Adaptive Path Blog

An admitted oversimplification, I still find it helpful to think of the history of computing use to have three primary waves.

In the 1st Wave, the use was straightforward: Calculation. Whether to figure out trajectories of artillery, to support Manhattan Project, or manage astronomical math, it was largely a matter of numbers in and numbers out.

Photo from Joi Ito’s Flickr stream.

The first widespread interface for this was the punchcard. These proved unwieldy, and as technology improved, there emerged the command-line interface. The CLI was suitable for Calculation, and entering the programs that provided the rules for the calculation.

As computer technology got cheaper and smaller, it eventually entered the home. The first commercially successful personal computers, the Apple II and the IBM PC, offered text-based interfaces. Once in people’s homes, the computer needed to do more than Calculate. In order to be useful, computers had to address other basic tasks, and this spurred the 2nd Wave of computing use, Cataloguing and Creation. Cataloguing refers to basic database activities — contact information, calendars, and storage of items such as recipes. Creation programs include word processing and graphics manipulation.

It was in Creation that text-based interfaces broke down, because there could be a significant difference between what you saw on the screen and what came out of the printer. Growing up with an Apple II, I wasted countless sheets of paper trying to get something to look right when printed.

The keyboard was a limited input device. If I had a cursor in lower right-hand corner of the screen, and wanted to move it to the upper left-hand corner, I had to tap tap tap away on arrow keys to position it.

To serve this 2nd Wave, computers shifted to a graphical user interface that delivered “What You See is What You Get”, and added the mouse as an input device that enabled quick yet precise placement anywhere on the screen. The Macintosh released in 1984 allowed you to fiddle and tweak and hone in MacWrite and MacPaint, and be confident that the representation on screen was damn close to the physical product.

With the increased penetration of the Internet, we’ve entered a 3rd Wave of computing use. The bulk of our time with computers is used for Communication (originally just email, then adding IM, Skype audio and video, and social networking) and Consumption (text, images, and video). And even though this 3rd Wave has already lasted 10-15 years, we’re still entrenched in the second wave WYSIWYG paradigm.

Which leads to the question, “What is the best computing interface for Communication and Consumption?” I find it revealing to consider Apple’s iPad in this light. It’s the first hardware and software interface truly suited for what people now actually spend the bulk of their time doing with a computer. Well, the first such computer was actually iPhone, but we didn’t notice it, because we still tend to think of iPhone as the next generation of mobile phones instead of seeing it as what it actually is – the first device dedicated to Communication and Consumption.

I think it’s the strong, though unarticulated, desire for a 3rd Wave computer that underlies the common frustration that iPad has no front-facing camera, because with it, iPad would be an ideal Communication device. (It appears as if Apple very seriously considered placing a camera in iPad. I wrote earlier that “$499″ was likely a mantra for Apple, and my guess is that with a camera, they couldn’t stick to that price, and it was removed.)

It’s also this 3rd Wave reality that made me scratch my head when, during the presentation that unveiled iPad, Steve Jobs and colleagues spent so much time showing off the iWork apps (start at 57:45). It’s as if even Apple couldn’t let go of its 2nd Wave heritage and fully embrace what is now happening.

In fact, no one has fully embraced the 3rd Wave, and it’s anybody’s guess as to what paradigm will dominate. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were internet-connected televisions — they’re ace at Consumption (except for maybe lots of text), and with a built in camera, could easily support Communication.

(There’s another, orthogonal wave of computer use that I haven’t addressed, namely Play. It turns out that no matter what the paradigm, people figure out ways to make it fun. Computer play has an evolution all its own, and someone better versed than I am should write about it.)

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 28th, 2010 at 9:55 pm and is filed under Interaction Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.