Lecture 7

paradigms
Today’s Outline
 Topics of discussion included today are,
 Paradigms, interaction and Example
 Time Sharing
 Video Display Units
 Programming Toolkits
 Window systems and the WIMP interface
 Metaphor
 Direct manipulation
 Language versus Action
 Modern evolving paradigms of computing
Introduction to Paradigm
 The primary objective of an interactive
system is to allow the user to achieve
particular goals in some application
domain, that is, the interactive system
must be usable.
Introduction to Paradigm
 The designer of an interactive system,
then, is posed with two open questions:
1. How can an interactive system be
developed to ensure its usability?
2. How can the usability of an interactive
system be demonstrated or measured?
Paradigms
 One approach to answering these
questions is by means of example, in
which successful interactive systems are
commonly believed to enhance usability
and, therefore, serve as paradigms for the
development of future products.
What are Paradigms
 Predominant theoretical frameworks or scientific world
views
 e.g., Aristotelian, Newtonian, Einsteinian (relativistic) paradigms
in physics
 Understanding HCI history is largely about
understanding a series of paradigm shifts
 Not all listed here are necessarily “paradigm” shifts, but are at
least candidates
 History will judge which are true shifts
A paradigm is a way of thinking
about the world.
Paradigms of interaction

New computing technologies arrive,

creating a new perception of the
human—computer relationship.
We can trace some of these shifts in
the history of interactive technologies.
The initial paradigm
 Batch processing

Impersonal computing
Batch processing
Example Paradigm Shifts
 Batch processing
 Time-sharing

Interactive computing
Example Paradigm Shifts
 Batch processing @#$% !

 Timesharing
 Networking

???

Community computing
Example Paradigm Shifts
 Batch processing C…P… filename Move this file here,
dot star… or was and copy this to there.
 Timesharing it R…M?

 Networking
% foo.bar
 Graphical ABORT
dumby!!!

displays

Direct manipulation
Example Paradigm Shifts
 Batch processing
 Timesharing
 Networking
 Graphical display
 Microprocessor

Personal computing
Example Paradigm Shifts
 Batch processing
 Timesharing
 Networking
 Graphical display
 Microprocessor
 WWW
Global information
Example Paradigm Shifts
• Batch processing  A symbiosis of physical and
electronic worlds in service
• Timesharing of everyday activities.
• Networking
• Graphical display
• Microprocessor
• WWW
• Ubiquitous
Computing
Time-sharing
 In the 1940s and 1950s, the significant advances in
computing consisted of new hardware technologies.
 Mechanical relays were replaced by vacuum electron tubes.
Tubes were replaced by transistors, and transistors by
integrated chips, all of which meant that the amount of sheer
computing power was increasing by orders of magnitude.
 By the 1960s it was becoming apparent that the
explosion of growth in computing power would be wasted
if there was not an equivalent explosion of ideas about
how to channel that power.
Time Sharing
 A new concept of time sharing is
introduced.
a single computer could support multiple
users.
 Previously, the programmer was restricted to
batch sessions, in which complete jobs were
submitted on punched cards or paper tape to an
operator who would then run them individually
on the computer.
Time Sharing
 Time-sharing systems of the 1960s made
programming a truly interactive venture
and brought about a subculture of
programmers known as ‘hackers’
 i.e.; single-minded masters of detail who took
pleasure in understanding complexity.
 Now with time-sharing capability, true
human computer interaction is possible.
Video Display Units
 As early as the mid-1950s researchers were
experimenting with the possibility of presenting and
manipulating information from a computer in the form of
images on a video display unit (VDU).
 These display screens could provide a more suitable
medium than a paper printout for presenting vast
quantities of strategic information for rapid assimilation.
 The earliest applications of display screen images were
 developed in military applications, most notably the
Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) project of
the US Air Force.
Visual Display units
 Primary user hardware for displaying visual
media such as graphics, text, images.

 Consists of components such as Monitor, Video

adapter card, video adapter cable.

 Various such devices are CRT, color CRT,

DVST, Flat Panel Displays (LCD & Plasma),
LED monitors, etc.
Old monochrome vs Lcd
Video Display Units
 In1962, a young graduate student at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT), Ivan Sutherland, astonished the
established computer science community
with his Sketch pad program, that the
capabilities of visual images were realized.
Sketch pad Program
Video Display Unit
 Sketchpad demonstrated two important
ideas.
 First,computers could be used for more than
just data processing.
 Secondly, Sutherland’s efforts demonstrated
how important the contribution of one creative
mind
Programming Toolkits
 Douglas Engelbart’s ambition since the
early 1950s was to use computer
technology as a means of complementing
human problem solving activity.
 Engelbart’s idea as a graduate student at the
University of California at Berkeley was to use
the computer to teach humans.
Douglas Engelbart’s ambition
“By ‘augmenting man’s intellect’ we mean
increasing the capability of a man to approach a
complex problem situation, gain comprehension to
suit his particular needs, and to derive solutions to
problems.... We refer to a way of life in an
integrated domain where hunches, cut-and-try,
intangibles, and the human ‘feel for the situation’
usefully coexist with powerful concepts, streamlined
terminology and notation, sophisticated methods,
and high-powered electronic aids”.
Programming Toolkits
 Ideas that Engelbart’s team developed at
the Augmentation Research Center
includes
 word processing and
 the mouse
Programming toolkits in
Overview
 Engelbart at Stanford Research Institute

 1963 – augmenting man's intellect

 1968 NLS/Augment system demonstration

 the right programming toolkit provides building blocks to

producing complex interactive systems
Personal computing
 1970s – Papert's LOGO
language for simple graphics
programming by children

