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HCI History Part 2 of 2

Key people, events, ideas andparadigm shifts

This material has been developed by Georgia Tech HCI faculty, and continues to evolve. Contributors include Gregory Abowd, Jim Foley, Diane Gromala, Elizabeth Mynatt, Jeff Pierce, Colin Potts, Chris Shaw, John Stasko, and Bruce Walker. This specific presentation also borrows from James Landay and Jason Hong at UC Berkeley. Comments directed to foley@cc.gatech.edu are encouraged. Permission is granted to use with acknowledgement for non-profit purposes. Last revision: August 2004.

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The Evolution of HCI

• Series of technological advances lead to and are sometimes

facilitated by a

• Series of paradigm shifts that in turn are created by a

• Series of key people and events

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Paradigm: Personal Computer

• System is more powerful if it’s easier to use

• Small, powerful machine dedicated to individual use

• Made possible by single-chip processor and less semiconductor memory - drives down costs - Moore’s Law

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Early Personal Computers

• 1975 IBM 5100

• 1977 Radio ShackTRS-80

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Early Personal Computers

• 1979 Apple II

• 1979 VisiCalc - “killer app”for Apple II

• 1981 IBM XT/AT

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The dawn of the PC & GUI Xerox PARC - 1970

• Established 1970 Bob Taylor heads CSL - Computer

Systems Lab

• Goal: “The Paperless Office” Are we there yet?

• “Inventing the future” Researchers using their new creations as

their own tools - bootstrapping

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PARC Hardware Milestones

• Laser printer 1971 Gary Starkweather

• Ethernet 1973 Bob Metcalfe

• Alto personal computer 1973 Chuck Thacker Ed McCreight, Chuck Thacker, Butler Lampson,

Bob Sproull, and Dave Boggs

• Real-time windowing operations (BitBlt) 1973 Dan Ingalls

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Xerox PARC – The Alto - 1973

• First personal computer!• 808 x 606 raster

bitmapped display• 3-button mouse,

keyboard• Ethernet• Merges printing, display

and networking

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PARC Software Milestones

• Bravo WYSIWYG text editor/formatter 1974 Butler Lampson and Charles Simonyi

• Gypsy text editor with GUI and modeless cut and paste editing 1975 Larry Tessler and Timothy Mott

• Draw drawing program 1975 William Newman

• Superpaint paint program 1974-75 Dick Shoup

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Innovator: Alan Kay

• Dynabook - Notebook sized computer loaded with multimedia and can store everything

• @PARC• Personal

computing• Desktop

interface• Overlapping

windows

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HCI Researchers at Xerox PARC in 1970s and early 1980s

• Stu Card• Tom Moran• George Robertson• David Smith• Bill Verplank• Jeff Johnson• ……

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Paradigm: WIMP / GUI

• Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointers• Graphical User Interface• Timesharing=multi-user; now we need

multitasking• WIMP interface allows you to do several

things simultaneously• Has become the familiar GUI interface• Xerox Alto & Star; Perq, Lisa, Macintosh, …

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Xerox Star - 1981

• First commercial PC designed for “business professionals” desktop metaphor, pointing, WYSIWYG,

high degree of consistency and simplicity

• First system based on usability engineering Paper prototyping and analysis Usability testing and iterative refinement

Xerox Star Desktop

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Xerox Star - 1981

• Commercial flop $15k cost closed architecture lacking key functionality

(spreadsheet)

• Video - the Star in use

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Apple Lisa - 1982

• Based on ideas of Star

• More personal rather than office tool Still $$$ - $10K to $12K

• Failure

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Apple Macintosh - 1984

• Aggressive pricing $2500

• Good interface guidelines• Third party

applications• Great graphics,

laser printer

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Paradigm: Direct Manipulation

• ‘82 Shneiderman describes appeal of rapidly-developing graphically-based interaction object visibility incremental action and rapid feedback reversibility encourages exploration replace language with action syntactic correctness of all actions

