Make It So
Interaction Design Lessons from Science Fiction
Many interaction and interface designers enjoy the interfaces seen in science-fiction films and television shows. Freed from the rigorous constraints of designing for real users, sci-fi production designers develop blue-sky interfaces that are inspiring, humorous, and even instructive. By carefully studying these “outsider” user interfaces, designers can derive lessons that make their real-world designs more cutting edge and successful.
Many interaction and interface designers enjoy the interfaces seen in science-fiction films and television shows. Freed from the rigorous constraints of designing for real users, sci-fi production designers develop blue-sky interfaces that are inspiring, humorous, and even instructive. By carefully studying these “outsider” user interfaces, designers can derive lessons that make their real-world designs more cutting edge and successful.
Testimonials
Designers who love science fiction (and don’t we all?) will go bananas over Shedroff and Noessel’s delightful and informative book on how interaction design in sci-fi movies informs interaction design in the real world. Many movie interfaces are remarkably creative, effective, and useful, and the authors analyze and deconstruct more than a century of cinema to find the best. With dozens of familiar examples, they illuminate some of the trickier aspects of designing how complex future systems interface with humans. You will find it as useful as any design textbook, but a whole lot more fun.
Alan Cooper, President of pioneering interaction design company Cooper, “Father of Visual Basic,” and author of The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
Shedroff and Noessel are leaders in their fields. Make It So is well-researched, pragmatic, and entertaining. The authors show us that science fiction can not only give us visions of the future but can help us design a better future as well.
Brian David Johnson, Futurist and Director, Future Casting and Experience Research, Intel Corporation
It has been both revealing and refreshing to see a book that, for the first time, so deeply explores the contrasts, connections, and influences from the realm of fantasy to the real. Shedroff and Noessel have created one of the most thorough and insightful studies ever made of this domain and from a unique angle, not only providing comprehensive coverage of the vast number of examples, but also drawing practical and valuable lessons that inform and can be applied to the problems we think about every day.
Mark Coleran, visual designer of interfaces for movies (credits include The Bourne Identity, The Island, and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider)
Part futurist treatise, part design manual, and part cultural analysis, Make It So is a fascinating investigation of an often-overlooked topic: how sci-fi influences the development of tomorrow’s machine interfaces.
Annalee Newitz, Editor, io9 blog
Every geek’s wet dream: a science fiction and interface design book rolled into one.
Maria Giudice, CEO and Founder, Hot Studio
Table of Contents
Foreword by Bruce Sterling
Chapter 1: Learning Lessons from Science Fiction
Chapter 2: Mechanical Controls
Chapter 3: Visual Interfaces
Chapter 4: Volumetric Projection
Chapter 5: Gesture
Chapter 6: Sonic Interfaces
Chapter 7: Brain Interfaces
Chapter 8: Augmented Reality
Chapter 9: Anthropomorphism
Chapter 10: Communication
Chapter 11: Learning
Chapter 12: Medicine
Chapter 13: Sex
Chapter 14: What’s Next?
FAQ
These common questions and their short answers are taken from Nathan Shedroff and Christopher Noessel’s book Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons from Science Fiction. You can find longer answers to each in your copy of the book, either printed or digital version.
- The topic of this book is a fun idea, but how is science fiction relevant to design?
Design and science fiction do much the same thing. Sci-fi uses characters in stories to describe a possible future. Similarly, the design process uses personas in scenarios to describe a possible interface. They’re both fiction. Interfaces only become fact when a product ships. The main differences between the two come from the fact that design mainly proposes what it thinks is best, and sci-fi is mostly meant to entertain. But because sci-fi can envision technology farther out, largely freed from real-world constraints, design can look to it for inspiration and ideas about what can be done today.
See Chapters 1 and 14.
