GUIs: The most significant element in the

history of the Information Revolution?

Matthew W. A. Sparkes BSc
School of Computing Sciences,
University of East Anglia,
Norwich,
United Kingdom,
NR4 7TJ
matt.sparkes@gmail.com
April 5, 2006

Abstract
This essay puts forward the argument that the development of
graphical user interfaces was the most important element in the his-
tory of the information revolution, enabling the masses to use technol-
ogy with more ease than ever before, and that this was the main aspect
of the information revolution; to bring massive computing power, sim-
plified by intuitive GUIs, into the hands of the masses.

1
Contents
1 Introduction 3
1.1 What is the Information Revolution? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 GUIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2 Before the GUI 5

2.1 GUIs Before Computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 Computing Before GUIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

3 Birth of the GUI 6

3.1 Failed GUI Paradigms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1.1 Command Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1.2 Microsoft Bob - The ’Social Interface’ . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1.3 Virtual Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

4 The Effect of the GUI 9

4.1 Bringing Computers to the Masses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.2 Desktop Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.3 Graphing Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

5 What Drove GUI Development? 11

5.1 Pornographers - The Earliest of Early Adopters . . . . . . . . 11
5.1.1 Photography and Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.1.2 Internet Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.2 Human Familiarity with Visual Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.3 Multimedia Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

6 Conclusion 14

2
1 Introduction
1.1 What is the Information Revolution?
It is difficult to choose one element to label as the most important in the
history of the information revolution, and to do so requires a closer look at
the definition of the phrase itself. It is a term that is used, and overused, in
many fields and every definition differs slightly in its scope and focus. It is
commonly used to refer to the development of computers and the Internet,
and is also used to describe the emergence of databases and the improved
capability to analyse data. In this essay the definition is taken to mean this;
the information revolution is widespread adoption of computing technology,
and the linking of these computers in a world-wide network, with a graph-
ical layer of interconnected pages abstracted from this network, called the
Internet which allows massive collation and interpretation of this data in
numerous ways. The information revolution is people using Google to settle
disputes, rather than the Encyclopedia Britannica. The information revo-
lution is sharing digital images on a personal website, rather than getting
copies of prints made for friends. The information revolution is researching
an essay from a computer, rather than walking around a library. It is huge
relational databases with graphical front ends, rather than huge dusty rooms
full of filing cabinets. And it is communicating via SMS, Email, IM, Skype,
or video conferencing, rather than walking between offices, or sending letters.

1.2 GUIs
In this definition of the term one can make a convincing argument for the
most important element in the history of the information revolution, and
that is the development of graphical interfaces. The hardware and software
developments that power this revolution could theoretically (aside from mul-
timedia elements) run in a command line environment; instant messaging
conversations could occur, websites could be read as text, etc. But one could
not talk to multiple people over an IM client at once, whilst simultaneously
surfing the Internet, checking email, listening to an MP3, downloading a doc-
ument from an FTP server and running a spreadsheet to collate coursework
marks, which is something that this computer has no trouble doing. It is
not only the power of the machine that is important, but the complexity of
the interface. Command line interfaces are not good at multitasking, unless

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one spends years learning a compendium of esoteric Unix commands. The
execution of programs is also very linear; the program asks the user for input
in a set order, whereas in a GUI environment the user is capable of perform-
ing numerous tasks at once, and in numerous ways. GUIs have provided a
way for the enormous power of the combined elements of the information
revolution to be unleashed, and to be made understandable and usable by
the masses. They have been essential in the revolution.
Computers can be thought of as nothing more than a series of abstrac-
tions, layers of complexity sitting atop a few fundamentally simple compo-
nents. At the very lowest level, the level of transistors, there is nothing more
than a store holding either a 1 or a 0, yet to the user a computer appears to
be a simple ’black box’ which performs any task that they require of it.
As the complexity and power of computers increases the need for a sim-
ple GUI grows, and thankfully the increase in power allows more resource
intensive GUIs to be run, allowing the adoption of more complex interaction
paradigms.
The history of computer interfaces is not a linear one, as the history of
computing is not. The first computers were never designed to be operated by
the general public. Personal computers were, and hence these two streams
of technology, though overlapping considerably in mechanical, electrical and
programming technology, are divergent in their HCI characteristics.

