
Future Screens Are Mostly Blue - mattiemass
http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/future-screens-are-mostly-blue/
======
drb311
The best bit is the anecdote about LCARS in Star Trek: The Next Generation. It
was all due to a budget shortfall:

"Star Trek also may have helped create the entire image-under-glass paradigm
that governs our digital world. The interface, known as LCARS, is cool-
looking. It’s distinctive. And it’s actually the result of a budget shortfall.

Star Trek: The Next Generation didn’t have as much money for set design as did
the original series, which had panels wired with jewels and glowing buttons.
Instead, they cut out film and put them over glass panes."

It's usually constraints, not the lack of them, that give birth to true
innovation.

~~~
creshal
The LCARS (and its various IRL implementations) is also among the least usable
UIs, so I wouldn't exactly call it "true innovation".

~~~
djsumdog
I've only seen LCARS themes, but I do like the concept that everything is
displayed on a screen, at once, with no overlapping windows.

Overlapping windows are the worst possible UI decision ever. I've been using
tiling window managers for four years now and I never want to go back.

~~~
barrkel
Overlapping windows in a cascade (so the bottom left corners act a bit like a
tab selector) are my preferred window layout.

Random overlapping doesn't work particularly well. Any time you have to manage
the z-index of more than one window, something has gone wrong. Thus cascading.

I can't stand tiling though. Either everything is too small, or you can't get
enough stuff on screen at once.

~~~
r00fus
Why would you want cascading windows over tabbed interfaces (e.g.: any modern
browser)? What does it actually buy you?

~~~
yoz-y
For me overlapping windows are better for using two applications at the same
time - copy pasting, drag and dropping between them etc. This is because their
position is deterministic. Tabs are better when I have a boatload of unrelated
pages (e.g.: tabs). This is also why I find tabbed interfaces in code editors
useless.

~~~
elsurudo
I find tabbed editors useful in that they allow you to open the current
"working set" of files, and then disregard the rest of the project files.
After I open up the working set, I usually close the tree view (Sublime, in my
case) so my code has more room.

------
anexprogrammer
"Consider the MicroTAC, one of Motorola’s first cell phones. It did not sell
well."

It was nothing to do with the MicroTAC being £3,000? No, it was the direction
of the flip. Right.

The later MicroTACs with LCD sold loads. At the time, most people seemed to
_prefer_ them to the early StarTAC.

~~~
asimuvPR
I have a friend who used the starTac until AT&T forced him into something
else. He fought for months trying to keep his old phone working. He moved to
an iPhone but says it doesn't compare.

~~~
GFischer
It's been several years since I moved to a touchscreen phone, and I still hate
them for the "making calls and answering" workflow - I used to be able to make
calls and answer without having to physically look at the phone - the
StarTac's flick to open would be a good example of that.

Of course, touchscreen phones make great computing devices, which makes their
inadequacy as phones irrelevant.

~~~
anexprogrammer
Same. I used to be able to text without ever looking at the screen

I seem to have passed peak-smartphone, I check it much less often, and phone
more. I've been tempted a few times by the flip-smartphones that exist in the
Far East - I wish they were available here so I could trial one in a store.
Don't want to buy until I decide if they're best of both worlds, or worst...

~~~
romaniv
I would buy a Japanese flip/smart phone in a second if it was properly
supported outside of Japan. From what I heard, they have weird rules about
warranty and even software updates outside of the country.

It's really annoying to be forced in the direction of fake technological
"progress" that's mostly a result of extensive marketing. There is no
fundamental reason why a smart phone can't have proper keys for calling.

There are couple of Android flip phones on the market, but since Android UI is
designed 100% for touchscreens, I am pretty sure the experience of using them
will be horrible.

------
spyder
What a stupid statement: _" blue is so rare in nature (if you discount the sky
and the ocean ..."_

Of course the Blue Planet isn't blue if you remove all that makes it blue...

~~~
thevibesman
The sky and ocean are not always blue.

For most cultures on Earth, the last color they named was blue --- this is
thought to be due to its rarity in nature.

Up through the Renaissance, the pigment for blue paint was made from Lapis
Lazuli which made blue a very expensive paint and rare in most art. This is
another sign of the rarity of blue in nature as pigments for other colors were
much easier to come by.

I haven't listened to this episode of Radiolab in a while, but I think it
provides more info/source on both of these points:
[http://www.radiolab.org/story/211119-colors/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/211119-colors/)

There is also an interesting anecdote where one of the interviewees tells the
story about teaching his daughter colors. He and his wife made the decision
not to tell her what color the sky was; he would go on walks with his daughter
and ask her to identify the colors of various plants and objects, when asked
about the sky for a while she didn't have an answer and when she finally did
she said its as "white" not "blue" \--- which does seem like a better way to
describe the sky since even on a clear day the brightest parts can look almost
white; but someone told me once it was blue.

