The Evolution of Graphical User Interfaces

Visi On is an operating environment program developed by VisiCorp for IBM compatible personal computers. It was influential in the development of later GUIs like Microsoft Windows. It was fully mouse-driven, used a bit-mapped display for both text and graphics, included on-line help, and allowed the user to open a number of programs at once, each in its own window, and switch between them to multitask. Visi On did not, however, include a graphical file manager. One of Visi On's features was an hourglass cursor that indicated when the system was loading data from a disk. At the time, most software would display words on the screen like "busy" or "please wait" instead.

Learn more about Visi On's GUI Design

The X is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting with a mouse and keyboard. X does not mandate the user interface – this is handled by individual programs. As such, the visual styling of X-based environments varies greatly; different programs may present radically different interfaces. A window manager controls the placement and appearance of application windows. This may result in desktop interfaces reminiscent of those of Microsoft Windows or of the Apple Macintosh.

Windows 1.0 was the first major release of Microsoft Windows, a family of graphical operating systems for personal computers developed by Microsoft. Unfortunately for Microsoft, it failed to inspire -- especially when compared with the more user-friendly graphical user interface developed by Apple for the Macintosh. Critics felt Windows 1.0 did not meet their expectations. In particular, they felt that Windows 1.0 put too much emphasis on mouse input at a time when mouse use was not yet widespread; not providing enough resources for new users; and for performance issues, especially on systems with lower computer hardware specifications. Despite these criticisms, Windows 1.0 was an important milestone for Microsoft, as it introduced the Microsoft Windows line, and in computer history in general.

Windows 2.0 was a successor to Windows 1.0. Unlike its predecessor, Windows 2.0 allowed users to overlap and resize application windows.

Windows 3.0 featured a new 3D-look GUI where applications were represented as clickable icons, as opposed to the list of file names seen in its predecessors. Recorder is a new program that records macros, or sequences of keystrokes and mouse movements, which are then assigned to keys as shortcuts to perform complex functions quickly. Another notable program is Help. Unlike DOS applications, which may have help functions as part of them, Windows Help is a separate and readily accessible application that accompanies all Windows programs that support it.

Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system. It introduced numerous functions and features, such as the taskbar, notification area, and the "Start" button. Windows 95 saw the beginning of the browser wars, when the World Wide Web began receiving a great deal of attention in popular culture and mass media. Microsoft at first did not see potential in the Web, and Windows 95 was shipped with Microsoft's own online service called The Microsoft Network, which was dial-up only and was used primarily for its own content, not internet access. As versions of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer were released at a rapid pace over the following few years, Microsoft used its desktop dominance to push its browser and shape the ecology of the web mainly as a monoculture.

Windows 98 is web-integrated and bears numerous similarities to its predecessor. Most of its improvements were cosmetic or designed to improve the user experience, but there were also a handful of features introduced to enhance system functionality and capabilities, including improved USB support and accessibility, and support for hardware advancements such as DVD players. The Active Desktop theme was introduced, allowing an HTML approach for the desktop, but this feature was coldly received by customers, who frequently disabled it.

In the first decade of the 21st century, the rapid development of GPUs led to a trend for the inclusion of 3D effects in window management. Common new effects are scale resizing and zooming, several windows transformations and animations (wobbly windows, smooth minimization to system tray...), composition of images (used for window drop shadows and transparency) and enhancing the global organization of open windows (zooming to virtual desktops, desktop cube, Exposé, etc.)