 A system is more powerful as it

becomes easier to user

 Future of computing in small,

powerful machines dedicated to
the individual

 Kay at Xerox PARC – the

Dynabook as the ultimate
personal computer
Window systems and the WIMP
interface
 humans can pursue more than
one task at a time

 windows used for dialogue

partitioning, to “change the
topic”

 1981 – Xerox Star first

commercial windowing system

 windows, icons, menus and

pointers now familiar
interaction mechanisms
Metaphor
 relating computing to other real-world
activity is effective teaching technique
 LOGO's turtle dragging its tail
 file management on an office desktop
 word processing as typing
 financial analysis on spreadsheets
 virtual reality – user inside the metaphor

 Problems
 some tasks do not fit into a given metaphor
 cultural bias
Metaphore
 In developing the LOGO language to
teach children, Papert used the metaphor
of a turtle dragging its tail in the dirt.
 Children could quickly identify with the real-
world phenomenon and that instant familiarity
gave them an understanding of how they
could create pictures.
Metaphor
 Metaphors are used quite successfully to
teach new concepts in terms of ones
which are already understood.
 Metaphors are used to describe the
functionality of many interaction widgets, such
as windows, menus, buttons and palettes.
Direct Manipulation
 In the early 1980s as the price of fast and
high-quality graphics hardware was
steadily decreasing, designers were
beginning to see that their products were
gaining popularity as their visual content
increased.
Direct Manipulation
 As long as the user–system dialog remained
largely unidirectional – from user command to
system command line prompt computing was
going to stay within the minority population of the
hackers (programmers) who reveled in the
challenge of complexity.
 In a standard command line interface, the only way to
get any feedback on the results of previous interaction
is to know that you have to ask for it and to know
how to ask for it.
Direct Manipulation
 Rapid feedback is just one feature of the
interaction technique known as direct
manipulation.
Direct Manipulation
 Ben Shneiderman highlights the following features of a
direct manipulation interface:
 visibility of the objects of interest
 incremental action at the interface with rapid feedback on all
actions
 reversibility of all actions, so that users are encouraged to
explore without severe penalties
 syntactic correctness of all actions, so that every user action is a
legal operation
 replacement of complex command languages with actions to
manipulate directly
 the visible objects (and, hence, the name direct manipulation)
Direct Manipulation
 The first real commercial success which
demonstrated the inherent usability of
direct manipulation interfaces for the
general public was the Macintosh personal
computer, introduced by Apple Computer,
Inc. in 1984
Direct manipulation – in overview
 1982 – Shneiderman describes appeal of graphically-
based interaction
 visibility of objects
 incremental action and rapid feedback
 reversibility encourages exploration
 syntactic correctness of all actions
 replace language with action

 1984 – Apple Macintosh

 the model-world metaphor
 What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG)
Language versus Action
 actions do not always speak louder than
words!
 Image projected as DM – interface replaces
underlying system
 language paradigm
 interface as mediator
 interface acts as intelligent agent
 programming by example is both action
and language
Hypertext
 1945 – Vannevar Bush and the
memex

 key to success in managing explosionThe memex (a portmanteau of "memory"

and "index" or "memory" and "extender")
of information is the name of the hypothetical proto-
hypertext system that Vannevar Bush
 mid 1960s – Nelson describes described in his 1945 The Atlantic
Monthly article "As We May Think".
hypertext as non-linear browsing
structure

 hypermedia and multimedia

 Nelson's Xanadu the first hypertext

project still a dream today
Hypertext and Hypermedia
 Ted Nelson coined the term hypertext in
1963.
 Also credited for being first to use words like
hypermedia.
 Hypertext spawned from the concept of
Memex (Vannevar Bush):a mechanical desk
linked to an extensive archive of microfilms,
able to display books, writings, or any
document from a library.
 Earlier hypertext: footnotes
Example of hypertext
 <html>
<body>

<h1>My First Heading</h1>

<p>My first paragraph.</p>

</body>
</html>
Multimodality

 a mode is a human
communication channel

 emphasis on
simultaneous use of
multiple channels for
input and output
Computer Supported
Cooperative Work (CSCW)
 CSCW removes bias of single user / single
computer system
 Can no longer neglect the social aspects
 Electronic mail is most prominent success
The World Wide Web
 Hypertext, as originally realized, was a
closed system
 Simple, universal protocols (e.g. HTTP)
and mark-up languages (e.g. HTML) made
publishing and accessing easy
 Critical mass of users lead to a complete
transformation of our information
economy.
World wide web
Agent-based Interfaces
 Original interfaces
 Commands given to computer
 Language-based
 Direct Manipulation/WIMP
 Commands performed on “world” representation
 Action based
 Agents - return to language by instilling proactivity and
“intelligence” in command processor
 Avatars, natural language processing
Ubiquitous Computing
“The most profound technologies are those that
disappear.”
Mark Weiser, 1991

Late 1980’s: computer was very apparent

How to make it disappear?

 Shrink and embed/distribute it in the physical world
 Design interactions that don’t demand our intention

computing is made to
appear everywhere
and anywhere
Sensor-based and Context-
aware Interaction
 Humans are good at recognizing the
“context” of a situation and reacting
appropriately
 Automatically sensing physical phenomena
(e.g., light, temp, location, identity) becoming
easier
 How can we go from sensed physical
measures to interactions that behave as if
made “aware” of the surroundings?
Summary
 Today we have covered
 Examples of effective strategies for building interactive systems
provide paradigms for designing usable interactive systems.
 The evolution of computing usability paradigms also provides a
good perspective on the history of interactive computing.
 Paradigms range from the introduction of time-sharing
computers, through the WIMP and web, to ubiquitous and
context-aware computing