A brief history of human-computer interaction technology

Abstract

Figure 1 shows the time span for some of the technologies discussed in this article. including when they were introduced. Of course, a deeper analysis would reveal signifi-cant interaction among the university, corpo-rate research, and commercial activity lines. It is important to appreciate that years of research are involved in creating and making these technologies ready for widespread use. The same will be true for the HCI technolo-gies currently being developed that will pro-vide the interfaces of tomorrow. Clearly it is impossible to list every system and source in a paper of this scope, but I have tried to represent the earliest and most influ-ential systems. Further information can be found in other surveys of HCI topics (see, for example, [1, 11, 36, 41]). Another useful resource is the video All The Widgets, which shows the historical progression of a number of user interface ideas [27]. The technologies discussed in this paper include fundamental interaction styles such as direct manipulation, the mouse pointing device, and windows; several important kinds of application areas, such as drawing, text editing, and spreadsheets; the technologies that will likely have the biggest impact on interfaces of the future, such as gesture recog-nition, multimedia, and three-dimensionality; and the technologies used to create interfaces using the other technologies, such as user interface management systems, toolkits, and interface builders.