A Brief History Of User Interfaces.

If you were to google the terms “User Interface”, this would come up - 

“The means by which the user and a computer system interact, in particular the use of input devices and software.”

Now although this is true in the context the words User Interfaces is used nowadays. The basic meaning of user interface, according to my humble self, is the point of contact between a human and a tool that he wishes to use. 

As I get more and more into the world of user interface as a self taught UI designer, I have also been fascinated with how these user interfaces came to be. Like have you ever wondered why don’t keyboards have keys in alphabetical order? Who started using the WASD keys in gameplay, and why not any other key? Well, Those aren't the questions I will be answering in the blog post, but I will be taking a look into user interfaces and their relationships with humans.

So User Interfaces can be summarized in three generations, the Tools age, The Machine age, and the Computer age. So let’s start with...

If we go back, User interface really started when there was something to use, like tools. In the very early ages of modern humans, we started to use sticks and stones to manipulate the environment around us to make it more habitable. 

Not only were these tools used for everyday tasks like hunting, but this was the time humans started to use visual communication. Early humans used these tools to communicate by creating Hieroglyphs. 

Carvings that are thousands of years old are found around the world, which is evidence that humans were trying to communicate with each other using tools, and they were interfacing with these tools at the very primitive level, using the handles of those tools themselves. 

Interestingly, some tools had such a good User Interface that they are still being used very close to their original form, like a hammer or a knife. 

Evidence that a good UI can last the test of time. 

After thousands of years of using these basic tools, as human population became more civilized, the tools too became more complicated. This gave rise to machines.

These were concoctions that would have multiple parts and were used to accomplish tasks that were otherwise impossible. 

Within these machines the hardware itself was the interface. From levers and ropes in the early machinery to knobs and buttons in the late 17th and 18th century, the way humans would interact with these machines changed in drastic ways. 

Eventually the machines got so complicated that it was not feasible to have a separate button for every function. This meant, there was a need for something that would allow us to use the same buttons/keys for different functions depending on the situation. This landed us in…

With the invention of computers, the whole game changed. Now even with a limited interface a multitude of tasks could be accomplished. The keys on a computer could be remapped on the go depending on the situation at hand. 

First computers used the keyboard(design of which was borrowed from the typewriter) and a screen as a type of interface where programs could be written to help with the different processes. This interface worked well for a while but to use it you had to have a significant knowledge of the inner workings of a computer. 

This interface was a challenge for the mass adoption of the computer as an everyday use device. And this challenge gave birth to the Graphical User Interface (GUI). Now you did not have to write code to interact with the computer but the software would do it for you and show you only the things that were necessary to see. 

Now the computer had a screen and a GUI, but the only way to interact with it was with a keyboard which was still cumbersome. Enter “The Mouse”. 

A pointing device that was revolutionary to the UI design principles. Now you could go from one corner of the screen to the other without clicking the keyboard a bunch of times. It was more efficient, and more user friendly. 

Even today, most desktop computers use this combination of interfaces. But then came another revolution that no one had expected. 

How about if you could interact directly with the screen without using a second device? This fundamental question and the development of touchscreens is the reason that most of the world now uses their smartphones as their primary computer. 

You can just touch what you want to interact with and boom, it’s there. With touchscreen devices getting more and more powerful, it is quite possible we can see the keyboard and mouse disappear from our surroundings.  

As VUIs or Voice User Interfaces becoming more and more popular with Google’s Assistance or Amazon’s Alexa using entirely voice based interfaces, there might be another revolution on the horizon. 

But I am sure, humans will find a way to do highly complicated things, with increased easability, as we have done for the entirety of our existence.