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2 Before the GUI
It is difficult to say which came first; the computer, or the GUI. Technically
the concept of the GUI was developed first, although it could be argued that
devices such as the abacus indicate the knowledge of the power and need for
computing devices, which would place the concept of computing earlier than
the GUI. However, in real terms, the first GUI theorized was the Memex in
the 1930’s, which predates the first computer. In a bizarre twist however,
there was no computer capable of running a GUI for several decades after
this, hence, the GUI predates the computer, and vice versa.

2.1 GUIs Before Computing

Before computers had even been developed, as early as the 1930’s, there were
theoretical plans for GUIs such as Vannevar Bush’s Memex. These plans
resemble closely the systems we have today, with many of the fundamental
concepts overlapping. This is similar to the development of algorithms before
there were computers powerful enough to run them successfully; it was known
that should these machines be developed, that GUIs would be the most
intuitive way to interact with them. However, even once computers began
to emerge, they were not powerful enough to run these graphical front ends
for applications.

2.2 Computing Before GUIs

Despite the fact that the power of the GUI had been realized before the first
computer had been developed, programmers were unable to take advantage of
the paradigm. The first computers had no monitor, instead performing I/O
on printed cards, even later when VDUs were used they were monochrome,
and graphical capabilities extended little past text handling.

While computers are now ubiquitous, by far the most common

means of interacting with them remains the keyboard and screen,
despite the disadvantages of these devices. Using a computer by
means of typed text input is slow, requires the user to have good
manual dexterity and their hands free, and ideally demands the
ability to type. [2]

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3 Birth of the GUI
As described in section 2.1, GUIs were being hypothesized about before com-
puters were even available, and long before computers with the necessary
graphical capabilities were available.

3.1 Failed GUI Paradigms

There is basically one GUI paradigm, and that is the window concept. This
concept is based on modeling windows onto information, and being able to
navigate through folders, as though the files are objects within a box that
is a folder, and the window is a window into that box. Coupled with this
most systems have the concept of the desktop, which was initially supposed
to model a real desktop, with files laid out on it. This concept has since
evolved to a much more abstract conception, and is now little more than
another folder whose contents are always on display. However, there have
been several attempts to create a new paradigm, in the hope that a more
intuitive interface will encourage those who do not use computers to do so.

3.1.1 Command Line

Not a failed paradigm, but an enormously successful one. For decades all
operating systems were almost entirely text based. Obsolete is not even an
appropriate description, as in certain applications command line interfaces
are still very much in use. But in terms of home users, the majority of the
people affected by the information revolution, an obsolete and unintuitive
paradigm.

3.1.2 Microsoft Bob - The ’Social Interface’

The most famous of these alternative paradigms was Microsoft Bob, which
was a replacement operating system from Microsoft which was intended to
model more directly an office. [7] For example, if a user wanted to make
a phone call they would click on an image of a phone on a desk, and if a
calendar entry needed to be made they would click on a calendar on the wall.
Microsoft Bob was released in February 1995, and the attempt to draw in
new users, mostly from the computer illiterate elderly and young children is
understandable for the time; this was relatively early in the information revo-
lution and thus there were still large sections of the population who were not

6
using computers that, the developers of Microsoft Bob hypothesized, could
be drawn into personal computer ownership by a more laymen-friendly inter-
face. However, a combination of problems meant that it was a phenomenal
failure. One major reason was that.
Microsoft continued with the idea of a social interface for many years
afterwards, albeit in a more subtle incarnation with the Microsoft Office
Assistants feature. In any one of the Office programs one could summon a
’helper’ which was an animated character that would use AI to reply with
help to any question posed to it. Again public reaction to this feature was
almost universally negative, with complaints that the character would leap
onto the screen and offer help when not wanted, distracting the user far more
than helping.
One possibility for the negative reaction to this technology is that the
interactions between the ’helper’ and user were not, and probably never
could be, realistic enough to make the user feel comfortable. In the same
way that computer generated animations that attempt to mimic realistically
human faces are sometimes found to be unsettling by audiences, whereas
CGI cartoon characters are fine.

