User Interface (UI) Design focuses on anticipating what users might need to do and ensuring that the interface has elements that are easy to access, understand, and use to facilitate those actions. UI brings together concepts from interaction design, visual design, and information architecture.
(timeline of UI Design from yukti.io)
As we advanced in the late 20th century, keyboards became the point of human interaction with computing technology.
PARC-research arm of Xerox, played an instrumental role to give form and function to design of computers for human use.
Bob Taylor, a trained psychologist and engineer, led his team in building technologies that compose a Personal computer – most famously the Graphical User Interface (GUI) which was the most important tool of human-computer interaction.
In fact. 70’s was the era of several influential developments such as the graphical user interface and the mouse.
And in 1984 Apple released its first mass-market PC featuring a graphical user interface, built-in screen and mouse.
Apple sold 1 million Macintosh by 1988. And other companies like IBM, Compaq, and others quickly followedThough Microsoft introduced Windows 1.0 in 1985, however it was in 1992 when with Windows 3.1 the popularity truly exploded.
In the 1990’s, laptop computer started to overtake the desktop. In fact PalmPilot started getting popular which was a miniature version of computer. It had new user interface, the stylus, which worked with its touchscreen.
Further more, though Siri by Apple is now considered to be breakthrough in technology, however in 1997 Voice also started to become a form of interaction with the introduction of Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
