My Interface History

I am going to write a fair amount on these pages about user interface and design and so I thought a little context regarding my interface history might be helpful.

I have been writing software since I was 13. I am 43 now. Of course, I am not saying what I wrote at 13 is worth much discussion, but it does provide some context for my view of the history of user interface in the personal computer generation.

In my childhood, I wrote software that ran on my elementary school's DEC PDP 11/70 DEC LA 36 terminals, and then my TRS-80 model I and then the Commodore Pet, the Atari 800, the first IBM PC, and my college's Univac. But my fascination with user interface really came from my absolute fascination and love affair with the Macintosh. In February 1984 the Mac was introduced. At the time I was at the University of Pennsylvania, studying computer science in the school of electrical engineering.

During this time I became a Mac fanatic, and indisputably the Mac guru on campus. Honestly there was not much competition for this position, but I did manage to convince the powers that be that I, personally, in my dorm room, should have the schools *only* Lisa computer. This was an achievement because in 1984 the Lisa was the only way to program the Mac. It also cost a cool $10,000. In any case, I learned quite a few things very early on about the Mac. And yes, I definitely drank the Mac Kool-Aid.

Apple was fanatical about user interface. They had guidelines. They had "teachings". They thought deeply about user interface, and all of us in the community absorbed that ethos. Not that everyone was good at it, but everyone cared about it.

Eventually, I went on to write a best selling piece of software for the Mac called DayMaker. We won a few awards, and it was generally perceived as a substantial achievement from a user interface and design perspective. This was between 1988 and 1994. I loved the pioneering nature of software design during these times.

In my mind, the years between 1984 and 1994 were the decade of the User Interface.

In these 10 years we went from command lines and text menus, to bitmap displays, mice and laser printers, and the concept of WYSIWIG. More importantly, people like Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, and Bruce Tognazzini developed theories and language for talking about what was good and bad in user interface. User interface became a discipline.

In 1995 or somewhere thereabout, something great and something horrible happened. The Internet began its public ascendancy.

For the most part, this was indeed a great thing. But my thesis is that the Internet and the power of HTML and the web browser were so great that they fundamentally changed (in a bad way) the meaning of "user interface."

Next stop... the ascendancy of the page metaphor.