Hey Guys! Welcome back to my blog. If you have missed my previous articles on Web API and Azure Services, you can visit my profile to check them out. This time I have come up with History and Evolution of User Interfaces. LETS GO!!!
With the modern technologies, it’s impossible to avoid interacting with smart devices. We use them at home and work, for information, entertainment and to improve our intelligence and knowledge. It is obvious that whenever we sit down to use any of the smart devices, we will be dealing with Graphical User Interface. We had to interact with a mouse primarily, launch applications by clicking on the icons and manipulate them to rum and perform various task. But this is not always the case. Now its more improved.
As we know, a decent UI is about allowing the smooth completion of any task and making the experience enjoyable. However the UI you see on your Apple iPhone or Windows PC has been an extended time within the making. This article will take a quick exploration on how computer interface design has evolved over the past years.
Batch Interface
Being the first generation of interfaces, batch interfaces are not interactive at all. In the batch era, computing power was extremely scarce and expensive. User interfaces were basic. Interaction between user and the system was restricted. User had to submit a batch job as a single unit. The input side of the user interfaces for batch machines was mainly punched cards or equivalent media like paper tape.
The output side added line printers to these media. With the limited exception of the system operator’s console, human beings did not interact with batch machines in real time at all. They were able to rum without user supervision in cases where the same thing had to be done over and over again.
Line Oriented Interfaces
Around the 1960s time-sharing systems were invented. They allowed the users to simultaneously use one big mainframe. This was possible as a result of the invention of the multiprogramming. With this technique, several programs could be loaded into different partitions of the main memory. Every user had his or her own terminal with monitor and keyboard (in- and output) that had the function of the punch card and also the printer of the batch
system.
This line-oriented interface was basically a one-dimensional interface. The user could only interact with the system at one input line. After he or she sent the command to the computer, he or she wasn’t able to modify it further. In a very similar case, the output of the computer could not be modified. This interaction technique was mostly used for question-answer dialogues.
In this stage the interface was also changed in allowing non programmers to use the system.
The question-answer dialogues were simple enough for normal users to work with it. As the hardware evolved to single user systems the line-oriented interfaces still were used.
Examples would be DOS (Disc Operating System) or UNIX (from UNICS, Uniplexed Information and Computing Service).
Full Screen Interface
Soon the line-oriented interfaces were modified so that the entire screen could be used for modifications. A typical application of the full screen are the form filling dialogues.
Now the usability of the interface was much better because the user could see what to come, the screen could be structured, and the information on the screen was modifiable.
The full-screen interfaces also lead to the invention of the menus. Menus are functions that are continuously listed on-screen. First these functions could be called into action with key combinations. This was, for example, commonly used in defense computing by the 1960s. Later the menus could be accessed with a pointing device. These technique is still an integral part of the user-friendly interface. The full-screen interfaces often depended heavily on hierarchically nested menus. So the questions arose how to best arrange the menu hierarchies.
Graphical User Interface
The grandfather of the graphical user interface was the Sketchpad. Ivan E. Sutherland built it as a Ph.D. in 1962. The Sketchpad was a program that enabled the user to draw points, line segments, and circular arcs on a cathode ray tube with a light pen. In addition to this, the user could assign constraints to and relationships among the drawn objects. Another new concept that was introduced with the Sketchpad was the use of windows. The program could split its screen horizontally into two independent sections. It is indubitable that Sketchpad’s design and algorithms had a primary influence on an entire generation of user interfaces.
There were several graphical user interfaces but they did not see widespread commercial use until the 1980s. This was the time of the Xerox Corp Star in 1981 and the Apple Computer Inc. Lisa (1983) and Macintosh (1984). These computers also introduced a further advance: a menu bar, essentially a row of words indicating available menus that could be popped up for each window. Especially the Macintosh brought the WIMP (windows, icons, menus, and a pointing device) to the people.
Next Generation of User Interface
Some of next generation UI are,
- Gesture Interface
- Brain Computer Interface
- Flexible OLED Display
- Augmented Reality (AR)
- Voice User Interface (VUI)
- Tangible User Interface (TUI)
- Sensor Network User Interface (SNUI)
