The evolution of the UI

Since the beginning of the personal computing era, we have seen different types of user interfaces. These interfaces were defined by technology. The mobile/cloud age brings us another type of user interface.

The user interfaces were:

• Text-mode programs
• Character-based graphic programs
• True GUI programs
• Web programs

Text-mode programs were the earliest of programs, run on the earliest of hardware. Sometimes run on printing terminals (Teletypes or DECwriters), they had to present output in linear form -- the hardware operated linearly, one character after another. When we weren't investigating problems with hardware, or struggling to software, we dreamed about better displays. (We had seen them in the movies, after all.)

Character-based graphic programs used the capabilities of the "more advanced" hardware such as smart terminals and even the IBM PC. We could draw screens with entry fields -- still in character mode, mind you -- and use different colors to highlight things. The best-known programs from this era would be Wordstar, WordPerfect, Visicalc, and Lotus 1-2-3.

True GUI programs came about with IBM's OS/2, Atari's GEM, and Microsoft's Windows. These were the programs that we wanted! Individual windows that could be moved and resized, fine control of the graphics, and lots of colors! Of course, such programs were only possible with the hardware and software to support them. The GUI programs needed hefty processors and powerful languages for event-driven programming.

The web started in life as a humble method of viewing (and linking) documents. It grew quickly, and web programming surpassed the simple task of documents. It went on to give us applications such as brochures, shopping sites, and eventually e-mail and word processing.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the web. We kept looking back at GUI programs. We wanted web programs to behave like desktop PC programs.

Looking back was unusual. In the transition from text-mode programs to character-based graphics, we looked forward. A few programs, usually compilers and other low-output programs, stayed in text-mode, but everything else moved to character-based graphics.

In the transition from character-based graphics to GUI, we also looked forward. We knew that the GUI was a better form of the interface. No one (well, with the exception of perhaps a few ornery folks) wanted to stay with the character-based UI.

But with the transition from desktop applications and their GUI to the web and its user interface, there was quite a lot of looking back. People invested time and money in building web applications that looked and acted like GUI programs. Microsoft went to great lengths to enable developers to build apps that ran on the web just as they had run on the desktop.

The web UI never came into its own. And it never will.

The mobile/cloud era has arrived. Smartphones, tablets, cloud processing are all available to us. Lots of folks are looking at this new creature. And it seems that lots of people are asking themselves: "How can we build mobile/cloud apps that look and behave like GUI apps?"

I believe that this is the wrong question.

The GUI was a bigger, better incarnation of the character-based UI. Anything the former could do, the latter could do. And prettier. It was a nice, simple progression.

Improvements rarely follow nice simple progressions. Changes in technology are chaotic, with people thinking all sorts of new ideas in all sorts of places. The web is not a bigger, better PC and its user interface was not a bigger, better desktop GUI. Mobile/cloud computing is not a bigger, better web, and its interface is not a bigger, better web interface. The interface for mobile/cloud shares many aspects with the web UI, and some aspects with the desktop GUI, but they have their unique advantages.

To be successful,  identify the differences and leverage them in your organization.