50 Years Of Sci-Fi Interfaces & What They Predicted [Infographic]

How many times have you watched a science fiction movie and thought, “User interfaces doesn’t look like that!” I would guess more than once, right? Would you be surprised if I told you that the sci-fi interfaces on the silver screen actually spawned what we are using today, so why wouldn’t they look like that, at least in the future? There’s no doubt sci-fi interfaces have become more complex and advanced throughout the years.

We only have to take a look at the most recent movies to see that. I could easily go on and on about the complexity of some of the sci-fi interfaces that have been shown in movies for as long as I have lived. It wouldn’t be much fun reading so I decided to just use an infographic that showcases these user interfaces instead. That way we could all get a better overview of where it all “started,” where we are today, and what these movie sci-fi interfaces predicted and spawned.

This infographic is called 50 Years Of Visionary Sci-Fi Computer Interfaces and is presented by Glow New Media. It takes us all the way back to 1965 when Lost In Space was released. It “introduced” us to robots and what they could do. After that, it’s a steady stream of sci-fi interfaces that have come to set the bar for computer interaction for decades.

One thing that you can definitely derive from this infographic is that these interfaces have come a long way in the last 50 years. Not only are they more advanced, but they are also more complex. Clutter is becoming more and more apparent. The more information needs to be shown on the screen, the busier these sci-fi interfaces get. Is it a good thing? Well, it depends on how you look at it I guess. If more information is better, I guess it’s actually a good thing. But we have to remember that clutter can also make a user interface a whole lot more confusing. Which one of these interfaces do you think is the best one?