History of UI

A brief history of interface design

Transcript

1. 1 Why study HCI’s history?   Understanding where you’ve come from can help a lot in figuring out where you’re going - repeat positive lessons   “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it” - avoid negative lessons   Knowledge of an area implies an appreciation of its history
2. 2 Context – Computing in 1945   Harvard Mark I   55 feet long, 8 feet high, 5 tons   Ballistics calculations   Physical switches (bef. microprocessor)   Paper tape   Simple arithmetic and fixed calculations (before programs)   3 seconds to multiply
3. 3 Context – Computing in 1945   First computer bug (Harvard Mark II)   Grace Murray Hopper   Physical nanoseconds
6. 6 Vannevar Bush (1890-1974)   “As we may think” - Atlantic Monthly, 1945   Faculty member MIT   Coordinated WWII effort with 6000 US scientists   Social contract for science   Federal government funds universities   Universities do basic research   Research helps economy and national defense   Identified the information storage and retrieval problem:   new knowledge does not reach the people who could benefit from it “publication has been extended far beyond our present ability to make real use of the record” “The World has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it.”
7. 7 Bush’s Memex   Conceiving Hypertext and the World Wide Web   a device where individuals stores all personal books, records, communications etc   Even contemplated wearable cameras (see work at MIT Media Lab)   Encyclopedia Britannica for a nickel   Automatic transcripts of speech   items retrieved rapidly through indexing, keywords, cross references,...   can annotate text with margin notes, comments...   can construct a ‘Trails of discovery’ (a chain of links) through the material and save it   acts as an external memory!   Direct capture of nerve impulses!   Bush’s Memex device based on microfilm records, not computers!   but not implemented Paper: http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/computer/bushf.htm
8. 8 Context – Computing in the 1960s   Transistor (1948)   Modern P4 has about 15 million transistors (size of fingernail)   ARPA (1958)   Advanced Research Projects Agency   Founded immediately post-Sputnik   Budget of only several million$   Modern DARPA budget about $2 Billion (2001)   Modern NSF budget about $4.5 Billion (2001)   Timesharing (1950s)   Terminals and keyboards   Computers still primarily for scientists and engineers
9. 9 J.C.R. Licklider (1915-1990)   “Lick” became director of ARPA in 1962.   With ARPA sponsorship, the first CS programs were created:   MIT, CMU, Berkeley, Stanford   Did self-observation of his daily work.   Observed that much work was mundane and related to accessing and organizing information   Proposed:   Digital libraries   Display screens with pen input and character recognition   Wall displays for collaborative work   Speech recognition and production for HCI   Outlined “man-computer symbiosis” “The hope is that, in not too many years, human brains and computing machines will be coupled together very tightly and that the resulting partnership will think as no human brain has ever thought and process data in a way not approached by the information-handling machines we know today.”
10. 10 Licklider’s Goals   Produced goals that are pre-requisite to “man-computer symbiosis”   immediate goals:   time sharing of computers among many users   electronic i/o for the display and communication of symbolic and pictorial information   interactive real time system for information processing and programming   large scale information storage and retrieval   intermediate goals:   facilitation of human cooperation in the design & programming of large systems   combined speech recognition, hand-printed character recognition & lightpen editing   long term visions:   natural language understanding (syntax, semantics, pragmatics)   speech recognition of arbitrary computer users   heuristic programming
11. 11 Ivan Sutherland (1938-)   1963 PhD MIT - SketchPad   Helped head DARPA Info Processing   Now a VP and Sun Fellow   SketchPad - Sophisticated drawing package   introduced many new ideas/concepts now found in today’s interfaces   hierarchical structures defined pictures and sub-pictures   object-oriented programming: master picture with instances   constraints: specify details which the system maintains through changes   icons: small pictures that represented more complex items   copying: both pictures and constraints   input techniques: efficient use of light pen   world coordinates: separation of screen from drawing coordinates   recursive operations: applied to children of hierarchical objects   Parallel developments in hardware:   “low-cost” graphics terminals   input devices such as data tablets (1964)   display processors capable of real-time manipulation of images (1968)
12. 12 Douglas Engelbart (1925-)   Strongly influenced by Bush’s article   Stanford Research Institute (SRI)   Augmentation Research Center   1962 Paper "Conceptual Model for Augmenting Human Intellect" “...increasing the capability of a man to approach a complex problem situation, gain comprehension to suit his particular needs, and to derive solutions to problems....”
