History of Human Computer Interaction



Topics Covered

Required Readings

  1. Readings in Human Computer Interaction: Towards the Year 2000 (2nd Edition)
    Morgan-Kaufmann, San Francisco, CA

In-Class Activities


Additional Readings

  1. Pioneers and settlers: Methods used in successful user interface design. Card, S. (1996) In M. Rudisill, C. Lewis, P. Polson and T. McKay (eds) Human-Computer Interface Design: Success Stories, Emerging Methods, and Real-World Context, p122-169, Morgan-Kaufmann. Successful systems are reconsidered against a variety of design and evaluation methods as well as real deployment requirements.
  2. A Brief History of Human Computer Interaction Technology, Brad Myers.   Vol. 5, no. 2, March, 1998. pp. 44-54


  1. Sketchpad, by Sutherland (1983, SGVR 13) Sutherland's Sketchpad influenced graphics and graphical user interfaces.
  2. A Research Center for Augmenting Human Intellect, by Engelbart and English (1994, SGVR 106) Engelbart's visionary NLS system contains the essence of many of the ideas in modern interfaces.
  3. Xerox Star User Interface, by Smith and Irby (1983, SGVR 56) The Xerox Star was, of course, the first commercial product that we would consider "modern".
  4. Doing with Images Makes Symbols, by Kay (1987, University Video Communications) Kay, in the first half of his video, walks through the history of interfaces which include the Dynabook vision and the Alto.
  5. The Movie Manual, by MIT (1983, SVGR 13) The MIT Media Lab has an important place in history in terms of innovation and invention. This video illustrates a rich multimedia manual...
  6. Put That There, by MIT (1983, SVGR 13) ..While this MIT video illustrates a multimodal large screen display
  7. Apple's 1984 commercial is famous for the way it sets itself apart from IBM via a 'big brother' theme.

Major sources used to prepare lecture material

  1. All required and additional readings mentioned above contain a wealth of information about the history and evolution of HCI.
  2. Personal Recollections of the Apple MacIntosh Design, collected by Guy Kawasaki