It was a seminal moment in computer history, and Douglas Engelbart’s 1968 demonstration —
- Often dubbed the Mother of All Demos — introduced concepts that would underpin the development of modern human-computer interaction.
While attending the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco, Engelbart and his team at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) demonstrated a working system that presented many new interactive concepts related to computers, including:
- the computer mouse,
- hypertext,
- real-time text editing,
- videoconferencing.
These concepts were game changers when computing was mostly command-line and done by professionals.
Laurie Vertelney and others, in Two Disciplines in Search of an Interface, point out that Engelbart bridged the two disciplines of engineering and design,
- leading to user-centered computing.
His demonstration highlighted how computers could boost human brainpower rather than simply take over. This dovetails with Bob Cotton’s piece in The History of Interactivity, which emphasizes Engelbart’s contribution as having made computing less of a technical tool and instead an interactive medium, impacting the graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that followed.
The importance of Engelbart’s work is evident, too,
- from the perspective of interface design principles.
- The Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design focus on:
- consistency,
- feedback,
- user control — values that are echoed in Engelbart’s vision.
In his system, intuitive interactions were crucial to encouraging user engagement, and in many ways, he was building the foundation for contemporary digital experiences.
In the end, Engelbart’s demo wasn’t merely a showcase for new technology; it was a manifesto for interactive computing. It went on to reshape the way people could use machines, paving the way for innovations in personal computing and, eventually, the internet.