~~~
wlesieutre
> For most cultures on Earth, the last color they named was blue --- this is
> thought to be due to its rarity in nature.

And for the sky and water that we'd now call blue, there was no need to
differentiate between blue and green. You might want to tell someone "Don't
pick the green fruit, only the ones that have turned red," so having a single
word for green and red would be a problem. But the sky is always going to be
either blue, gray, or red, so a single greenblue word doesn't constrain your
communication about it.

I can think of a couple exceptions, like blueberries (where you can refer to
their darkness instead of hue for ripeness) and green tinted skies in severe
storms, but it definitely makes sense that the word for blue would be invented
last.

~~~
Houshalter
Blue is also the color human vision is worst at. You have many fewer blue
color receptors than green or red. Images colored blue look more blurry than
ones colored green.

That said, it's still one of the three basic colors humans can see. There was
clearly an evolutionary advantage to seeing it. And I find it hard to believe
that radiolab episode that said people literally didn't see blue, not just use
a different word.

~~~
thevibesman
> And I find it hard to believe that radiolab episode that said people
> literally didn't see blue, not just use a different word.

The hosts did keep talking about "not being able to see blue", but I believe
what the guest was getting at is that without the word for blue you see it but
do not perceive it (or at least as strongly as the perception of other
colors).

I wonder if this is related to the color/language study talked about in this
episode:
[http://www.radiolab.org/story/211119-colors/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/211119-colors/)
(the part discussing a rat study with Charles Fernyhough).

------
tudorw
Maybe assisted by the Orange & Blue bias in film colouring,
[http://priceonomics.com/why-every-movie-looks-sort-of-
orange...](http://priceonomics.com/why-every-movie-looks-sort-of-orange-and-
blue/)

~~~
joshvm
I hate this trend, it's almost impossible to unsee it in modern sci fi movies
(e.g. anything Marvel churns out). It's almost at the point where I lose
respect for a movie when I see that kind of grading being used.

A notable exception is the Matrix which opted for a green caste specifically
to highlight scenes that are in the Matrix itself.

~~~
Piskvorrr
Matrix used different hues for different environments: Matrix/Loader/Zion/etc.

~~~
tudorw
Nice, when used to effect it's a great thing, City Of Lost Children springs to
mind.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaFeK5LWDxw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaFeK5LWDxw)

------
Matt3o12_
While I'm sure we can learn lots from science fiction, some designs imposed by
fictionary authors are while looking cool, super impractical. Blue screens are
one of the impractical designs: if I were to stare at blue colors all day, I
think would get a headache more quickly. I'm super greatfull for Apple's true
tone display, that makes reading on my iPad much better and night shift is
also a feature I've long missed enough. It think we should rather focus on our
environment to know what we need to improve interfaces. Science fiction movies
sometimes do that for us.

But regarding blue screens: the less blue and the more yellow (or other warm
colors), the better.

------
userbinator
We seem to have gotten over the obsession with blue LEDs that was wildly
popular around 10 years ago, when almost every device had blindingly bright
blue LED indicators or decorative lighting.

~~~
vidarh
I still have a stack of small round black stickers for the purpose of reducing
the brightness of (mostly) blue leds. On some devices I had to stack 2-3 of
them to reduce the amount of light enough.

~~~
icebraining
Same here, and the green leds on my Thinkpad get the same treatment.

~~~
otempomores
I glued stabilo pen caps over those leds - instant goa uld spaceship fuse box
look

------
vanderZwan
> _And that is one of the many design lessons we can learn from sci-fi_.

I'm sorry, but whoever wrote this knows absolutely nothing about design. Or
worse, is the type of visual designer who treats usability like an
afterthought and thinks aligning with whatever is _fashionable_ is an
indicator of quality.

None of the design decisions made in those examples reflect the needs of
someone using a machine. It reflects the needs of a TV-series of movie to have
cheap props that fit their narrative of exposition and drama, as well as the
budget restrictions.

------
tempestn
Every time I see something about LCARS I'm re-amazed at how modern it _still_
looks, nearly three decades later now.

~~~
yetihehe
Everytime I listen to Jean Michel Jarre - Oxygene II, I feel this is "future"
too. I've recently heard it in a commercial of some car with traction control
and some digits projected on road. Connect LCARS and Oxygene and you have
perfect futuristic music player?