• WYSIWYG, Apple Mac

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Paradigm: Metaphor

• All use is problem-solving or learning to some extent

• Relating computing to real-world activity is effective learning mechanism File management on office desktop Financial analysis as spreadsheets

• The tension between literalism & magic Eject disk or CD on Mac by dragging to trash

can

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Pardigm/Technology – Person-to-Person Communications

• Enabled by several technologies Ethernet and TCP/IP protocol Personal computer Telephone network and modems

• And by killer-app software Email, Instant Messaging, Chat, Bulletin Boards

• CSCW - conferencing, shared white boards– Not quite yet a killer-app

• Micro-sociological phenomenon are central to successes (and failures)

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Paradigm: CSCW

• Computer-Supported Cooperative Work

• No longer single user/single system• Micro-social aspects are crucial• E-mail as prominent success but

other groupware still not widely used

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Paradigm: Hypertext

• Think of information not as linear flow but as interconnected nodes

• Bush’s MEMEX gavethe idea in 1945

• Nelson coinedterm in 1965

• Engelbart’s NLSdid it in 1965

• WWW in ’93 was thereal launch

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Innovator: Ted Nelson

• Computers can help people, not just business

• Coined and popularized “hypertext” term (1965)

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Ted Nelson’s Book(s)

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The World-Wide Web

• Two Key Components URL = Uniform Resource Locator Browser

• Tim Brenners-Lee did both

• See http://www.w3.org/History.html for more web history

Early Tim B-L Browser (On a NeXT)

Source: http://www.w3.org/History/1994/WWW/Journals/CACM/screensnap2_24c.gif

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The WIMP Plateau

Time

Use

r P

rodu

ctiv

ity

Batch

Command Line

WIMP(Windows)

1940s – 1950s 1980s - Present1960s – 1970s

?

?

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Paradigm: Multi-modality

• Mode is a human communication channel Not just the senses

– e.g. speech and non-speech audio are two modes

• Emphasis on simultaneous use of multiple channels for I/O

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Innovator: Nicholas Negroponte

• MIT Architecture Machine Group ’69-’80s - prior to Media Lab

• Ideas wall-sized displays, video

disks, AI in interfaces (agents), speech recognition,multimedia with hypertext

Put That There (Video)

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Paradigm: Speech / Agents

• Actions do not always speak louder than words

• Interface as mediator or agent• Language paradigm• How good does it need to be?

“Tricks”, vocabulary, domains• How “human” do we want it to be?

(HAL, Bob, PaperClip)

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Innovator: Mark Weiser

• Introduced notion of Ubiquitous Computing and Calm Technology It’s everywhere, but recedes quietly into

background

• Was CTO of Xerox PARC• Died too early

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Paradigm: Ubiquitous Computing

• Person is no longer user of single device but occupant of computationally-rich environment

• "Ubiquitous computing names the third wave in computing, just now beginning. First were mainframes, each shared by lots of people. Now we are in the personal computing era, person and machine staring uneasily at each other across the desktop. Next comes ubiquitous computing, or the age of calm technology, when technology recedes into the background of our lives.” - Marki Weiser, circa 1988

• Can no longer neglect macro-social aspects

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Dick Tracy ®&© 1999 Tribune Media

Services, Inc

Computing is Everywhere, ...

• From the desk-top to the set-top to the palm-top to the flip-top to the wrist-top…

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Paradigm: VR & 3D Interaction

• Create immersion by Realistic appearance, interaction,

behavior

• Draw on spatial memory, proprioception, kinesthesis, two-handed interaction

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Paradigm: Mobile Computing

• Devices used in a variety of contexts

• Employ sensors to understand how user is working with devices

• Wireless communication

• PDAs, Cell Phones, GPSs, etc etc etc

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What Next?

• What are the next paradigm shifts?• What are the next technical

innovations?

• Who knows? I don’t

• But, more importantly,

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Who Will…

• Drive future technical breakthroughs?

• Lead future paradigm shifts?

• It just might be YOU!

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The End