The Paper Paradigm

There are aspects to the way we use computers which have become so ubiquitous that they are taken for granted. Twenty years ago or so, there was nothing unusual about using a computer without a graphical user interface. This is about how the elements of a computer desktop- including the desktop itself- have come to be the way they are.

Charles Babbage is famous for being the father of computers- he was the first to design a fully programmable computer, the Analytical Engine, which was the first programmable computer. Although it was never actually built, the Analytical Engine would have processed numbers via a system of gears, been powered by a steam engine and programmed using punch cards. It had nothing of the familiar shape of today's computer- the tv-like screen, keyboard and mouse. (Usually, there's a box of circuitry and disk drives too- whether this is sitting out of the way under a desk, out in full display, built into the screen or integrated with everything else in one portable box depends on the individual computer.) I've already talked a bit about how the keyboard and mouse came to be the typical setup- the hardware that you actually get your hands on. This is about the next "layer" of the user interface- how the computer actually deals with your keypresses and mouse movements, and communicates with the user.

To look for the idea behind the Personal Computers we use today (especially in the age of the World Wide Web), a much better starting point than Babbage would probably be Vannevar Bush, who in 1945 proposed the "memex"- a mechanical device, able to follow references from any given page to the specified page referenced, using a system of associatively indexing works to make as much relevant information as possible immediately available. Although it was a mechanical device, his description of someone using his hypothetical invention (with a user sat at a desk with a keyboard, with documents displayed on a screen in front him, with links to jump from one document to another) sounds remarkably similar to browsing the web with a modern computer- far more so than the computers in existence at the time.

Although the device was purely hypothetical (and proven to be mechanically unfeasible), the idea was an inspiration for Douglas Engelbart, whose work shaped the desktop computer systems that we use today. Among the innovations that Engelbart pioneered were the computer network (his office was one of the two linked in the first ARPANET connection- the network which was the precursor to the Internet), the computer mouse, video conferencing, email and hypertext- all of which publically demonstrated for the first time by Engelbart in 1968.

Some of his team went on to work at Xerox PARC, where they helped develop the first computers which featured WIMP (the computer interface using Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointer- which was subsequently picked up by Apple, then Microsoft, and is now ubiquitous throughout the world of desktop computers), a typewriter-like QWERTY keyboard, and WYSIWYG word-processors (What You See Is What You Get- where the document on the screen looks the same as the document to be printed out.)

However, despite such a wide range of innovations, the one that's so ubiquitous today that it's taken for granted is the Paper Paradigm- the idea of visualising concepts on a computer in the way that we use paper in an office; so the computer screen becomes a desktop, each computer record becomes a "file", files are kept in "folders", unwanted files are sent to the wastebasket/trash/recycling. It's so powerful that it's very easy to forget that the icons, files and folders don't actually exist, but are only there as a way to represent and visualise the organisation of information in an electronic format.

One of the "killer apps" of the personal computer was the word processor. A job that was previously given to typing pools became something that could easily be done on a personal computer, making it a standard piece of equipment on virtually every desktop. Along with this came the change that computer displays were no longer the traditional light text on a dark background (which is much easier on the eyes than the other way around), but were displayed as dark text on a white background, to look like the paper documents being created. Because that's what most people wanted to use computers for, that's how computers were designed and sold, and the convention went beyond editing word processing documents and into other applications.

Given that the paper paradigm is now ubiquitous in the world of computers- and could be even be described as an idea that todays computers were developed around- it's not surprising how it has carried over to the world of the Web. Web pages have elements in common with a number of of existing media, but in terms of design it they are associated most closely with printed media like newspapers and magazines. Partly, this is because of the simplicity print designers had in transferring their knowledge and skills across to designing web pages; instead of using a computer to design a printed page, now they were using computers to design pages that would (possibly) never be seen other than on a computer screen.

As a result, "pages" on the web still tends to be treated in the same way- for example, more often than not, pages are made with black text on a white background- because it's what we're familiar with from the cheapest methods of print. Much like the way the QWERTY keyboard layout has outlasted the reasons behind it's introduction, the conventional black-on-white printed page, popular because of it's low cost in ink and paper, has become the convention for the web.

One fundamental difference that a printed page doesn't shine artificial light directly into your eyes isn't often taken into consideration. Likewise, the way that text on a computer screen is usually skimmed rather than properly read is often overlooked. (You might be familiar with the experience, where a document you have written and read over dozens of times contains a spelling or grammatical mistake that you only notice once it's printed out on paper.)

A second difference is the technologies that the web can provide which don't have a real parallel in the print world. AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) provides a way for small sections of a web page to be changed without having to reload the entire page, and is often considered an integral part of a "Web 2.0" site. Technologies such as this are starting to have an impact in the way we use the web, and as a result websites are becoming increasingly dynamic.

Along with behaviours, the visual design is changing- web design in the 1990s was often characterised by being filled with an abundance of colours, partly because print designers used to working around the restrictions of cheap 2 or 3 colour printing were suddenly allowed to play with 256 "web safe" colours, which could easily lead to overusing the palette available. Now, designs are becoming much more conservative, and new conventions are being established (current fashions include rounded corners, heavy use of smooth colour gradients and shiny looking, reflective logos and buttons- all a clear departure from the flat look of older websites, but time will tell whether they will look any less dated in another year or so.)

As the web moves forwards and websites become increasingly dynamic and interactive, it will be interesting to see what artefacts from the age of print remain, and which ones are left behind. Online advertising (which is very much a driving force behind the web) at the moment tends to follow the same basic model as print- make the adverts eye catching, and put them around the content. However, print doesn't have to deal with the problem of adverts that take the technology further and attempt to hijack the reader by tempting them to go and visit a different web page to the one they are on, or move around and distract the reader from the actual articles, or worse still, literally pop up in front of them, completely obscuring the content. Neither do printed adverts have to deal with users who have software agents to to strip adverts from what they are reading, leaving them unaware that they are even missing anything.

On the other hand, there's no way that a newspaper owner can make every article their newspaper has ever printed immediately available alongside it's new articles published that day, or provide instant feedback about what stories are popular, or how readers are reacting to current issues.