History of HCI

1
History of HCI

• Ideas from 1700s 1800s
• Technology became available in the 1940s and
  1950s

2
Vannevar Bush

• As We May Think - 1945 Atlantic
  Monthlypublication has been extended far
  beyond our present ability to make real use of
  the record.

3
Bush

• Postulated Memex device
• Can store all records/articles/communications
• Large memory
• Items retrieved by indexing, keywords, cross
  references
• Can make a trail of links through material
• etc.
• Envisioned as microfilm, not computer

4
J.R. Licklider

• 1960 - Postulated man-computer symbiosis
• Couple human brains and computing machines
  tightly to revolutionize information handling

5
Vision/Goals

• Immed Intermed Long-term

6
Mid 1960s

• Computers too expensive for individuals -gt
  timesharing
• increased accessibility
• interactive systems, not jobs
• text processing, editing
• email, shared file system

7
Ivan Sutherland

• SketchPad - 63 PhD thesis at MIT
• Hierarchy - pictures subpictures
• Master picture with instances
• Constraints
• Icons
• Copying
• Light pen as input device
• Recursive operations

8
Douglas Engelbart

• Landmark system/demo
• hierarchical hypertext, multimedia, mouse,
  high-res display, windows, shared files,
  electronic messaging, CSCW, teleconferencing, ...

9
Alan Kay

• Dynabook - Notebook sized computer loaded with
  multimedia and can store everything

10
Ted Nelson

• Computers can help people, not just business
• Coined term hypertext

11
Nicholas Negroponte

• MIT machine architecture AI group 69-80s
• Ideas
• wall-sized displays, video disks, AI in
  interfaces (agents), speech recognition,
  multimedia with hypertext

12
Personal Computers

• 70s IBM PC

13
PCs with GUIs

• Xerox PARC - mid 1970s
• Alto

14
Xerox Star - 81

• First commercial PC designed for business
  professionals
• First system based on usability engineering

15
Star

• Commercial flop
• 15k cost
• closed architecture
• lacking key functionality (spreadsheet)

16
Apple Lisa - 82

• Based on ideas of Star
• More personal rather than office tool
• Failure

17
Apple Macintosh - 84

• Aggressive pricing - 2500
• Not trailblazer, smart copier
• Good interface guidelines
• 3rd party applications
• High quality graphics and laser printer

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Homework 1

• Pick an HCI topic -gt create a web resource
• Internet search
• HCI resources page
• Talk to me or Colleen

19
Group Project

• Design and evaluate an interface
• 0
• 1
• 2
• 3

20
Project Teams

• 3-4 people (diverse is best!)
• Consider schedules
• Cool name

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Project Topics

• Set of possibilities
• Max of 2 teams per topic
• First-come, first-served
• By next Thursday
• Real client

22
Special Dates

• Feb 16 in class - Poster session
• March 10, Wednesday 6-9pm
• Project presentations