GUI and Society(Part 1): Desktop UI
From the evolution of Graphic User Interface to take a glance of the living society from 1980 until now
Dynamics between Technologies and Society
Technologies and culture are two-way relationships. Human beings invent new technologies to deal with problems in daily life, while technologies change our life in the same time, including the way of thinking, markets and pop culture etc.
And now, we are in 21st Century, I called it the "screen society". There is no doubt that computers, smart phones, wearable devices and even virtual reality have became and " is becoming" a part of our lives and change our society greatly. However, the common element among these mediums is—Graphic User Interfaces (GUI).
In this series of blog, we are going to take a glance of the evolution of GUI, to see whether we can find the track of social change during these decades.
Before We Start : what is Graphic User Interfaces?
Graphic User Interface is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and visual indicators such as secondary notation, instead of test- based user interfaces, typed command labels or text navigation. — Wikipedia
Text-based User Interfaces VS. Graphic User interfaces
Look at the left side is the text-based interface, which we can send orders to control system directly. Therefore, this kind of interface is difficult to control and only the people who learned programming can use it.
On the other hand, the right side presents the graphic user interface, which we've already been so familiar with nowadays. It composed by WIMP elements which developed by researchers in 1970s. The WIMP elements referred to Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers. With these elements, it makes users to control electronic devices more easily and intuitively.
A Glance of Living Society and Technogies
Before 1980, paper is the main medium. people do all works on the papers either by hand writing or using telegraph.
As the first personal computer (PC) with successful GUI came on stage, computers turned easier to access and people start to use it as a tool to assist their lives. Since then, medium shifted from paper to computer and become our part of life, even more, "dominate" our lives.
Until 2007, another new medium—smart phones came out and it also follow the same model as computer from a tool to assist our life and became a part of our life as well. Finally, in 2006, the year of Virtual Reality (VR), bring new medium to human's society again and is still on developing.
In part 1, we will focus on the evolution of Desktop GUI, mobile and VR user interfaces will be discussed in upcoming blogs.
1980s: Computer GUI
In 1984, Steve Jobs revealed the first PC with successful GUI interfaces which called " Macintosh" and opened the generation of computer. People are able to buy the PC with affordable prices and easy to learn and use it.
So when we look at the GUI in 1984, which adopted by Macintosh, the elements included documents, trash cans, emails and calculation. Also, it's the first computer that people can duplicate documents by dragging it to the location that users want. And this dragging action has changed human behaviors by using electronic devices until now. From the GUI we can clearly see that computer was treated as a tool to assist people to deal with paper works during these time.
Until 1989, the GUI of NeXTSTEP, the CD player icon came out. 5 years after the first computers revealed, people began not only use it to replace paper works but also develop some new domestic works such as computer enthusiasts use it to catalogue record collections or balance household budgets etc.
1980s: A brave New World
If you don’t have computers or you cannot use it, you will be left behind by the world.
Because of Macintosh, people aware of the importance of computers and is crazy about this amazing creatures.
Personal Computers reveal the wonders of information technologies to the masses, and bring about the revolution in home, schools and workplaces. — BBC World Histories Magazine
It makes people can access the information more easily and boost a trend of learning computer, which carried out other domestic chores. But as we see on the GUI, the computers was still only be taken as "a tool" to assist human beings in 1980s. However, this change on 1990s due to the invention of W3C — the internet age was coming.
1990s: Computer GUI, Internet and Websites
In 1994, the main web inventor, Tim Berners-Lee formed the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and open a new wonder world of computers.
Look at the GUI on windows 95, "the Internet tools" showed on the interfaces, this means the age of the internet was coming.
Besides, IE browser V.1 published on 1995 to be as an agency to link people to the borderless world.Because of the common use of the Internet, people can assess more information that they need than before. As the result, in order to deal with these bunch of demand of the information, “Search Engine Companies” are established, such as Yahoo! was founded in 1995 and Google was in 1998.
Since then, people started to focus on websites and develop more and more function to deal with people’s problems in daily life.Thus, when we go through Yahoo! homepage from 1996-2017, we can realize the trace how internet influence our daily life gradually.
1990s: The Age of Internet
The 90’s saw the growth of the World Wide Web and the Personal Computer PC, In 1991 when the WWW first became available for the public it grew dramatically with users multiplying at the rate of about 3500 times a year , by the year 2000 there were an estimated 295 million users on the Internet. This in turn caused a continuing revolution in communication and business.
A Little Thought
From the evolution of Graphic User Interfaces, more specifically the evolution of GUI contents, we can see the change of human society and relationship between technologies — from tool to a part of life and dominating our life eventually.
I feel the reason why GUI nowadays fascinates so many designers is not simply because it is a hot cake, but also when every designer makes these GUIs as a medium for solving users' problem in daily life, in some way, GUI turns into a media recording the history of social change. It is just like a history book, reflecting the pop culture, what people care about, important events and their problems daily in that years.
Though this article is only a shallow glance of relationship between GUI and society and still have a lot need to be improved. Hope it can be an inspiration of thinking about 'User Interfaces' from different aspects. I would be very happy to discuss and share more with others if someone are interested in ☺️.
