Mechanical vs digital when it comes to the analytical engine
What did the analytical engine look like? How did it work?
What defines a computer?
What was the alternative to an object-based interaction paradigm at the time of Sketchpad?
What is the difference between interactive dialog vs batch processing programming-based interaction?
What is object-oriented programming? What are windowing systems? How did these impact the creation of Alto?
Brief intro as to what an interface is +3
Is an interface something used to interact with a computing machine or can it also interact with pre-computed, pre-organized info? The examples in the chapter cover both, would like a technical definition for an interface
Suggestion for a running glossary of terms for people without a CS background, such as objects, object-based, mainframe, WYSIWYG, graphical user interface, operating system, paradigm, and network
Explicit definition of “graphical user interface” and note that it will be referred to as GUI +1
Automatic: Can the analytical machine really be considered automatic if it’s responding to instructions, like a calculator?
More headings for navigation, links to where terms and acronyms are defined first
Memex image could use text describing how it works, hard to tell otherwise
Liked the videos especially as an insight into that point in history +1
Include a part on how UX helps advance technology
Why are auditory and conversational interfaces left out?
Who, what, when details for the industry partnerships from this passage: "This community brought together researchers interested in not only the useful output that computers could produce, but also the novel forms of input, and the interaction paradigms that combinations of input and output could produce. This community has since worked alongside industry, establishing the basic paradigms for graphical user interfaces, while continuing to invent new ways of interacting with computers, including paradigms such as augmented reality, touchscreens, more efficient text entry, and animation."
Expand on the idea of “novel forms of input”
Expand on the social context:
Discuss the social environment these individual pioneers lived in
Talk about class, race, gender privilege
More context on who Steve Jobs was at the time and what Apple was like at the time of the demo of the Alto’s GUI
What non-Western tech preceded and influenced computers? Any key developments outside the US? +2
What happened to the mostly female human “computers”? Who, besides Ada Lovelace and wealthy white men, contributed? +1
How did the new computing paradigm (like Sketchpad) influence industry outside of collegiate tech? Were people jumping in enthusiastically?
More info on how these historical interfaces affected people and society
When the 1984 commercial was made, how did people respond? Did people believe it was going to be a big, world-changing thing?
Spelling & Grammar Corrections (I didn’t go through and verify these were indeed errors):
“Baggage’sBabbage's “Analytical Engine” promised to do the work of (human) computers"
"intended to be executed by such a machine"
"framing the GUI as the first salvo"
“In the below above”
“Brought” spelled as “brough”
the history of user interfaces is a reminder that ...
intended to be executed
by the values of profit
Transition to this sentence doesn’t flow well: “And rather than being driven by a desire to lower costs and increase profit in business…”
Would like a timeline or visual way of understanding key players and moments +3
Mother of All Demos video is long–highlight parts to pay attention to with timestamps or some other way +2
More history on how we got to files, windowing, and mice +2
Students want to know the history of organizing file systems (I think this is just due to how they’re organized in real life?)
Students want to know the history of the screen–where did it come from? When did transitioning to screens happen?
Students want to know the history of the keyboard
How were decisions, like changing the shape of the cursor as it goes across the screen, made? Why do things look the way they do?
Lidlicker’s quote is difficult to comprehend, an example would help +1
Alternative ways history could have shaped today
The chapter says interfaces are the way they are today because they are shaped by these historical examples, but what alternative designs were thought up that just didn’t gain traction?
What research in interfaces was unsuccessful?
Diagram illustrating hypothetical realities/alternate evolutions as a tree, showing how our present interfaces might be different had we prioritized different things when designing the first digital interfaces
Were any interface ideas thought of that couldn’t be made due to technical limitations?
What aspects of interfaces were inevitable, and which just gained sufficient traction?
What happened between punch cards and digital computing? What allowed digital computing to work? +1
"companies like Apple, Microsoft, and now Google have driven much of the engineering of user interfaces." Talk about milestones/examples of how these companies drove interface development
History seems to stop at the 90s, go up to present day or at least the 2000s
Go over current military spending on interfaces
What were Ada Lovelace's specific contributions beyond being the first programmer?
History Critiques