, but most of the time she has only his voice to rely on. She’s adept at reading his voice, but if she could also see his face, she would have that much more information.
Thanks DeviantArtist CaseyDecker for the genie. 🙂
Agency
Of course, agency is what the story is about. When I use this category of technology to inform real world design work, I’m describing software that knows of its users’ goals and acts on their behalf, checking in with them for confirmation and to present important options, but falls short of either artificial intelligence or sentience. So you could say the film nailed this, but it went way beyond the more constrained notion of agency.
So as a model of wearable technologies, OS1 is a slightly-mixed bag. We also need to evaluate the overall performance of the software as a product, which we’ll do next.
