A graphical user interface (GUI) showing various elements: radio buttons, checkboxes, and other elements. The image shown uses theKDEdesktop environment.
The GUI is presented (displayed) on the computer screen. It is the result of processed user input and usually the main interface for human-machine interaction. Thetouch UIs popular on small mobile devices are an overlay of the visual output to the visual input.
Designing the visual composition and temporal behavior of a GUI is an important part ofsoftware application programming in the area ofhuman–computer interaction. Its goal is to enhance the efficiency and ease of use for the underlying logical design of a storedprogram, a design discipline namedusability. Methods of user-centered design are used to ensure that the visual language introduced in the design is well-tailored to the tasks.
The visible graphical interface features of an application are sometimes referred to aschrome orGUI.[12][13][14] Typically, users interact with information by manipulating visualwidgets that allow for interactions appropriate to the kind of data they hold. The widgets of a well-designed interface are selected to support the actions necessary to achieve the goals of users. Amodel–view–controller allows flexible structures in which the interface is independent of and indirectly linked to application functions, so the GUI can be customized easily. This allows users to select or design a differentskin ortheme at will, and eases the designer's work to change the interface as user needs evolve. Good GUI design relates to users more, and to system architecture less.Large widgets, such aswindows, usually provide a frame or container for the main presentation content such as a web page, email message, or drawing. Smaller ones usually act as a user-input tool.
A GUI may be designed for the requirements of avertical market as application-specific GUIs. Examples includeautomated teller machines (ATM),point of sale (POS) touchscreens at restaurants,[15]self-service checkouts used in a retail store, airline self-ticket and check-in, information kiosks in a public space, like a train station or a museum, and monitors or control screens in an embedded industrial application which employ areal-time operating system (RTOS).
Cell phones and handheld game systems also employ application specific touchscreen GUIs. Newer automobiles use GUIs in their navigation systems and multimedia centers, or navigation multimedia center combinations.
A GUI uses a combination of technologies and devices to provide a platform that users can interact with, for the tasks of gathering and producing information.
A series of elements conforming avisual language have evolved to represent information stored in computers. This makes it easier for people with few computer skills to work with and use computer software. The most common combination of such elements in GUIs is thewindows, icons, text fields, canvases, menus, pointer (WIMP) paradigm, especially inpersonal computers.[16]
The WIMP style of interaction uses a virtualinput device to represent the position of apointing device's interface, most often amouse, and presentsinformation organized in windows and represented withicons. Available commands are compiled together in menus, and actions are performed making gestures with the pointing device. Awindow manager facilitates the interactions between windows,applications, and thewindowing system. The windowing system handles hardware devices such as pointing devices, graphics hardware, and positioning of the pointer.
Inpersonal computers, all these elements are modeled through adesktop metaphor to produce a simulation called adesktop environment in which the display represents a desktop, on which documents and folders of documents can be placed. Window managers and other software combine to simulate the desktop environment with varying degrees of realism.
Entries may appear in a list to make space for text and details, or in a grid for compactness and larger icons with little space underneath for text. Variations in between exist, such as a list with multiple columns of items and a grid of items with rows of text extending sideways from the icon.[17]
Multi-row and multi-column layouts commonly found on the web are "shelf" and "waterfall". The former is found onimage search engines, where images appear with a fixed height but variable length, and is typically implemented with the CSS property and parameterdisplay: inline-block;. A waterfall layout found onImgur andTweetDeck with fixed width but variable height per item is usually implemented by specifyingcolumn-width:.
Smaller app mobile devices such aspersonal digital assistants (PDAs) andsmartphones typically use the WIMP elements with different unifying metaphors, due to constraints in space and available input devices. Applications for which WIMP is not well suited may use newerinteraction techniques, collectively termedpost-WIMP UIs.[18]
As of 2011, some touchscreen-based operating systems such as Apple'siOS (iPhone) andAndroid use the class of GUIs named post-WIMP. These support styles of interaction using more than one finger in contact with a display, which allows actions such as pinching and rotating, which are unsupported by one pointer and mouse.[19]
There are also actions performed by programs that affect the GUI. For example, there are components likeinotify orD-Bus to facilitate communication between computer programs.
