Challenges in Graphical User Interfaces Challenges

The principal advances in graphics over the last ten years have been economic-inexpensive raster displays have made good-quality interactive graphics affordable in computer terminals, and together with high-performance microprocessors have led to the "workstation" with an integral display. There have also been gains in graphics hardware, such as improved color displays, raster printers, and inexpensive input devices such as the mouse. The advance of graphical user interfaces has occurred on a more narrow front. The principal thread is work at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center that has emerged in the Star and Smalltalk-80 products, and has been ably employed in Apple's LISA. Much of this work is restricted to "office applications." There remain numerous challenging problems in extending graphical user interfaces. How can pictures and text be routinely intermixed in documents? How can pictures be used as input to the computer as well as output? How can graphical interfaces to programming systems be extended to deal with more complex environments? How can lessons from communication and graphic design be incorporated into user-interface design? Challenges in Graphical User Interfaces