13. 13 Douglas Englebart   1968: NLS (oNLine System) System, Fall Joint Computer Conference (SF)   document processing   modern word processing   hierarchical hypertext   multimedia (mixed text and graphics)   input/output   the mouse   one-handed corded keyboard   high resolution display   view control (and windows)   specially designed furniture   shared work   shared files   personal annotations   electronic messaging   desktop conferencing (video/audio managed by computer)   shared displays (what you see is what I see)   multiple pointers   user testing to see how people worked, need for training...   All took place before Unix and C (1970s), ARPAnet (1969) and later Internet
14. 14 Douglas Englebart & NLS “At SRI in the 1960s we did some experimenting with a foot mouse. I found that it was workable, but my control wasn't very fine and my leg tended to cramp from the unusual posture and task.” "If ease of use was the only valid criterion, people would stick to tricycles and never try bicycles." - Engelbart "I tell people: look, you can spend all you want on building smart agents and smart tools…" "I'd bet that if you then give those to twenty people with no special training, and if you let me take twenty people and really condition and train them especially to learn how to harness the tools…" "The people with the training will always outdo the people for whom the computers were supposed to do the work."
15. 15 Alan Kay (1940-)   Ph.D. 1969 (Utah) Computer Graphics   In 1968, met Seymour Papert (LOGO) in the MIT AI Lab. - kids can program!   Moved to Xerox PARC in 1972   Started developing “Smalltalk”, in the Learning Research Group   First general OO programming language   Influenced by Simula   Atari – Chief Science Officer   Now a Disney Fellow "By the time I got to school, I had already read a couple hundred books. I knew in the first grade that they were lying to me because I had already been exposed to other points of view. School is basically about one point of view -- the one the teacher has or the textbooks have. They don't like the idea of having different points of view, so it was a battle. Of course I would pipe up with my five-year-old voice."
16. 16 Alan Kay   Dynabook vision (and cardboard prototype) of a notebook computer (conceived in 1968) “Imagine having your own self-contained knowledge manipulator in a portable package the size and shape of an ordinary notebook. Suppose it had enough power to out-race your senses of sight and hearing, enough capacity to store for later retrieval thousands of page- equivalents of reference materials, poems, letters, recipes, records, drawings, animations, musical scores...”   Kay develops the Xerox Alto (1972)1 and Star (1981), the first real PCs "The best way to predict the future is to invent it" 1 Primary hardware developers: Butler Lampson & Chuck Thacker
17. 17 Seymour Papert   Get children to program as a technique for learning   Learn by doing   Logo   Professor MIT Media Lab   Lego Mindstorms
18. 18 Xerox PARC   Created in 1970   "Architecture of information“   Camelot Era   Some early inventions   Ethernet Networking   Laser Printer   Desktop Computing   These ideas seem ordinary today   Measure of success
19. 19 Xerox Alto   First Personal Computer   local processor, bit-mapped display, mouse   modern graphical interfaces   text and drawing editing, electronic mail   windows, menus, scroll bars, mouse selection, etc   local area networks (Ethernet) for personal workstations   could make use of shared resources   1972   Precursor to Xerox Star   Internal only to PARC   $45,000 / PC   ALTAIR 8800 (1975)   Popular electronics article that showed people   how to build a computer for under $400   Seed of Microsoft sown
20. 20 Xerox Star   Commercial PC   1981   $16,500 / PC   First commercial personal computer designed for “business professionals”   First comprehensive GUI used many ideas developed at Xerox PARC   familiar user’s conceptual model (simulated desktop)   promoted recognizing/pointing rather than remembering/ typing   property sheets to specify appearance/behaviour of objects   what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG)   small set of generic commands that could be used throughout the system   high degree of consistency and simplicity   modeless interaction   limited amount of user tailorability
21. 21 Screen shot of Xerox Star
22. 22 Xerox Star – Property Sheets
23. 23 Xerox Star   First system based upon usability engineering   inspired design   extensive paper prototyping and usage analysis   usability testing with potential users   iterative refinement of interface   Commercial failure   cost ($15,000)   IBM had just announced a less expensive machine   limited functionality   - e.g., no spreadsheet   closed architecture   3rd party vendors could not add applications   perceived as slow   but really fast!   slavish adherence to direct manipulation   Steve Jobs and Apple engineers visited PARC in 1979, and that set the path for Apple   15 PARC engineers migrated to Apple
24. 24 Early Personal Computers   1997 Apple II   1979 VisiCalc - “killer app” for Apple II   1981 IBM XT/AT
25. 25 Apple Macintosh - 1984   Aggressive pricing   $2500   Good interface guidelines   Third party applications   Great graphics, laser printer
26. 26 Apple (1981)   Apple Lisa (1983)   based upon many ideas in the Star; predecessor of Macintosh,   somewhat cheaper ($10,000)   commercial failure as well   Apple Macintosh (1984)   “old ideas” but well done!   ‘Mac’ succeeded because:   aggressive pricing ($2500)   did not need to trailblaze   learnt from mistakes of Lisa and corrected them; ideas now “mature”   market now ready for them   developer’s toolkit encouraged 3rd party non-Apple software   interface guidelines encouraged consistency between applications   domination in desktop publishing because of affordable laser printer and excellent graphics