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The User Interface has been evolving for many years. It started with room-sized computers, command line and text based interfaces controlled by simple keyboards which were then revolutionized when the first mouse and GUI were created. It kept evolving throughout the years and eventually got to the stage where the GUI is part of our everyday lives. Let’s have a look at some moments in the history of graphical user interface which have been influencing modern design and work of all those creative minds out there.
Xerox Alto Computer
The first GUI was created by researchers at Xerox, specifically Alan Kay in the early 70s. Those guys were the first ones to use a GUI as the primary interface in a computer. Although the Alto personal computer was not really commercially available, several thousand computers were built and widely used by researches and universities. The Alto’s user interface had influenced the design of the UI in 70s and 80s and especially companies like Apple, Microsoft or Sun Microsystems.
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Lisa and Macintosh
In the late 70s Apple started working on their own graphical user interface which was heavily influenced by Xerox’s approach. Apple’s team even included the former members of Xerox’s team. Lisa Computer running Lisa OS was released in 1983 but it wasn’t really commercially successful. A year later, Apple introduced the original Macintosh running Mac OS System 1 which was the first commercially successful operating system featuring GUI.
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The GUI had many features found in modern operating systems including the WIMP concept (windows, icons, menus, and pointer), multi-panel window interface, desktop with icons, drag-able windows, etc. Steve Job’s intentions were to bring computers to masses and make them fun, friendly, and easy to use. One of the ways of doing so was to create an interface that was somehow familiar to users, this was when the concept of skeuomorphism came to be quite handy. For example, they came up with a concept for desktop that resembled a physical desk, files looked like pieces of paper, file directories like folders and a trash can was used to store deleted data.
Arthur OS
Apple and Microsoft were among the first ones to bring GUI to the masses but there were also quite a few smaller companies that had been exploring different concepts and working on GUI. A British company called Acorn came up with an idea of a task bar showing all active applications, an idea that would find its way into major operating systems many years later.
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Windows 3.0
About the time of Windows 3.0, Microsoft finally realised that the GUI was catching on. Functionally, Windows 3.0 wasn’t too different from Windows 2.0 but it had significantly improved its user interface with a much fancier look and feel, featuring system-wide support for 16 colours, new icons, and a 3D look for some menus. Refining the design proved to be a good move for Microsoft as Windows 3.0 was a huge commercial success for the company selling around 10 million copies within two years.
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Next and their NeXTSTEP OS
Some very interesting GUI ideas and concept came from the company called NeXT which was founded by Steve Jobs after leaving Apple. NeXTSTEP OS introduced the idea of the Dock; 3D look on the windows, icons, menus, widgets; large full-colour icons; system-wide drag and drop and many other features that are still being used in modern operating systems.
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Windows 95
In 1995 Microsoft released a massive upgrade called Windows 95. Windows 95 came with a completely redesigned user interface that included a modern and sophisticated design and a unified GUI. It also featured a brand new UI element called the “Task bar” with a now famous ‘Start’ button which is still present in Windows, 20 years later.
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Most early UIs just minimised the open programs to icons on the desktop where they could be lost amongst other icons or covered by all open windows. The task bar solved this issue by putting all open programs into one prominent place. Window 95 was also the first Windows version with a small ‘close’ button in every window.
Apple Mac OS X
In January 2000, Apple announced a new look for their operating system called Aqua. The GUI was designed to reflect Apple’s brand new colourful iMacs and iBooks which looked great with Aqua’s bright buttons and colourful window controls. Aqua incorporated colour, depth, translucence, and textures into something that was visually attractive and was meant to make people fall in love with their computer.
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Mac OS X 10.0 also included two notable features, the colourful control buttons in the top left corner of applications, and the legendary Dock.
In terms of visuals the Aqua UI was a huge step forward. Microsoft’s Windows 98 felt very bleak and dated compared to this new Apple GUI. It also brought elements that had been influencing web and UI designer over the next years.
