Graphical user interface

The layers of a graphical interface based on window system.

The graphical user interface, also known as GUI (from English graphical user interface), is a computer program that acts as an interface user, using a set of images and graphic objects to represent the information and actions available in the interface. Its main use is to provide a simple visual environment to allow communication with the operating system of a machine or computer.

Usually the actions are performed by direct manipulation, to facilitate the interaction of the user with the computer. It arises as an evolution of the command line interfaces that were used to operate the first operating systems and is a fundamental piece in a graphical environment. Examples of graphical user interfaces include the Windows desktop environment, GNU/Linux's X-Window, or Mac OS X's Aqua.

In the context of the human-computer interaction process, the graphical user interface is the technological artifact of an interactive system that enables, through the use and representation of visual language, a friendly interaction with a computer system.

User interface and interaction design

The graphical user interface is presented on the computer screen. It is the result of the processed entry of the user and usually the main interface for man-machine interaction. In popular user touch interfaces on small mobile devices there is a visual output overlap with visual input.

Designing the visual composition and temporal behavior of a GUI is an important part of application programming in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. Its goal is to improve the efficiency and usability of the underlying logical design of a stored program, a design discipline called usability. Various user-centered design methods are used to ensure that the visual language introduced into the design is well-suited to the tasks.

The visible features of an application's graphical interface are sometimes called chrome or GUI. Users typically interact with information through visual manipulation of widgets that allow appropriate interactions for the type of data they have. Widgets in a well-designed interface are selected to support the actions necessary to achieve the user's goals. A Model-View-Controller allows for flexible structures in which the interface is independent of and indirectly linked to the functions of the application, so that the GUI can be easily customized. This allows users to select or design other skins at will and makes it easier for the designer to change the interface as user needs evolve. Good user interface design is more about the users and less about the system architecture. Large widgets, such as windows, typically provide a frame or container for the main content of your presentation, such as a web page, email message, or drawing. The smaller ones often act as a user input tool.

A GUI can be designed for the requirements of a vertical market as application-specific graphical user interfaces. Some examples include automated teller machines (ATMs), point-of-sale (POS) displays in restaurants, self-checkout systems used in retail stores, for airline tickets and automatic check-in, information kiosks in a public space, such as a train station or a museum, and monitors or control screens in an embedded industrial application using a real-time operating system (RTOS).

Mobile phones and handheld game systems also use the application-specific touch screen GUI. Newer cars use the GUI in their navigation systems and media centers, or combinations of navigation media centers.

History

Forerunners

Researchers at Stanford Research Institute led by Douglas Engelbart developed a mouse-driven text-mode hyperlink interface, which they also invented. This concept was expanded and transferred to the graphical environment by researchers at Xerox PARC in the US city of Palo Alto. The environment was called PARC User Interface and in it the concepts of windows, check box, radio buttons, menus and mouse pointer were defined. The interface was commercially implemented on the Xerox Star 8010 computer.

Xerox Tall

The Xerox Alto, developed at Xerox PARC in 1973, was one of the first personal computers, as well as the first to use the desktop metaphor and a graphical user interface.

Xerox Star 8010

The Xerox Star Workstation, officially known as the 8010 Star Information System, was introduced by the Xerox Corporation in 1981. It was the first commercial system to incorporate several technologies that have become commonplace in personal computers today, including display with bitmaps instead of just text, a graphical user interface based on windows, icons, folders, mouse, Ethernet network, file servers, print and mail servers electronic.

Apple Lisa, Macintosh, Apple II GS.

After a visit to Xerox PARC in 1979, the Apple team headed by Jef Raskin concentrated on designing a graphics environment for its new 16-bit generation, which would be embodied in the Apple Lisa in 1983. That graphics system is ported to the successor to the Apple II, the Apple II GS. A second team works on the Apple Macintosh which will see the light of day in 1984 with an improved version of the Lisa graphical environment ("we tried to make a computer as simple to handle as a toaster"). From that moment on, the Mac will reign as the usability paradigm of a graphical environment; Despite the fact that the operating system undergoes radical changes underneath, non-advanced users are not aware of it and do not suffer from the problems of other platforms.

Workbench

Workbench is the name given by Commodore to the graphical interface of AmigaOS, the operating system of the Commodore Amiga released in 1985. Unlike the most popular systems (GEM, Mac OS, MS Windows...) it is a true workbench multitasking only rivaled by the X Window System interface of the different flavors of Unix. The most repeated phrase by a friend is: "to slaughter Martians, format a floppy disk and send or receive a Fax all at once and without crashing, you need a 386 with a hard drive, 16 MB of RAM and OS/2; an Amiga 500 with a floppy disk and only its base memory (512KB RAM and 512KB ROM) is capable of all that.” Although very popular due to the spectacular (by then) graphics of the machine and its large roster of video games, the negligence of its successive owners will be the main cause of its ending up restricted to only the Amiga platform.

GEOS

For the Commodore 64 and its successor the Commodore 128, the GEOS graphical environment was developed in 1986. This environment was ported to the IBM PC, used on various PDAs, and used by Nokia as the basis of its current operating system.