3.1.3 Virtual Reality

The technology of virtual reality stands at the edge of practical-
ity and at the current limit of the effort to create a communi-
cation/communion medium that is both phenomenologically en-
gulfing and yet all but invisible.” [5]
As this quote explains, virtual reality (VR) was created to completely im-
merse the user in a system, whilst providing a degree of realism high enough
so that the system could be completely transparent to the user immersed in
that environment. Obviously this requires a certain amount of familiarity
with the system, and is not an attempt to make a convincing model of the
world, but simply to make something that tricks the more primal parts of
our brain into being comfortable with the system as an environment. If a
believable environment could be created then it would trick the user into It
was used to attempt to create the ultimate social interface by immersing the
user in an office environment. Instead of clicking on an image of a calendar
the user would reach out and pick up a VR calendar within a VR office.
One major problem with VR was the human body’s internal system of
balance. As people were remaining still according to their inner ears’ balance,

7
but moving according to their visual system, the brain became confused. This
lead to motion sickness, and nausea from use is not conducive to mainstream
public take-up of a technology. This, coupled with the enormous cost of
putting a VR system into your home, led to the death of VR as a GUI
paradigm, although it is still used in some more niche applications.

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4 The Effect of the GUI
It is hard to quantify the effect that GUIs had on the information revolution
simply because they were an integral part of that revolution; there is no
”control group” of a non-graphical information revolution to compare it to.
The term information revolution refers to the development of computers and
their periphery technologies, as well as software, and the combined ability
of these parts to massively alter the capability to store and organize data.
GUIs enabled this in a very large way, and allowed data to be presented in
graphical formats instantly. It is difficult, and perhaps even misguided to
attempt to analyze the effect of one component of an event, on that event
itself. It is possible however, to look at the part that GUIs played in the
revolution, and to attempt to theorize on the direction and extent of it, had
it occurred in a non-graphical way.

4.1 Bringing Computers to the Masses

The rise of the GUI coincided loosely with the proliferation of affordable
computers. Although text based OS equipped computers were available their
take up was limited to those that had a certain need or strong desire to own a
computer. Only with the advent of GUI equipped computers did people who
would not normally have the need for data processing buy computers. Uptake
increased massively, as GUIs enabled non experts to use computers easily,
and for a wider range of tasks than previously possible. This increase in sales
led to an increase in profits, enabling higher R&D budgets in those firms.
It is easy to see how this generates a cycle of self perpetuating innovation,
something that is unique in its speed and last-ability in the IT field, due to
rapid obsolescence.

4.2 Desktop Publishing

GUIs enabled desktop publishing, one of the most important enabling tech-
nologies that drove the home PC revolution. Initially an office based product,
desktop publishing packages soon found their way into the household, and
were a major marketing feature used to sell PCs for many years. This has
now changed as it is seen by users, not as a revolutionary capability as it
once was in the days of ’Multimedia PCs’, but as a mundane and standard
ability of all home computers. [1]

9
4.3 Graphing Capabilities
Computers have always been more than capable of storing and manipulating
numbers; in fact it is the only thing that they are capable of doing. However,
the development of graphical capabilities enabled the user to be presented this
information in a more intuitive way than a table of numbers. Graphs, drawn
in real time at the user’s command, allowed data to turn into knowledge
instantly. Never before had it been so easy to interpret information.

10
5 What Drove GUI Development?
When trying to establish what drove the development of a certain technology
it is always useful to look at the demographic that utilizes the technology;
other information such as where the R&D money that funded the technology
came from can also be helpful indicators. Unfortunately with something
abstract and varied like the concept of a graphical interface, it is impossible to
infer any knowledge from its users; almost everyone on the planet uses a GUI
every day. Likewise, we cannot pin down the source of research investment, as
GUI development occurred over decades, in numerous companies, academic
institutions, and even in part in the private homes of computer amateurs and
hackers.

