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HCI History – Part 1 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: January 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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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 forget the past are condemned to repeat it” (Santayana)- avoid negative lessons

• Knowledge of an area implies an appreciation of its history

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What are Paradigms

• Predominant theoretical frameworks or scientific world views e.g., Aristotelian, Newtonian, Einsteinian

(relativistic) paradigms in physics• Understanding HCI history is largely

about understanding a series of paradigm shifts Not all listed here are necessarily “paradigm”

shifts, but are at least candidates History will judge which are true shifts

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Howard Rheingold – Tools for Thought

• History of interactive breakthroughs On-line at http://

www.rheingold.com/texts/tft/

• One of several good sources

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(Some of the) Key Technological Advances

• Starting point Computing in 1945 Batch processing

• Interactive graphics systems• Time sharing computers

One computer to many people

• Internet

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More Key Technological Advances

• The desk top / personal computer One computer to one person

• Inexpensive, low-power chips Many computers to one person

• Wireless connectivity

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Paradigm Shifts – How We Use Computers

• Interactive Computing - time sharing, Basic

• WIMP Interfaces Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointing Direct Manipulation Metaphors

• Hypertext / WWW• Computers for person-to-person

communications – not just for computing Email, CSCW

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More Paradigm Shifts

• Multimodal interfaces• Immersive (VR) interfaces• Ubiquitous computing• Mobile computing

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(Some of the) Key People and Events

• People Vannevar Bush Doug Engelbart Ivan Sutherland J. R. (Lick) Licklider Alan Kay Ted Nelson Nicholas Negroponte Mark Weiser Jaron Lanier

• Events Founding of Xerox

PARC Lisa / Macintosh

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Telling the Story

• Key Technological Advances• Key Paradigm Shifts• Key People and Events

• Interleaved in more or less chronological order

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In the Very Beginning

• Digital computer grounded in ideas from 1700’s & 1800’s

• Technology became available in the 1940’s and 1950’s

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In the Beginning –Computing in 1945

• Harvard Mark I• 55 feet long, 8 feet high, 5 tons

Jason Hong / James Landay, UC Berkeley,

Picture from http://piano.dsi.uminho.pt

/museuv/indexmark.htm

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Context - Computing in 1945

• Ballistics calculations

• Physical switches (before microprocessor)

• Paper tape • Simple arithmetic &

fixed calculations (before programs)

• 3 seconds to multiply

Jason Hong / James Landay, UC Berkeley, Picture from http://www.gmcc.ab.ca/~supy/

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Context - Computing in 1945

• First computer bug (Harvard Mark II)

• Adm. Grace Murray Hopper Cobol

Jason Hong / James Landay, UC Berkeley

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Innovator: Vannevar Bush

• “As We May Think” - 1945 Atlantic Monthly “…publication has been extended far beyond our

present ability to make real use of the record.”• Postulated Memex device

Stores all records/articles/communications Items retrieved by indexing, keywords, cross

references (now called hyperlinks) (Envisioned as microfilm, not computer)

• Interactive and nonlinear components are key• http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/

computer/bushf.htm

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More About Vannevar Bush

• Name rhymes with "Beaver"• MIT faculty member• Coordinated WWII effort

with 6000 US scientists• Social contract for science

federal government funds universities universities do basic research research helps economy & national defense

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“As We May Think”

• Futuristic inventions / trends Wearable cameras for photographic

records Encyclopedia Britanica for a nickel Automatic transcripts of speech Memex, Trails of discovery Direct capture of nerve impulses

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As We May Think

• Very optimistic about future Technology could help society Technology could manage flood of info

• Bush – one of most informed people of his time Look at trends, guess where we're going

• If you read it Which feature is your favorite? Why? Which feature is your least favorite? Why? What was he right about? Wrong about?

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As We May Think

• Some have come true Increased specialization Flood of information Faster / Cheaper / Smaller / More reliable

• Some he missed or we are still waiting Microphotography? Digital technologies? Non-science / Non-office apps? Memex?