The Xerox PARC GUI consisted of graphical elements such aswindows,menus,radio buttons, andcheck boxes. The concept oficons was later introduced byDavid Canfield Smith, who had written a thesis on the subject under the guidance of Kay.[20][21][22] The PARC GUI employs apointing device along with a keyboard. These aspects can be emphasized by using the alternative term and acronym forwindows, icons, menus,pointing device (WIMP). This effort culminated in the 1973Xerox Alto, the first computer with a GUI, though the system never reached commercial production.
The first commercially available computer with a GUI was the 1979PERQ workstation, manufactured by Three Rivers Computer Corporation. Its design was heavily influenced by the work at Xerox PARC. In 1981, Xerox eventually commercialized the ideas from the Alto in the form of a new and enhanced system – the Xerox 8010 Information System – more commonly known as theXerox Star.[23][24] These early systems spurred many other GUI efforts, includingLisp machines bySymbolics and other manufacturers, theApple Lisa (which presented the concept ofmenu bar andwindow controls) in 1983, theAppleMacintosh 128K in 1984, and theAtari ST withDigital Research'sGEM, and CommodoreAmiga in 1985.Visi On was released in 1983 for theIBM PC compatible computers, but was never popular due to its high hardware demands.[25] Nevertheless, it was a crucial influence on the contemporary development ofMicrosoft Windows.[26]
Apple, Digital Research, IBM and Microsoft used many of Xerox's ideas to develop products, and IBM'sCommon User Access specifications formed the basis of the GUIs used in Microsoft Windows, IBMOS/2Presentation Manager, and the UnixMotif toolkit andwindow manager. These ideas evolved to create the interface found in current versions of Microsoft Windows, and in variousdesktop environments forUnix-likeoperating systems, such as macOS andLinux. Thus most current GUIs have largely common idioms.
An Apple Lisa (1983) demonstrating the Lisa Office System (LisaOS), which featured Apple Computer's first commercially available GUI
The early 1980s saw growing interest in GUIs. TheApple Lisa was released in 1983, but was expensive and commercially unsuccessful. Individual applications for many platforms presented their own GUI variants.[27] Despite the GUI's advantages, many reviewers questioned the value of the entire concept,[28] citing hardware limits and problems in finding compatible software.
In 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh via aa television commercial duringSuper Bowl XVIII,[29] withallusions toGeorge Orwell's novelNineteen Eighty-Four. The goal of the commercial was to make people think about computers, identifying the user-friendly interface as a personal computer which departed from prior business-oriented systems,[30] and becoming a signature representation of Apple products.[31]
The 1985Atari ST shipped with theGEM GUI fromDigital Research, which was also published forMS-DOS.TheAmiga 1000 was released the same year, though not widely available until 1986, with theWorkbench graphical desktop. This interface ran as a separate task, meaning it was very responsive and, unlike other GUIs of the time, it didn't freeze up when a program was busy.
Windows 95, accompanied by an extensive marketing campaign,[32] was a major success in the marketplace at launch and shortly became the most popular desktop operating system.[33]
In 2007, with theiPhone[34] and later in 2010 with the introduction of theiPad,[35] Apple popularized the post-WIMP style of interaction formulti-touch screens, and those devices were considered to be milestones in the development ofmobile devices.[36][37]
People said it's more of a right-brain machine and all that—I think there is some truth to that. I think there is something to dealing in a graphical interface and a more kinetic interface—you're reallymoving information around, you're seeing it move as though it had substance. And you don't see that on a PC. The PC is very much of a conceptual machine; you move information around the way you move formulas, elements on either side of an equation. I think there's a difference.
