Science fiction and design: how cinema writes the brief for creating digital experiences

Summary

• Cinema does not guess technology: it shows a device working and teaches the audience to expect it.
• That expectation reaches design and product teams as if it were a project requirement.
• Interfaces designed for the camera tend to fail in daily use, because the screen and everyday life ask for different things.
• Treating a movie reference as a question, not as a specification, helps reach a feasible scope.

Who copied whom? The wrong question about science fiction and technology

Every time a gesture interface or a voice assistant gets attention, someone says: "that looks like something out of a movie". The conversation usually stops at the question of who copied whom. It is the wrong question. It assumes that cinema guesses the future or that the industry copies scripts. The real relationship is more practical: the film defines what the audience expects from a technology, and that expectation reaches product teams as if it were a requirement. We like to call it a brief. Except nobody signed it, nobody validated it and nobody asked whether it fits the deadline.

Film does not predict the future: it writes a brief

There is even a name for this. Researcher David A. Kirby studied the science consultants who work with Hollywood and calls a diegetic prototype a technology that exists only inside the film, but works fully within it. According to a text from the Near Future Laboratory about Kirby's work, these objects show the audience the need, the feasibility and the benevolence of a technology. The scene does not just show the device: it convinces the audience that it is useful and that it is good. This effect has been studied. In a 2022 article on the Iron Man trilogy, Rudolf Spennemann and Lindy Orthia concluded that cinematic factors, such as the technology's role in the plot and its spectacular appeal, fix the prototype in memory more than the nature of the technology itself. Audiences also tend to support the development of what they see as morally good. We remember what looks good in the scene, not what is feasible in practice. And the commission is not always accidental. According to an article in Revista Arcos Design (2026) that cites Kirby (2009), more than 65 organizations advised the production of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and placed their brands in the film. In that case, cinema was born as a technology showcase.

The cycle: film creates the expectation, the market tries to deliver

You can recognize the cycle in three steps.

1. The film shows the technology working. The author William Johnson, cited by Philipp Jordan in a post from 03/28/2018, observed that the filmmaker must show the invention and show it working. That is what makes the scene convincing.
2. The audience starts to expect it. MIT Technology Review compares the communicators in Star Trek with today's smartphones and smartwatches. Researcher Ken Perlin, in a post from 05/11/2016, describes these objects as aspirational: they suggest that a more interesting future is possible.
3. Research and industry try to deliver. Jordan and colleagues analyzed papers from the ACM CHI conference since 1982 and found that explicit mentions of science fiction are increasingly frequent, according to MIT Technology Review. The authors themselves think this is only a fraction of the real inspiration.

The gesture interfaces of Minority Report, associated with the work of John Underkoffler, appear in Jordan's post as one of the most cited examples of this path. The film asked, and the market spent years trying to answer.

When the brief gets in the way: the interface that only works on camera

Here the cycle collects its bill. In a 03/01/2013 article in Smashing Magazine, Chris Noessel uses Minority Report to show that a great demo can hide many flaws. He refers to the scenes in which the character John Anderton manipulates, with his hands in the air, the videos of the precogs' visions. According to a Hollywood rumor reported by Noessel, Tom Cruise needed constant breaks during those shoots, because few people can hold their hands above the level of their heart and move them around for a long time. The breaks do not appear in the film. The same idea was summarized by Creative Bloq on 11/13/2012, when discussing the book Make It So, by Nathan Shedroff and Christopher Noessel. The interface that delights on screen tires in use. Perlin asks the right question: "how real is real enough?". For Hollywood, it is enough that the audience sees the technology on screen. For those who build products, that is only the first step. Our reading of the difference between the two worlds:

• On screen: the viewer is an audience, once. The action must be legible to the camera, and error does not exist, because the script guarantees it.
• In real use: the viewer is the same person, every day. The action must be light to repeat, and error is frequent and needs a way out.

Imagine an illustrative scenario: a team arrives at the project with the phrase "I want it just like the movie". The reference is good for talking about feeling and ambition. As a specification, it hides decisions that nobody has made.

How to translate a movie reference into a feasible requirement

A movie reference works better as a question than as a specification. Four questions help make that translation:

• What problem does the scene solve for the character? The beautiful gesture is usually at the service of a simple need.
• What is aesthetics and what is function? Glow and transparency are not requirements. Speed and clarity can be.
• Who uses this, how many times a day, in what situation? Real use is almost never heroic.
• What is the minimum version that delivers the feeling without the illusion? It is the starting point of a viable scope.

There is also a generous side to fiction. In a 2026 article in Revista Arcos Design on the prototypes of Dune, the authors argue that an ambiguous prototype, supported by a narrative backdrop, invites the viewer to imagine other futures and to reflect critically on reality. In other words: a good reference opens questions. Whoever treats it as an answer has already missed the best of it. The topic connects with what we have already published about how culture shapes interface design and about what makes a digital product experience memorable.

What Espresso brings to the conversation between reference and scope

At Espresso, we like references, including the ones that come from cinema. The work begins when the reference meets a real problem, and that is what our Discovery & Design service does: we understand the problem and design the solution, from roadmap to flows and screens, before writing a line. In Discovery, the movie reference becomes the starting point of a conversation that takes into account:

• Business goals, user needs and technical limitations, together, at the same table.
• Market and competitor analysis, to know what already exists and what is still missing.
• A feature roadmap that reduces risk before building.

Do you have an idea inspired by a movie and want to know how much of it fits in a real product? Talk to the people who turn a reference into scope through the contact form or on WhatsApp.

Frequently asked questions

Do science fiction movies really influence technology design? Yes, and there is data on it. According to MIT Technology Review, researchers who analyzed papers from the ACM CHI conference since 1982 found explicit mentions of science fiction increasingly frequent. The authors believe this is only a fraction of the real inspiration, because the influence is hard to measure. What is a diegetic prototype? It is a technology that exists only inside a film, but works fully in that world. The term comes from the work of David A. Kirby. These prototypes show the audience the need, the feasibility and the benevolence of a technology, and so they help create expectation and acceptance before the product exists. Why do movie interfaces often not work in real life? Because they are designed for the camera, not for use. In Minority Report, for example, according to a Hollywood rumor reported by Chris Noessel on 03/01/2013, Tom Cruise needed breaks during filming because few people can hold their hands above the level of their heart for long. On screen, the action must be legible. In everyday life, it must be light. Can science fiction be used as a reference in a product project? It can, as long as the reference becomes a question and not a specification. It helps to separate aesthetics from function, understand who uses it and how often, and define a minimum version that delivers the desired feeling. A Discovery helps make that translation before any line of code.