A quantum leap
Okuda identified ease of use as a driving factor behind technology that the production team envisioned for the future—a driving factor that Roddenberry himself considered essential.
"One thing that informed not just the PADD, but the overall technology, was that Gene Roddenberry wanted the new Enterprise to be visibly more advanced then the original Enterprise," Okuda said. "Roddenberry had the wisdom to realize that 'advanced' didn't mean 'more complicated.' He actually wanted things to be much simpler. So we took that to mean that it was cleaner, better user interfaces, fewer buttons, fewer things to learn how to operate," he told Ars.
Touch is a natural interaction for users, and lends itself to greater ease of use. Executed well, it can make devices more accessible, in a shorter period of time, to a wider user base. "The average user can pick up an iPhone or an iPad, and with 30 seconds of instruction, they can use it," Okuda said. "Maybe not in great detail, but for them it's still a functional device."
Early personal computers weren't known for ease of use. "I remember growing up with IBM PCs, using them, and being comfortable with the DOS operating system," Okuda said. "But at the same time, I was frustrated with the fact that I had to think the same way the designers and programmers did."
The Mac changed all that, Okuda told Ars. "The very first time I saw the Apple Macintosh, it was an astonishing quantum breakthrough. Here was someone beating their brains into guacamole in order to make this machine easy for me to use," he said.
Denise Okuda, Michael's wife, didn't come from an art or technology background before working on Star Trek. Her original vocation was nursing, but she later became more involved in design and art direction with Michael's help and her comfort using a Mac. "When I first sat down at a DOS-based computer, I wanted nothing to do with them," she explained. "But that changed when I used a Macintosh for the first time. Within a few minutes I could learn how to use it; that was my 'ah-ha moment.'"
Both Michael and Denise felt the same "ah-ha moment" when using an iPad. "The iPad, that kind of interface, represents another quantum leap over the interface in the original Macintosh," Michael told Ars.
Okuda expressed frustration that so many other devices had been designed for the technology and not the user. By way of example, he described how easily his parents would typically give up after trying out some new technology. "Yet, you hand them something simple—relatively simple—like an iPad, and the learning curve is very short and the payoff is almost immediate," he said.
Today: science fiction, tomorrow: reality
The same general concepts behind the PADD doubtless had some influence in the eventual development of the iPad. But science fiction often inspires new technology, and many devices that we now take for granted appeared in Star Trek.
"Going back to the original series, when you look at 45 years ago, look at the communicator they used," Denise Okuda said. "Then fast forward and look at what we are using today: flip phones." Likewise, interchangeable data chips were used on the original Enterprise well before the introduction of solid-state memory cards or USB flash drives. "It's really mind-blowing when you look at things today, like the iPad—we were using those things on Star Trek," she told Ars.
Drexler sees examples of real-life technology that were likely influenced by technology used on Star Trek practically everywhere. "Swiss army knife-like cell phones, wall-sized TV screens a quarter of an inch thick, GPS devices that nag you with voice, body scanners at airports, voice recognition, remotely operated fighter planes, surgical robots," he said.
But all three are convinced that more advanced user interaction is just around the corner. Drexler mentioned voice recognition, something used extensively in Star Trek to communicate with a ship's computer. The iPhone has the somewhat limited Voice Control feature, and Android-powered smartphones can use voice to input text anywhere in the system. Voice will be an important input method, especially for those aren't able to type or otherwise use their hand, but neither Denise nor Michael Okuda think natural language will be the evolution of human-machine interaction.
Denise noted that in public, giving voice commands to a device would in many cases be considered rude. "I don't want to hear people's phone conversations, let alone them talking to their devices," she said. While voice may very well be one possible input method, she believes there will still be some kind of silent input method that won't disrupt the environment. Otherwise, she said, "you can get into problems when you put technology above people."
Michael also noted that voice input is generally inefficient. "Imagine I'm looking at some photos, and I want to say, 'Up, up, left, down one, photo number 3362, no, the one on the left.'—that's much slower than just clicking or tapping," he said. "Natural language is, I think, going to have some significant limitations."
Still, what new frontiers are out there for interacting with computing devices? Michael Okuda believes that removing the touch requirement will bring new advances in gesture-based control. "Once you don't have to physically touch the screen," he told Ars, "I think yet another window is going to open up."
Something similar to the 3D gestures used to manipulate video and other data in the film Minority Report could become commonplace, though perhaps not while standing in front of a huge translucent display. "That looks good on camera," Okuda said, "but I think when the technology is available, there will be a way to put it in a desk or something to make it workable."
Drexler referenced another sci-fi film, The Terminator, for his more succinct prognostication: "interactive ocular HUD."
Whatever the advances, though, focusing on the end user will be the driving force behind the true innovations. "As devices get more powerful, hopefully we will continue to see things being considered in terms of the user's time and learning curve, rather than the power of the machine," Okuda said. "The complexity should be abstracted, synthesized down to the simplest possible interface for instant gratification, with the shortest possible learning curve—that is the wave of the future."
"At least, it should be," Okuda told Ars.
Listing image by Paramount / CBS
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