The Hidden Storytelling of Fictional User Interfaces (FUI) in Film

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The Hidden Storytelling of Fictional User Interfaces (FUI) in Film<br>Cinema's secret weapon for manipulating us without us even noticing!

Manon Stripes<br>Jun 29, 2026

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Oblivion - Interface Design

As a designer, I loooove everything related to production design in films. Well, I say “designer,” but long before I studied Applied Arts, I was already fascinated by it, I just didn’t have the vocabulary to describe what I loved so much.<br>I mean it. Sets, costumes, props, graphic design, and Fictional User Interfaces (FUI). Yes, even (especially?) FUIs. Those interfaces created specifically for a film’s universe, sometimes visible for only a few seconds on screen, yet enough to leave me completely mesmerized, and inspire me to write a whole series of articles celebrating production design and fictional interfaces.

Oblivion — Drone Tracking

You’ll find them everywhere in science fiction and action films (especially Hollywood productions). They’ve almost become part of the scenery. After all, if you want your audience to believe they’re looking at the future, what’s more effective than a dark-mode interface covered in glowing cyan graphics?<br>Yet in some films, these FUIs do much more than decorate the background. They provide information, and sometimes tell an entire story in just a few seconds. The most fascinating part? We barely notice they’re doing it. The designers behind these interfaces rely on visual conventions we’ve all internalized almost universally understood.<br>Here’s an example:

Independence Day — The Counterattack<br>In Independence Day (1996), after the alien attacks on Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, the United States launches its first counteroffensive: a massive air assault. Many fighter jets appear on screen and a command center coordinates the operation through a fleet management interface displaying a series of simplified green fighter jet icons.

Independence Day — Fighter Jet Tracking<br>As the battle unfolds, those icons gradually turn red.

Independence Day — Fighter Jet Tracking<br>Within seconds, the audience understands that very few pilots will survive the assault, without actually watching hundreds of aircraft being destroyed.<br>Here, the FUI becomes an incredibly efficient tool for narrative compression… but we’ll come back to that.<br>This type of interface belongs to a specific family of FUIs: tracking interfaces . Their role isn’t simply to display information, they tell a story through data.

Making the Invisible Visible

The primary purpose of a tracking interface is to make invisible information visible: telemetry, status changes, positions,… A countless data points transformed into visual storytelling in a movie.<br>Tracking People

In Jurassic World (2015), after the Indominus Rex escapes, the park’s security team is dispatched to contain it, with all the diplomacy one can reasonably expect in that kind of situation.<br>As the unit advances on the field, the control room monitors them on a giant display. Each team member is represented by a status card showing a portrait, name, rank, ID number, and heart rate.

Jurassic World — Security Team Monitoring<br>Interestingly, the interface only displays eight agents, even though more are actually deployed. Just like Independence Day, which only shows twelve fighters despite hundreds participating in the battle, the goal isn’t completeness, it’s immediate readability: there are just enough elements to suggest individual tracking without cluttering the screen.<br>Then, events unfolded in rapid succession. And as expected… The dinosaur wasn’t very cooperative. The agents disappear one after another, beginning with Commander Hamada. Although the film directly shows his death, the interface confirms it for both the control room operators and the audience through unmistakable visual language: his heart rate flattens into a straight red line, accompanied by the familiar continuous tone. A universal visual code that needs no explanation.

Jurassic World — Hamada’s Death<br>Red gradually spreads across the remaining status panels, contrasting sharply with the interface’s otherwise blue palette. Even in a one-second glimpse, the audience already understands the mission has failed.

Jurassic World — More Casualties<br>Tracking Systems

FUIs also make complex systems instantly understandable.<br>Neither you nor I are engineers aboard an interstellar spacecraft, yet these interfaces allow us to grasp what’s happening almost immediately.<br>In Passengers (2016), a holographic schematic of the Avalon provides a real-time overview of the ship’s condition.

Passengers — Avalon System Overview<br>The ship enters an asteroid field. To minimize damage, power is automatically rerouted toward the forward shields. Animated arrows illustrate the energy flow, while the forward shield turns red to indicate the increasing pressure from incoming impacts.

Passengers — Shield...