Member-only story
Did Star Trek predict the future of UX?
Science fiction has often been credited with laying the groundwork for real life technological leaps. Nebula Award-winning sci-fi writer Pamela Sargent called the genre, “the literature of ideas.” From robots, artificial intelligence, and rockets, science fiction has entertained a lot of ideas on what science might be able to create if given a few years and the dedication of some brilliant minds. Therefore, the far-flung ideas explored in Star Trek (for example, automatic sliding doors) seemed to have predicted the future.
Motion-activated sliding doors didn’t become commercially available until after Captain Kirk’s adventures graced the screen during the 1960’s. This made it seem as if the 24th century might really look like the one depicted in Star Trek. Likewise, the portable communicators and “Tricorders” used by the crew of starships seemed to presuppose the advent of the smartphone, though iPhones are significantly slimmer and less clunky.
But what about user interfaces? How did the Enterprise crew interact with the unimaginably advanced computer systems of the future? Likely not in the way that our descendants will in the real 24th century. This is because the user interfaces of the high-tech gadgets of Star Trek were a product of their time–that time being the 1960’s, rather than the 24th century.
What Star Trek got right
On the bridge of the starship Enterprise, the captain and their officers control the ship through many consoles. These consoles are not messes of buttons and levers, but are rather smooth-faced touchscreens. This is not as surprising as one might think! The touchscreen interface was invented in 1965 by Eric Arthur Johnson, who worked in air traffic control. His description of a programmable touchscreen could replace walls of single-use buttons, switches, and levers with just one console.
The computers of Star Trek, especially showcased in The Next Generation series, are controlled…