5.1 Pornographers - The Earliest of Early Adopters

One can take any technology development and find charitable and innocent
uses for it, but it is equally simple to find a use that is more seedy. When
a new technology emerges it is not simply what happens before its complete
development that drives it into mainstream use and acceptance, but equally
what happens to that technology afterwards and how it is used. This is of
equal importance, as without mainstream use it would not become part of the
information revolution. As an example we can take competitive standards
- before we had DVD, we also had MMCD and SD, but DVD won, and
has become part of the technological landscape. Now, we have competing
standards that may take over, such as Blu-Ray. With much technology, one
of the first two sets of users one will find evidence of are pornographers and
criminals. This is true with most technologies, and we will examine some
of them here. Despite not being part of the information revolution per se,
we will show that they have become a large part of the driving force behind
many aspects of the information revolution, and that these are simply the
latest in a long line of technologies that have been utilized in this way.

5.1.1 Photography and Video

Technology has slowly made it simpler, and more anonymous, to create and
disseminate pornography. When cameras were first invented, some of the
first images were pornography, even before this the printing press allowed
the distribution of pornographic works such as Pietro Aretino’s Postures in

11
1524, which was a collection of erotic engravings. During the American Civil
War people utilized the mail system and photography to send husbands in
the field pornographic images, leading to Congress passing a bill banning
the distribution of obscenity via the mail network. [8] With all previous
technology you either had to take your film to a developers, or possess both
a darkroom of your own and the skill to develop your own photographs.
The emergence of Polaroid self developing cameras meant that people could
take and keep images of whatever they wanted without embarrassment and
digital cameras took this freedom even further. With the distribution of
mass produced pornography we see the same pattern of increasing ability
through technology. The advancement of the steam powered printing press
by Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer in 1812 helped to reduce the
costs associated with printing, allowing cheap paper back books to become
feasible. These led to ’pulp’ books, known as such due to the use of inferior
paper stock in their printing. Mass market eroticism and pornography were
often released in this format. Video pornography also became much more
prevalent, with the super 8mm cameras, and eventually camcorders and home
VCR machines.

5.1.2 Internet Technologies

Ready access to free porn was a factor in widespread adoption of Internet
access, and this in turn led to advancements in other technologies that facili-
tate easier distribution. It is undeniable that a large amount of traffic on the
internet is pornography, and this high amount of traffic is evident in other
subsections of the web such as peer to peer file sharing.
Micropayment systems were also adopted very early on by pornographers.
There was a need for an effective mechanism to receive small payments
from people over the internet, in order to make money, as the traditional
web startup business model of profit through advertising revenue would not
necessarily work for such a site. Therefore early pioneers of e-commerce
and micro-payment systems were pornographers. Without this early testing
ground it is unlikely that the growth of e-commerce would have been as rapid
or happened as early as it did.

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5.2 Human Familiarity with Visual Interaction
Another factor that led to the development of GUIs is the human familiarity
with visual interaction. It must be remembered that sight is a rather abstract
concept, which is entirely subjective. Other species do not see the world as
we do; bats use echolocation, other animals navigate using an advanced sense
of smell. However, as humans we are used to navigating our way through
the world with our sense of sight, and although command line systems still
rely on this, it is only with GUIs using familiar concepts such as windows
that we really began to relate to computers in an instinctive way. With
command line systems there was a steep learning curve initially. Commands
had to be learnt, and had to be entered in a strict order and format. With
GUIs however there is a real time feedback for learning. If one wants to
copy a file there are numerous ways to do so, some may be more instinctive
to certain people, others more intuitive for other groups. It is this instant
familiarity that GUIs provide, and this was a major factor in the development
of GUIs. System designers realized that this link to lay-people was important
if widespread adoption of computers was going to be possible.

