GUI: What is the graphical user interface

Have you ever wondered what a GUI is or what a graphical user interface is? Let's try to analyze it in this article for beginners.

GUI, graphical, interface, user, interface

Surely you have heard the term GUI and even more sure you have used GUI more than once. Even now you use it.

Most users do not have a clear picture of its meaning and even some consider it to be about . However, the term is so integral to computing that it deserves some explanation and reference.

If you are wondering what exactly the GUI is, what it does and a bunch of other questions about it, then take a look at this article for beginners.

What is the GUI
GUIs are the abbreviation of the English words Graphical User Interface. In Greek the term is rendered with Graphic user interface ή Graphical user interface / user interface.

GUI καλείται στην ένα σύνολο εικονικών στοιχείων, τα οποία εμφανίζονται στην οθόνη μίας ψηφιακής συσκευής (π.χ. ηλεκτρονικού υπολογιστή) και χρησιμοποιούνται για να διευκολύνουν και να επιταχύνουν την αλληλεπίδραση μεταξύ του χρήστη και της συσκευής. Παρέχουν στον τελευταίο, μέσω εικόνων, ενδείξεις και «εργαλεία» προκειμένου αυτός, με απλές ενέργειες, να εκτελέσει συγκεκριμένες εργασίες. Για τον λόγο αυτό «αποδέχονται» «ενέργειες» του χρήστη και «αντιδρούν» ανάλογα στα συμβάντα που αυτός προκαλεί μέσω κάποιας συσκευής εισόδου (π.χ. , biceps).

The GUI, depending on how you define computing, has been around for a long time in one form or another. If you are wondering, it was the first computer in the world Alan Turing's "a-machine", designed in 1936 and had no GUI. He came a little later.

Many identify the first GUI as the one introduced by Douglas Engelbart in the 1968 "Mother of All Demos," which covered mouse, remote word processing, linking, and shortcuts.

GUI vs
Because the terms we have already used are not everyday, you may be wondering what a "graphical user interface" is. To understand this you must first understand the term "user interface".

If you look at any machine, you will see that it has a way for users to interact with it. This part of the machine is the “user interface"Or"user interface" or else UI (User Interface).

A "graphical user interface" (GUI) is the electronic display element (if any) that is part of the larger concept of a machine's user interface (UI), allowing users to select icons and images rather than numbers or text.

For example, a kitchen timer has a user interface (control, buttons, dials, etc.), but probably does not incorporate a graphical display element. One to confirm a transaction at a bank ATM can only consist of a GUI as, as far as you are concerned, you are not interacting with any part of the machine other than the screen.

Caution: The GUI is not the screen as a device but the graphics that appear on it and if you click on them do some work.

The keyboard is a UI but not a GUI. The UI includes any user interface. Examples of input user interfaces are keyboard, mouse, touch screen, etc. Examples of output user interfaces are monitors, speakers, LEDs, etc.

While as you can see above there are devices without GUI or with full GUI, but most technological devices have both GUI and non-GUI components.

Almost every device that most people interact with incorporates a GUI, often to confirm or display actions as we use increasingly complex devices. In recent decades more and more of these devices that we use every day incorporate a GUI.

What is the GUI in Computer History?
The Mother of All Demos introduced the world to the Graphical User Interface in 1968, but probably the first example GUI was running seven years earlier. IBM's SAGE computer system preceded it with a "light weapon" pointing at a pop-up map.

The Mother of All Demos mainly introduced word processing, including remote collaboration. While text-based navigation is typically excluded from GUI definitions, the demo also included links and . Both of these are early examples of more creative computer architecture incorporating structures such as windows and tabs.

The IBM experiments in the first personal computers created SCAMP, in 1973. In the same year, the Xerox Alto is done the first widely available computer to incorporate modern GUI formats.

Beyond that, if you want to write the evolution of the GUI you will need a whole book that describes the events from operating system to operating system.

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Between 1973 and now, computer interaction has become so graphic-based that many functions can be completed without any text at all. The same kind of development has happened to phones.

GUI examples on mobile devices
As with computers, digital screens existed in telephones before what we call the "graphical user interface". These first digital screens showed the user which numbers had been entered and later which phone number he was calling. However, they did not allow graphic elements to interact or function, such as the application icons currently in use.

In 1999, the Blackberry 850 became one of the first mobile devices to connect to the Internet. Although it included the basics of a GUI, the screen was monochrome and navigated with a conventional keyboard.

The , the Palm Treo 600 combined the Personal Digital Assistant with a mobile phone to create a precursor to the modern smartphone.

The first touchscreen smartphone, the iPhone, appeared in 2007. Graphical tile menus that form the basis of the GUI were already a feature on mobile devices, as were , although they worked with a stylus. But the invention of the iPhone made almost the entire surface of the screen GUI, giving a graphical user interface to the device.

The touch screen GUI, which first appeared with the iPhone, paved the way for its ubiquity as a kind of interface, and has since found a place in all machines, from cars to refrigerators.

Problems with GUI
The GUI may sound great, but it has problems. It's its own category in software and usability testing.

At first glance, a GUI toolbar may seem clearer than a text toolbar, but what if a user does not know what graphics mean? For a GUI to be effective, the icons that are displayed must effectively convey the actions they are performing.

Sometimes, GUI developers and usability designers solve this problem in almost comically outdated ways.

The "Save" icon in many applications is still an image of a floppy disk, an artifact unknown to many newer computer users.

GUI, graphical, interface, user, interface

Also sometimes you need special imagination to understand what they mean. Which of you understood first what the three vertical dots or the three horizontal dashes do? We do not know how to say them here. We have even heard them called hamburgers.

Furthermore, GUIs are more computationally and power intensive than simpler interface models. A great example of this is starting a computer without a GUI. No-GUI launch eliminates the loading bar when launching applications. Check it out below

Without enabling the GUI, the boot of a computer becomes faster. With the GUI enabled you get lag and can't tell if the system is having problems.

Whatever we say, the graphical user interface has been gradually changing our lives for decades. Images replace navigation in text or number menus, making devices more customizable and user-friendly.

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GUI, graphical, interface, user, interface

Written by Dimitris

Dimitris hates on Mondays .....

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