Web 2.0
Web 2.0 started evolving in early 2000 with its design being partially inspired by Apple’s Aqua design. Drop shadows, huge glassy buttons, gradients, glares and shiny speech bubbles are the elements which most of us associate with Web 2.0.
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Most people were new to the whole concept of internet and navigating on the web sites, thus the designers assumed there was a need to educate users on how to use these websites. That’s pretty much the reason why we saw large text, oversized buttons, colourful graphics, speech bubbles and flashy animations everywhere throughout the web. Not to forget the buttons begging to attract user’s attention by using labels such as “click me”,cheap flash animations and very bright colours.
iPhone, iOS and Skeuomorphism
Apple brought many innovations to the market when they introduced the original iPhone in 2007. iPhone pretty much redefined the word smartphone and brought computers into the hands of a billion people. A large touch screen, multi-touch capability, gesture based user interface, the concept of apps and AppStore and incorporating an accelerometer/ gyroscope are just a few ways in which the iPhone changed the user experience of mobile devices.
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In terms of actual visual design, iOS heavily popularised a design principle called Skeuomorphism in which design cues are taken from the physical word. For example, iBook app in iOS resembled a real book shelf. Steve Jobs loved Skeuomorphism as he believed that it makes software easier for the average person to use — more approachable and immediately familiar. This design principle found its way onto many different platforms and has been widely used by almost every designer at some point.
Zune
Zune was the Microsoft answer to Apple’s iPod. It ended up being a mostly unsuccessful commercial product, later being discontinued. But there’s one thing about Zune that should be remembered and that is its user interface.
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In the mid noughties, Microsoft started experimenting with the design language based on the principles of Swiss design. Some early glimpses of this style could be seen in Windows Media Centre, Encarta and later in Zune, with a user interface that was clearly designed to focus on clean typography and less on UI Chrome.
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Metro Design aka Modern Design
Zune’s design language kept evolving throughout the years and was carried over to Windows Phone 7 which was Microsoft’s answer to iOS and Android. This new design language called Metro UI placed emphasis on actual content instead of UI chrome, good typography and the motion.
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“Do more with less”, “Content over chrome”, “Fast and fluid”, “Authentically digital” were among the key design principles of this new design language, the design language that started the trend of so-called “flat design.” Metro UI now known as Modern design became Microsoft’s unified design language that extends into Microsoft’s entire product portfolio and it later became an inspiration for companies like Apple and Google when they were defining their visual designs.
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iOS 7
Apple announced it’s completely redesigned iOS update in mid-2013 which brought a major overhaul of the user interface. Apple completely ditched the concept of Skeuomorphism and went for a flat design approach featuring refined typography (Helvetica everywhere), bright neon colours, translucency, graphically inconsistent iconography, UI layering, parallax animations driven by gyroscope, etc.
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Image credit: Apple
Apple received mixed reviews from both general public and the designers, most of them criticising some usability flaws and design inconsistencies. But iOS 7 managed to popularise flat design even more and influence many UI designers/ app developers.
Material design
Google struggled to bring a consistent design direction to Android for years. Especially after the rise of flat design, there really was a need for a major design overhaul. The design overhaul which was announced in mid-2014 and Google called it Material design.
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Google also really aimed to recreate physical reality in the digital world, emphasising that elements, transitions, and animations should appear as in real life. They state that motion should always be meaningful, transitions efficient yet coherent, and UI’s feedback subtle yet very clear.
Material design brought a unified visual style to all Google’s products and it’s been inspiring many designers/ developers to create apps following their design guidelines.What’s next?
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Lastly, let’s mention something that is yet to truly influence the GUI – wearables. Wearables are yet to become commercially successful and when they do, they might change the graphical user interface as we know it. They are likely to start the transformation from graphical user interface to truly natural user interface, removing all the unnecessary UI elements or even making them invisible.
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Wearables have a potential to change how we interact with the technology and make technology feel more human-centric. As well as progress technology to the point where it does not really look like technology anymore and it just fades into the background seamlessly integrating with our every-day lives. But this is the future and these are just my predictions, predictions which we will be going through in my next article.