HCI History Part 1 of 2

1
HCI History Part 1 of 2

• Key people, events, ideas and
• paradigm 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, Melody
Moore Jackson, and Bruce Walker. This specific
presentation also borrows from James Landay and
Jason Hong at UC Berkeley. Comments directed to
foley_at_cc.gatech.edu are encouraged. Permission is
granted to use with acknowledgement for
non-profit purposes. Last revision January
2004.
2
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

3
Why study HCIs history?

• Understanding where youve come from can help a
  lot in figuring out where youre going - repeat
  positive lessons
• Those who dont know history are doomed to
  repeat it - avoid negative lessons
• Knowledge of an area implies an appreciation of
  its history

4
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

5
Howard Rheingold Tools for Thought

• History of interactive breakthroughs
• On-line at http//www.rheingold.com/texts/tft/
• One of several good sources

6
(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

7
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

8
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

9
More Paradigm Shifts

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

10
(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

11
Telling the Story

• Key Technological Advances
• Key Paradigm Shifts
• Key People and Events
• Interleaved in more or less chronological order

12
In the Very Beginning

• Digital computer grounded in ideas from 1700s
  1800s
• Technology became available in the 1940s and
  1950s

13
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.h
tm
14
Peripheral Storage - FASTRAND

• Sperry for Univac
• Magnetic Drum
• 2.25 tons
• 880 RPM
• About 90 megs

15
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/comput
  er/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

19
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

20
As We May Think
Picture from http//www.dynamicdiagrams.com/design
/memex/model.htmdownload
21
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?

22
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?

23
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

24
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
25
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

26
Innovator J. R. Licklider

• 1960 - Postulated man-computer symbiosis
• Couple human brainsand computing
  machinestightly to revolutionizeinformation
  handling

27
Technological Advance Interactive Graphics

• More suitable medium than paper - picture worth a
  thousand words
• Sutherlands SketchPad as landmark system
• Start of Direct Manipulation
• Computers used for visualizing and manipulating
  data

28
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

Need for HCI
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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

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The Ubiquitous Glass Teletype

• 24 x 80 characters
• Up to 19,200 bps (Wow - was big stuff!)

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

33
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.h
tml
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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.org
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Augmenting Human Intellect

• Advantages of chorded keyboards?
• Disadvantages?

Jason Hong / James Landay, UC Berkeley,
http//sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/MouseSitePg1.h
tml
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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.h
tml
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Augmenting Human Intellect
Early 3-button mouse
Chorded Keyboard
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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