Portraying User Interface History
- Anker Helms Jørgensen
Research Output:
Conference Article in Proceeding or Book/Report chapter
Article in proceedings
Peer-reviewPublication Information
Output type
Research Output:
Conference Article in Proceeding or Book/Report chapter
Article in proceedings
Peer-reviewOriginal language
EnglishPages from-to (Number of pages)
Pages 9-12 (4 pages)Publication milestones
- Published - 2008
Publication status
Published - 2008
Publisher
Aalborg Universitetsforlag, DenmarkHost publication title
Proceedings of the Eighth Danish Human-Computer Interaction Research Symposium, 20th November 2008Abstract
The user interface is coming of age. Papers adressing UI history have appeared in fair amounts in the last 25 years. Most of them address particular aspects such as an innovative interface paradigm or the contribution of a visionary or a research lab. Contrasting this, papers addressing UI history at large have been sparse. However, a small spate of publications appeared recently, so a reasonable number of papers are available. Hence this work-in-progress paints a portrait of the current history of user interfaces at large. The paper first describes a theoretical framework recruited from history. Next the paper analyses a selected sample of papers on UI history at large. The analysis shows that the current state-of-art is featured by three aspects: Firstly internalism, in that the papers adress the technologies in their own right with little contextualization, secondly whiggism in that they largely address prevailing UI technologies, and thirdly history from above in that they focus on the great deeds of the visionaries. The paper then compares this state-of-art in UI history to the much more mature fields history of computing and history of technology. Based hereon, some speculations regarding the future of UI history are offered.
Related Event
Title
Danish HCI Research Symposium 2008
Event type
ConferenceDate
20/11/2008 - 20/11/2008Location
AalborgDenmark