GEM

GEM (Graphical Environment Manager) is a GUI designed by Digital Research in 1985 to run on various IBM PC and compatible command-line operating systems: it runs on both IBM DOS/MS-DOS and CP/M 86. Its maximum popularity on the PC comes from the Amstrad PC1512 and the Amstrad PC1640, the clones that broke the price barrier in Europe by popularizing the PC, until then mostly relegated to offices. Although it is incorporated into its first generation of notebooks and the Sinclair PC200, it will be replaced in the next generation of Amstrad PCs by Microsoft Windows 2.xx. On the PC it will live a second youth by coming standard with DR-DOS such as TaskMax.

But it will be in the Atari ST and its successors where it will become the official graphical environment of the platform, reaching great popularity, both for being in principle a cheap alternative to the MAC in desktop publishing, and for gaining the market niche of the professional music.

Apple and Microsoft

In 1982, Apple had started as a small business made up of two employees, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, and had grown into a $300 million company. In 1983, it had already become a company of 1000 million dollars, the same value as IBM.

In 1985, Microsoft released Windows 1.0, a graphical environment for IBM-compatible PC computers, with many similarities to the Mac OS. Apple's response to the introduction of the Windows operating system was to file a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against Microsoft for copyright infringement.

In 1987 IBM was forced to enter the market of personal computers with a graphical environment with its IBM Personal System/2 (PS/2) model, allying itself with Bill Gates (Microsoft), who had developed OS/2. The graphical interface of this operating system was very similar to that of Apple. OS/2 did not become the new industry standard, mainly due to a conflict of interest between IBM and Microsoft.

The appearance of cloned IBM computers made the Windows system popular, which reduced the market for Apple. This recovered in the late 1990s by launching new products.

A sure sign of Apple's success was the appearance of similar products: A small company called Nutek Computers Inc. announced that it was developing a Macintosh-compatible computer.

In 1991, Apple CEO John Sculley revealed that the company was considering competing against Microsoft in the software arena by selling its operating system to third parties. Apple revealed that it was in talks with its old rival, IBM, aimed at sharing technologies. They decided to create a joint venture to develop an advanced operating system that they would both use on their new machines and license to third parties. This plan presented a direct challenge to Microsoft.

Microsoft manages to make Windows the most widely used operating system in the world, leaving Apple in second place.

Types of graphical user interfaces

Evolution of user interfaces.
CLI (Command line interface): Command line interface
GUI (Graphical user interface): Graphical user interface
NUI (Natural user interface): Natural user interface

The GUI and ZUI

The types of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) found in computer games, and advanced virtual reality-based GUIs, are often used in research. Many research groups in North America and Europe are currently working on the Zooming User Interface or ZUI (Zooming User Interface), which is a logical advancement of GUIs, mixing 3D with 2D. It could be expressed as “2 and a half dimensions in one-dimensional vector objects”.

Touch Screen User Interface

Some GUIs are designed to meet the rigorous requirements of vertical markets. These are known as the User-specific GUIs. An example of a GUI for specific use is the now familiar touch screen or touchscreen (screen that when touched performs mouse commands in software). It is currently implemented in many restaurants and self-service stores around the world. Pioneered by Gene Mosher on the Atari ST computer in 1986, the use he specified in touch screen GUIs has spearheaded a worldwide, innovative revolution in computer use across the food and beverage industries, and in retail sales.

Other examples of GUIs of specific use, related to the touch screen are ATMs, information kiosks and monitoring and control screens in industrial uses, which employ a real-time operating system (RTOS). Mobile phones and gaming systems or consoles also use touch screens. Furthermore, home automation is not possible without a good user interface, or GUI.

Natural User Interface (NUI)

Natural NUIs are those in which you interact with a system, application, etc., without using input devices such as mouse, keyboard, stylus, etc. Instead of these, the hands or fingertips are used.

Language

It is common to be able to change the language of the user interface.

3D graphical user interface

Many environments and games use 3D graphics methods to project 3D graphical user interface objects onto the screen. The use of 3D graphics has become increasingly common in major operating systems (for example, Windows Aero, and Aqua (MacOS)) to create attractive interfaces, called eye candy, or for functional purposes that are only possible using all three. dimensions. For example, user switching is represented by flipping a cube with faces representing each user's workspace, and window management is represented by a Rolodex-style flip mechanism in Windows Vista (see Windows Flip 3D). In both cases, the operating system transforms the windows on the fly while continuing to update the content of the windows.

Zooming user interface (ZUI) is a related technology that promises to deliver the rendering advantages of 3D environments without the usability drawbacks of orientation issues and hidden objects. In 2006, Hillcrest Labs introduced the first ZUI for television. Other innovations include Sun's Project Looking Glass, Metisse, which was similar to Project Looking Glass, BumpTop, in which users can manipulate documents and windows with realistic motion and as if they were physical documents, Croquet OS, which is built for collaboration, and compositing window managers like Enlightenment and Compiz. Augmented reality and virtual reality also make use of 3D graphical user interface elements.