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Software as Subtitles

September 2, 2009 | 1 Comment

Recently I was putting together a little promotional video for the Lapsus Beta sign up page. I wanted to add subtitles and I was amazed at how much effort it takes to do them well.

Good Subtitles Need Care

They need to be carefully timed with the voice over. A few frames too soon, and the appearance of the subtitles distract from what is being said. A few frames too late, and they feel tacked on and irrelevant – another distraction.

The text also needs to be very carefully thought out. Too much text and it’ll not get read properly. Too little and it doesn’t communicate the message you want.

The layout of the text is surprisingly important too – words need to be grouped carefully on each subtitle line.

I realised that subtitles have a lot in common with my aims for Lapsus.

Subtitles Interpret Experience

Try watching a film with the sound off. You can watch the characters move, speak and interact. You can guess what’s happening, but it requires hard work and deduction. And you never fully understand what’s going on.

That’s how I feel when I want to know where my time went. I can guess, but it takes a lot of work – searching through logs, looking at time stamps on files and emails.

Lapsus should interpret your experience on the computer, much the same way subtitles interpret the narrative of a film.

Subtitles are User-centric

You only speak English, but the subtitles are in German. Hmmmm. Not that helpful. Lapsus should work around the user at every opportunity.

Subtitles are Invisible

If traditional timers were subtitles, they’d be bright red in a 60 point font, obscuring half the picture. Timers get in my way.

Lapsus should disappear into the background and only emerge when you need to know your times. It should become a natural part of how you interact with your computer.

Software as Subtitles

I think more software should feel like subtitles for your work – not the main focus of your energy, just there in the background, supporting what you want to do.

I’d love to hear what you think. What software do you use that achieves this well? How can we make software more invisible?

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