~~~
StavrosK
The problem with these is that they're the 80s' future.

~~~
vidarh
Oxygene was '76 ('77 most places outside France), but has largely avoided
sounding dated, to the point where in particular Oxygene 2 is still regularly
used to evoke a sense of futurism in TV and ads etc.

If you want to pick out "80's future" electronica, then the Airwolf theme or
Crockett's theme (Miami Vice) would be more natural choices in my opinion...
Or if sticking to Jarre, tracks like Moon Machine or Computer Weekend, which
sounded cheesy at the time too. And for those who likes their 80's cheesy,
purply-neon, metallic, there's also the Outrun subreddit [1] which tries hard
to take it places where even the 80's wouldn't go - turns out there's several
electronica sub-genres dedicated to it as well.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/outrun](https://www.reddit.com/r/outrun)

------
vidarh
> Well, what if the sound is the interface? Audio is a much more efficient
> gauge of surroundings, since it spans 360 degrees, whereas vision only
> covers 120 degrees. It might be that there are sensors on the outside of the
> Millennium Falcon that provide 3D sound inside the gunner seat. So when we
> hear ships blow up, we’re actually hearing an augmented reality interface
> that Luke and Han hear. Maybe?

The game Terminus took that approach. The game had a bunch of settings that
let you get "arcade-like" physics and appearance of space, but the manual
explained that this was provided by the ships on-board computer systems to
make it more intuitive for people to fly them.

You could opt to "turn off" all the enhancements, such as moving starfields,
bright nebulas serving effectively as markers to help orient yourself,
"outside sound" etc., up to and including "computer assisted" firing of
navigational rockets (so that rotating the ship would start changing direction
by automatically firing rockets vs. being able to rotate the ship while
continuing in the original direction)

------
pjc50
Isn't this a subset of [http://priceonomics.com/why-every-movie-looks-sort-of-
orange...](http://priceonomics.com/why-every-movie-looks-sort-of-orange-and-
blue/) ?

------
probablybroken
There's a significant difference between an interface which looks good as a
feature of a scene, and an interface that looks good / is functional when it
is occupying your entire attention..

------
spiralpolitik
They missed the fact that the "make it so" context aware button already
exists. Your average Playstation controller has at least 4 that do different
functions depending on the context.

Modern TV remotes have also long drifted in that direction with the four color
buttons that change use depending on what screen you are on.

~~~
jermy
And a typical aircraft flight management system would involve inserting a
series of instructions then pressing the execute button.

------
wglass
I'm skeptical there's anything going on here other than an overwhelming trend
in film to make everything that needs to be visually distinctive be blue.
[http://priceonomics.com/why-every-movie-looks-sort-of-
orange...](http://priceonomics.com/why-every-movie-looks-sort-of-orange-and-
blue/)

------
rootbear
What always strikes me is how uniform the appearance of screens is in SF
films. When I look at my own screens, I see various applications that have all
made different choices, within the bounds imposed by the GUI itself. An old
app doesn't magically get new design styles. Old Windows XP apps, for example,
may look odd when run on a Windows 7 system. Apparently, in the future, not
only is everything blue, but the platforms they use have very rigid design
rules that are strictly enforced.

------
ocdtrekkie
This was one of the things I loved so much about Android's Holo UI. It LOOKED
LIKE THE FUTURE.

I will probably never love a software UI as much as I loved Android 3.0-4.1.

------
MrBuddyCasino
A theory:

Good Sci-Fi movies are smart and interesting, they appeal to the mind. Thus
they use a cold, cerebral color. If they were about emotions, like a Rom-Com,
they would use a warm, comforting color.

~~~
sspiff
See also the orange/blue or teal/orange color correction often used in modern
movies:
[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrangeBlueContras...](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrangeBlueContrast).

------
firasd
One of the most aesthetically "future proof" movies is probably 2001: A Space
Odyssey. Compare Star Wars, released almost a decade later, and how the
Stormtrooper armor looks dated (at least to me):
[http://i.imgur.com/sLhv0LJ.png](http://i.imgur.com/sLhv0LJ.png)

This is a great related essay: "HAL, Mother, and Father: Watching the sixties
and seventies through 2001 and Alien."
[http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/01/09/hal-mother-
and...](http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/01/09/hal-mother-and-father/)

~~~
notahacker
I dunno, whilst Kubrick deserves credit for giving his space explorers a
proto-iPad, those gorgeous space station interiors[1][2][3][4] scream _1960s
cutting-edge style_ in the way plastic bodysuits, or indeed the more
functional interiors of the Death Star don't really say much about the
seventies. I'd put the tacky appearance of the Stormtrooper armour down more
to Lucas being less obsessive about detail than Kubrick.