Since the commands available in command line interfaces can be many, complex operations can be performed using a short sequence of words and symbols. Custom functions may be used to facilitate access to frequent actions. Command-line interfaces are morelightweight, as they only recall information necessary for a task; for example, no preview thumbnails or graphical rendering of web pages. This allows greater efficiency and productivity once many commands are learned.[4] But reaching this level takes some time because the command words may not be easily discoverable ormnemonic. Also, using the command line can become slow and error-prone when users must enter long commands comprising many parameters or several different filenames at once. However,windows, icons, menus, pointer (WIMP) interfaces present users with manywidgets that represent and can trigger some of the system's available commands.
GUIs can be made quite hard when dialogs are buried deep in a system or moved about to different places during redesigns. Also, icons and dialog boxes are usually harder for users to script.
WIMPs extensively usemodes, as the meaning of all keys and clicks on specific positions on the screen are redefined all the time. Command-line interfaces use modes only in limited forms, such as for current directory andenvironment variables.
Most modernoperating systems provide both a GUI and some level of a CLI, although the GUIs usually receive more attention.
GUI wrappers find a way around thecommand-line interface versions (CLI) of (typically)Linux andUnix-like software applications and theirtext-based UIs or typed command labels. While command-line or text-based applications allow users to run a program non-interactively, GUI wrappers atop them avoid the steeplearning curve of the command-line, which requires commands to be typed on thekeyboard. By starting a GUI wrapper,users can intuitivelyinteract with, start, stop, and change its working parameters, through graphicalicons and visual indicators of adesktop environment, for example. Applications may also provide both interfaces, and when they do the GUI is usually a WIMP wrapper around the command-line version. This is especially common with applications designed forUnix-like operating systems. The latter used to be implemented first because it allowed the developers to focus exclusively on their product's functionality without bothering about interface details such as designing icons and placing buttons. Designing programs this way also allows users to run the program in ashell script.
This section is about uniquely software 3D UIs. For both software and hardware 3D input/output devices, see3D UIs.
Many environments and games use the methods of3D graphics to project 3D GUI objects onto the screen. The use of 3D graphics has become increasingly common in mainstream operating systems (ex.Windows Aero, andAqua (macOS)) to create attractive interfaces, termed eye candy (which includes, for example, the use ofdrop shadows underneath windows and thecursor), or for functional purposes only possible using three dimensions. For example, user switching is represented by rotating a cube with faces representing each user's workspace, and window management is represented via aRolodex-style flipping mechanism inWindows Vista (seeWindows Flip 3D). In both cases, the operating system transforms windows on-the-fly while continuing to update the content of those windows.
The GUI is usually WIMP-based, although occasionally other metaphors surface, such as those used inMicrosoft Bob, 3dwm, File System Navigator,File System Visualizer, 3D Mailbox,[41][42] andGopherVR.Zooming (ZUI) is a related technology that promises to deliver the representation benefits of 3D environments without their usability drawbacks of orientation problems and hidden objects. In 2006,Hillcrest Labs introduced the first ZUI for television.[43] Other innovations include the menus on thePlayStation 2; the menus on theXbox; Sun'sProject Looking Glass;Metisse, which was similar to Project Looking Glass;[44]BumpTop, where users can manipulate documents and windows with realistic movement and physics as if they were physical documents;Croquet OS, which is built for collaboration;[45] andcompositing window managers such asEnlightenment andCompiz.Augmented reality andvirtual reality also make use of 3D GUI elements.[46]
The 1993 American filmJurassic Park featuresSilicon Graphics' 3D file manager File System Navigator, a real-life file manager forUnix operating systems.
The filmMinority Report has scenes of police officers using specialized 3D data systems.
^"VisiCorp Visi On".The Visi On product was not intended for the home user. It was designed and priced for high-end corporate workstations. The hardware it required was quite a bit for 1983. It required a minimum of 512k of ram and a hard drive (5 megs of space).
^Smith, David A.; Kay, Alan; Raab, Andreas; Reed, David P."Croquet – A Collaboration System Architecture"(PDF).croquetconsortium.org. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2007-09-27. Retrieved2022-09-17.The efforts at Xerox PARC under the leadership of Alan Kay that drove the development of [...] powerful bit-mapped display based user interfaces was key. In some ways, all we are doing here is extending this model to 3D and adding a new robust object collaboration model.
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