Just to nerd out a bit, according to the ST: TNG Technical Manual written by Michael Okuda (co-designer of the original LCARS graphically) and Rich Sternbach, LCARS is also a tactile interface. Pressure sensitive, with force feedback, depth and resistance of the display can be varied slightly, creating ridges, variation in texture, which can complement the display. It's a fascinating idea.
They made that explicit in Voyager. In Year of Hell, Tuvok switches his consoles to a tactile interface after being blinded by an exploding torpedo and continues as tactical officer using that.
Aren't apple's force/3d touch screens basically that, minus actually changing the interface geometry (but still having pretty sophisticated haptic feedback)?
The thing that always fascinated me about LCARS and Star Trek interfaces was the labelling -- rather than a label that tells you what a button does, or whats being visualized on screen, you'll get a random-seeming number or an unlabeled chart.
Most of Starfleet Engineer training must be memorizing what those number labels mean...
I'll chalk that labeling scheme up to trying to look good for a shot but not needing to stand up to any real scrutiny, but I have often wondered how usable a LCARS-inspired interface would be and what would need to happen to make it usable.
On that note, for those who were put off by Picard, season 3 was actually quite good. Definitely worth a watch.
And if you haven't seen any of it, I would almost say reading the episode summaries for the first two seasons is enough. Some of those first two seasons was just catastrophically bad, even by Star Trek standards.
I remember installing a Windows XP LCARS theme, back when I was watching Star Trek every day as soon as I got back from college – and I remember strongly regretting the decision immediately.
Needless to say, it looked kinda cool, but not quite right for obvious reasons, and the actual experience of using it was... not great.
To borrow an expression from House MD, it wasn't a unicorn, it was a donkey with a plunger taped to its forehead.
I settled on making myself an LCARS new tab web page instead. That was pretty cool, I've often given thought to remaking it... but I'd probably get sidetracked too heavily from my actual work and end up an insomniac with an LCARS Linux distro and a very full inbox.
Aside: I really miss the Windows Classic look. I know you can sort of get it back in Windows 10 but I'm not on Windows these days, I just miss how Windows 98/2000/XP looked and behaved... well, maybe behaved is a bad word.
Aside 2: It appears the author of this simulation has made a few of these LCARS simulations
https://www.mewho.com/
Interesting, this seems to be inspired by the LCARS interfaces seen in ST: Picard, rather than TNG. I do quite like the slight tweaks LCARS got in Picard.
I love the Okudagrams sequence during the closing credits of Season 3 of Picard.
Less relatedly, I'm only on episode 3 but for an old Trekkie like myself this season is the gift I wished so hard for and never thought could ever possibly come true. Thank you Paramount!
[+] [-] retrac|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tolien|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qbasic_forever|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jljljl|2 years ago|reply
Most of Starfleet Engineer training must be memorizing what those number labels mean...
[+] [-] GravitasFailure|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qbasic_forever|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Stevvo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tenpies|2 years ago|reply
And if you haven't seen any of it, I would almost say reading the episode summaries for the first two seasons is enough. Some of those first two seasons was just catastrophically bad, even by Star Trek standards.
[+] [-] gigel82|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Freire_Herval|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wanda|2 years ago|reply
Needless to say, it looked kinda cool, but not quite right for obvious reasons, and the actual experience of using it was... not great.
To borrow an expression from House MD, it wasn't a unicorn, it was a donkey with a plunger taped to its forehead.
I settled on making myself an LCARS new tab web page instead. That was pretty cool, I've often given thought to remaking it... but I'd probably get sidetracked too heavily from my actual work and end up an insomniac with an LCARS Linux distro and a very full inbox.
Aside: I really miss the Windows Classic look. I know you can sort of get it back in Windows 10 but I'm not on Windows these days, I just miss how Windows 98/2000/XP looked and behaved... well, maybe behaved is a bad word.
Aside 2: It appears the author of this simulation has made a few of these LCARS simulations https://www.mewho.com/
[+] [-] piperswe|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joezydeco|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rkagerer|2 years ago|reply
Less relatedly, I'm only on episode 3 but for an old Trekkie like myself this season is the gift I wished so hard for and never thought could ever possibly come true. Thank you Paramount!
[+] [-] ggeorgovassilis|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeegsy|2 years ago|reply