Continuity problems, plot holes and why good experiences need them

As designers, we can learn a lot from movies. Especially if you design experiences — which movies essentially are as well.

And like all creative work, movies are never perfect. If directors, actors, and camera operators would strive for perfection, they’d still be shooting on set right now. Instead, they decide to finish the movie in time for the premiere, so we can have a good time.

And to achieve that, movie makers have to be imperfect. Or rather, they choose which parts of the movie should be just right, and which parts don’t matter so much.

This is why continuity problems and plot holes exist. Most movies have them, and filmmakers are most likely aware of them. But they accept that these things happen. They can’t fix everything — time, budget and resources are limited. And they know that we don’t notice these tiny errors. Because we are too busy following the movie’s story.

Often, it isn’t until after the movie is finished that you start to think that some parts of the story didn’t make sense. Or in my case, when I read the trivia and goofs on IMDb, which I do almost every time after I’ve seen a movie.

The other day I watched The Ice Road, a high concept movie with Liam Neeson. Apparently, according to IMDb, it was filled with continuity problems that I didn’t notice while watching it. Like chains appearing and disappearing from truck tires, or the models of trucks changing. I simply didn’t see it, because it was all happening too fast. It’s like that invisible gorilla video — you don’t see what you are not paying attention to.

What I did notice however, were some plot holes. Or highly unlikely or unrealistic events. The movies was enjoyable, sometimes spectacular even, but also often rather unrealistic. ‘Yeah, right’, my girlfriend would often hear me say out loud. Or ‘Why are they doing that? I would never do that!’. Like when the main characters had fallen into icy water and didn’t take off their clothes, yet just moments later they were already completely dry. It bothered me, but not too much. The filmmakers knew they would get away with it.

The trick when creating experiences is to explore the edges of what is believable without going so far that it becomes very distracting. To create almost-plot holes that may be a bit weird, but that are needed to propel the story, and that you soon forget about because you’re caught up in the next dramatic scene.

I believe it’s the same with designing digital experiences. An onboarding flow for an app or a checkout flow in a webshop are also sequences that need to grab the user’s attention to work toward a resolution. We can make every little detail perfect, but that would take forever. The challenge is to put your effort into the details that matter. And like in the movies, those are the things that move your story forward. In the end, good experiences are always about good stories.

The better the story, the less likely the audience will notice the small flaws.