5.3 Multimedia Capabilities

Graphical interfaces and multimedia capabilities go hand in hand. Graphics
within a command line system are not seamless, as they are in a GUI envi-
ronment. The emergence of powerful hardware that could handle graphics
led to the development of GUIs, and GUIs in turn led to an increased de-
mand for powerful graphical capabilities, generating a cycle of development.
These increased capabilities of hardware allowed the long envisaged GUI to
come to fruition.

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6 Conclusion
It is difficult to say what single factor was most important in the information
revolution; the development of computers and software has been such a rapid
process in comparison to other radical technology developments, and far more
interdisciplinary. Mathematicians, engineers, and physicists have all been
involved in, and were fundamental to, the success if IT. Computing is a very
precarious development, analogous in many ways to human evolution. If any
of the conditions on earth had been different by a tiny factor then we would
not have evolved - the same can be said for computers, any one of a thousand
small and independent inventions or discoveries could be attributed to the
failure of computing in their hypothetical absence. Almost certainly then
the actual answer to such a question as what is the most important factor in
the information revolution, is human ingenuity and intelligence.
However, considering the evidence explored in this essay, a strong argu-
ment for the importance of the GUI in the history of the information revo-
lution is apparent. It is a relatively simple advancement, when compared to
the invention of the transistor for example, but a concept that has allowed
so much to be done, by so many. A simple paradigm, to mimic real world
objects on a monitor, which has enabled laymen everywhere to use comput-
ers. In this way the amazing capabilities of IT were brought to the masses;
precisely what revolution is about. It seems doubtful that the development
of IT would be given the moniker the Information Revolution, if its use was
still limited to academics, scientists and the government. With advances like
the GUI it was placed in the hands of the many, and a revolution was started.
By making information accessible and easily understandable, and by en-
abling WYSIWYG document editing and publishing the GUI has elevated
computing from limited use by few, to extensive use by many. This process
will continue further, with the development of new hardware technology, and
the ingenuity of HCI researchers, there will be paradigm shifts, caused by
new conceptual models for GUIs.

There is no doubt that new developments in the fields of multime-

dia, hypertext/hypermedia (especially in their popular versions
as World Wide Web applications), three-dimensional representa-
tions, and virtual reality technology will have a great impact on
the type of issues HCI has to address and on how interfaces will
look in the future [4]

14
 In the past, hardware advancements like colour monitors, and advanced
graphics cards enabled the development of GUIs, and software advance-
ments like the development of graphical browsers enabled the graphical web.
Similarly future advancements will enable the development of a new GUI
paradigm. What it will be, and what hardware it will run on are not easy
questions to answer. We had predicted the rise of the GUI as early as 1930,
but now development is almost keeping pace with the imagination of re-
searchers; technologies such as augmented reality are pushing the boundaries
of HCI to their very limits.

15
References
[1] Vannevar Bush, As we may think, Atlantic Monthly, p 101-108, July 1945.

[2] R. Wooffitt, N. Fraser, N. Gilbert and S. McGlashan, Humans, Comput-

ers and Wizards; Analysing Human (Simulated) Computer Interaction
Routledge Publishing, 1997.

[3] Bruce Horn, On Xerox, Apple and Progress, Folklore.org: Macintosh Sto-
ries, http://www.folklore.org, 1996

[4] John M. Carroll (editor), Human Computer Interaction in the Next Mille-
nium, Chapter 25, Roomware: Toward the Next Generation of HCI Based
on an Integrated Design of Real and Virtual Worlds, pp. 553.

[5] Michael Benedikt (editor), Cyberspace: First Steps, MIT Press, 1992.

[6] Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Entry for ’History of the GUI’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History of the GUI

[7] Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Entry for ’Microsoft Bob’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft bob

[8] Peter Johnson, Pornography Drives Technology: Why Not

to Censor the Internet Indiana University Law School,
http://www.law.indiana.edu/fclj/pubs/v49/no1/johnson.html

16