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As We May Think

• Not so much predicting future as "inventing it" by publishing article hypertext wearable memory aid

• Use technology to augment human intellectual abilities

• New kinds of technology lead to new kinds of human/machine & human/human interaction

• Be aware that science/engineering can impact society

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Context - Computing in 1960s

• Transistor (1948)• ARPA (1958)• Timesharing (1950s) • Terminals and keyboards

• Computers still primarily for scientists and engineers

Vacuum Tube

Jason Hong / James Landay, UC Berkeley

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Batch Processing

• Computer had one task, performed sequentially

• No “interaction” between operator and computer after starting the run

• Punch cards, tapes for input

• Serial operations

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Innovator: J. R. Licklider

• 1960 - Postulated “man-computer symbiosis”

• Couple human brainsand computing machinestightly to revolutionizeinformation handling

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Technological Advance: Interactive Graphics

• More suitable medium than paper - picture worth a thousand words

• Sutherland’s SketchPad as landmark system

• Start of Direct Manipulation• Computers used for visualizing and

manipulating data

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Innovator: Ivan Sutherland

• SketchPad - 1963 PhD thesis at MIT Hierarchy - pictures & subpictures Master picture with instances (ie, OOP) Constraints Icons Copying Light pen input device Recursive operations

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Technological Advance / Paradigm Shift: Time Sharing

• (Mid 1960s) • Command line - teletypes, then “glass teletypes”• Computers still too expensive for individuals

timesharing increased accessibility interactive systems, not jobs text processing, editing email, shared file system

* There was an unrecognized need for HCI in the design of programming languages

NeedforHCI*

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The Ubiquitous ASR 33 Teletype

• ASR: Automatic Send / Receive

• Save programs on punched paper tape

• The first direct human-computer interface experience for many in the 1960s

• About 10 characters per second - 110 bps

The Ubiquitous Glass Teletype

Source: http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/vt100.html

• 24 x 80 characters

• Up to 19,200 bps (Wow - was big stuff!)

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Innovator: Douglas Englebart

• Landmark system/demo: Hierarchical hypertext, multimedia,

mouse, high-res display, windows, shared files, electronic messaging,CSCW, teleconferencing, ...

Invented the mouse

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Augmenting Human Intellect

• 1968 Fall Joint Computer Conference (SF)• Video of NLS (oNLine System)• All this took place before

Unix and C (1970s) ARPAnet (1969) & later Internet

http://sloan.stanford.edu/

MouseSite/MouseSitePg1.html

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About Doug Engelbart

• Graduate of Berkeley (EE '55) "bi-stable gaseous plasma digital devices"

• Stanford Research Institute (SRI) Augmentation Research Center

• 1962 Paper "Conceptual Model for Augmenting Human Intellect" Complexity of problems increasing Need better ways of solving problems

Picture from www.bootstrap.o

rg

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Engelbart NLS Video

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Augmenting Human Intellect

• Advantages of chorded keyboards?

• Disadvantages?Jason Hong / James Landay, UC Berkeley, http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/MouseSitePg1.html

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Augmenting Human Intellect

“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.”http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/MouseSitePg1.html

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Augmenting Human Intellect

ChordedKeyboard

Early3-buttonmouse

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Augmenting Human Intellect

• Discussion, if you watched the video• What did we just see?

Interaction devices Interaction styles Applications

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Augmenting Human Intellect

• First mouse• First hypertext• First word

processing• First 2D editing and

windows• First document

version control

First groupware (shared screen teleconferencing)

First context-sensitive help

First distributed client-server

Many, many more!

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Augmentation not Automation

"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."

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Augmenting Human Intellect

• Example: Roman Numerals vs Arabic• What is XCI + III?• Now what is XCI x III?• What is 91 * 3?• New kinds of artifacts, languages,

methodologies, and training can enable us to do things we couldn't do before or simplify what we already do

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End of Part 1 of 2

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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

• 1997 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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Paradigm/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