Illusion Engineers and the Art of UX Design

It's that time of the year again, when the sight of a bloodied hand clawing at me from behind a rosebush fails to alarm me.  I have a sense of humor, I swear, but the excess of cheap plastic fake dead stuff spilling forth from my neighbors' yards is really starting to offend the senses.

Every year, Spirit Halloween makes a killing (no pun intended) manufacturing cheap plastic fake dead stuff overseas and selling them to giddy Americans. I wonder if Romney wants to bring those jobs back to America. Then we wouldn't have to explain to the nice folks in China and Vietnam why on earth we would ever want cheap plastic fake dead stuff.  God forbid foreigners might think we're nuts.

I am reminded of the glory days of fake dead stuff, when the Grand Masters of Illusion took paint and glue, light and mirrors and Imagineered these humble elements into a mechanical wonderland.  These guys (and a particularly notable woman, Harriet Burns) transformed art and engineering into something for the masses to enjoy.  (Sure, their bosses served up the future of consumerism on a Mickey Mouse-shaped platter and the world ate it up.  But in my defense, Disneyland was one of the few normal kid thing I did while growing up, so I reserve the right to get nostalgic.)

The original Haunted Mansion is the paradigm of meticulously designed UX, all created from surprisingly simple illusions that tricked the eye, and subtle nudges (via trick corridors and Doom Buggies on rigged tracks) that steered the observers' focus.  The result was a hauntingly seamless experience that delighted adults and children, especially jaded adults who delighted in seeing children scream and cry.

Unlike our mass produced modern-day fake dead stuff, a lot of heart and soul and ingenuity went into designing those beloved singing robotic corpses and hitch-hiking ghosts.  Anecdotes tell of Imagineers Yale Gracey and Rolly Crump, who had a little too much fun rigging their special effects workshop with motion sensors and scaring the living crap out of the cleaning crew at night.  

The insanely talented Gracey's most famous brainchild is of course the elaborate implementation of the deceptively simple Pepper's Ghost effect in the Grand Ballroom.  Modern illusionist would use this century-old optical technique to create even more frightening specters, like Richard Branson's virtual clone and the resurrection of Tupac.  

If you happen to have a gigantic piece of spotless glass or Mylar on hand, Ars Technica explains how you can summon your very own dead rapper for Halloween.  Just tell the kids to keep their hands off, smudges ruin the effect.

Imagineer Yale Gracey pokes a ghost.

Just another day at work.