[1][https://hansbkahl.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/2001_a_space_o...](https://hansbkahl.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/2001_a_space_odyssey-
space-station-main-level-d-lobby.jpg)
[2][https://hansbkahl.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/968full-2001-a...](https://hansbkahl.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/968full-2001-a-space-
odyssey-lunar-journey.jpg)
[3][https://hansbkahl.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/on_space_stati...](https://hansbkahl.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/on_space_station_v_dr__heywood_floyd_places_a_videocall_to_his_daughter_on_earth.jpg)
[4][https://drnorth.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/vlcsnap-11937.jp...](https://drnorth.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/vlcsnap-11937.jpg)

------
frogpelt
"Noessel posits that, because blue is so rare in nature there’s something
fundamentally mystical, unnatural, and inhuman about it."

This is strange. First the ocean and the sky look blue. So regardless of
whether they are, they are.

Second, there are blue flowers, blue birds, blue fish, blue eyes, blueberries,
Kentucky Bluegrass, Blue Heelers, and Blue Tick Hounds. It doesn't seem more
rare to me than red or yellow. Green is everywhere. But blue doesn't seem rare
to me.

It is the second most common color in flags (behind red) for a reason.

it is the second most common color in logos for a reason.

------
rnhmjoj
I love the interfaces in the movie Oblivion:
[https://vimeo.com/64377100](https://vimeo.com/64377100)

~~~
omnibrain
GMUNK also did work for Tron:Legacy and the Windows 10 default wallpaper.

~~~
jamesdelaneyie
He recently spoke at OFFSET in Dublin and went through about 900 slides in 30
mins. Mad man. His early flash work was very cool to see as well.

------
hashkb
It's because _movies_ are mostly blue (and orange). Blame the colorist.

~~~
smcl
I think the cyan/orange colouration is more of a recent thing

------
alexc05
You mean they don't choose a yellow-on-white emphasis with matching yellow
highlight color? /snark

I really thought the blue-histograms over the years was super cool.

What happened in 1991 where it suddenly became RED?
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103064/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103064/)

Terminator 2: Judgement Day - the interface from Arnold's point of view was a
RED overlay.

Which, one might consider an invalid sample as it was not meant to represent a
human-computer-interface but in fact, an Android interface.

Anyways, great article!

~~~
tim333
Red's a bit more evil/aggressive looking. "Seeing red" and that. You can sense
the guy in the picture is in for an unfortunate time
[http://media.gizmodo.co.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2011/11/termin...](http://media.gizmodo.co.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2011/11/terminator_vision.jpg)

------
xenophonf
What I love the most about that videophone sequence is the little girl asking
for a phone for her birthday. Here we are, living in the future, and what do
kids want for their birthdays? Phones.

------
sehr
Funny enough this was posted just a month before "Her" was released in the US,
I remember that had a really warm feel to everything.

------
sliverstorm
How about the overwhelming blue/orange cast in movies?

Or the fact that old terminals were green (thus not futuristic) and red is
damn hard to read.

------
jordache
That's a lot of analysis for something that some art directors just decided to
go with because it looked good, or spring boarded from previous designs...

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
"Art History" is a discipline of study for a reason.

------
klunger
This should have (2013).

Also: I love how Terminator 2 made 1991 red.

------
notlisted
Hmmm... Isn't the real reason for the blue interfaces because futuristic
movies employ loads of green-screen shots?

------
ruk_booze
Commodore 64, way ahead of its time.

------
mhd
So, blue screens and the OCR font?

------
carapace
There are no blue foods.

------
nickoakland
Computer blue.

------
chimaza
Bleu foncé meme.

------
Piskvorrr
re "make-it-so button" \- I have that button, too. It's labelled "git push",
and Makes It So for all sorts of different things ;)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Doesn't the label actually say: "git push --force"? ;).

~~~
Piskvorrr
Nah, you don't want to automatically override safeties (this week it's 30
years since the Chernobyl disaster, hint hint).

What I was trying to say is that it makes sense to first set up a self-
contained transaction, and then a single universal "button" to push it into
the world, instead of firing off single commands, one at a time. (Especially
at the latencies involved in cross-galaxy communication)

~~~
VLM
The "make it so" button is actually a Makefile

GNU make, just to drive the purists nuts.

~~~
Piskvorrr
Makemake? (That's no moon!)

