A number of different theories have been proposed to explain the relationship between technological development and social change, including: technological determinism, symptomatic development and social constructionism. A popular and influential theory describing this relationship is technological determinism. An examination of the history of the computer's graphical user interface reveals that the original inventors of this technology were influenced by theorists associated with the determinist perspective. However, when creating their actual interfaces, early designers Douglas Engelbart and Alan Kay utilized methods that support a social constructionist view of technology development. Moreover, as new social interfaces emerge that incorporate software agents into the process of computer interaction, these new designs continue to support a constructionist approach. This article will describe the relationship between theories of technological determinism and the development of graphical user interfaces to argue that a social constructionist approach bridges the gap between theory and invention.
Bardini, T. (1997) `Bridging the Gulfs: From Hypertext to Cyberspace', Journal of Computer Mediated Communication3(2), http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol3/issue2/bardini.html, URL (downloaded 17/4/2000).
2.
Barnes, S.B. (1997) `Douglas Carl Engelbart: Developing the Underlying Concepts for Contemporary Computing', IEEE Annals of the History of Computing19(3): 16-26.
3.
Barnouw, Erik (1978) The Sponsor. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4.
Barnouw, Erik (1982) Tube of Plenty. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
5.
Berg, A.J. and M. Lie (1995) `Feminism and Constructivism: Do Artifacts have Gender?', Science, Technology & Human Values20(3): 332-351.
Bruner, J.S. (1966) Towards a Theory of Instruction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
8.
Bush, V. (1991) `As We May Think', in James M. Nyce and Paul Kahn (eds) From Memex to Hypertext: Vannevar Bush and the Mind's Machine, pp. 85-110. Boston, MA: Academic Press.
9.
Chandler, D. (1995) `Technological or Media Determinism', URL (consulted 24 January 2000) http://www.aber.ac.uk/~dgc/tecdet.html.
10.
Cypher, A. (1991) `EAGER: Programming Repetitive Tasks by Example', in Human Factors in Computing Systems: The Proceedings of CHI '91, pp. 33-39. New York: ACM Press.
11.
Edwards, P.N. (1996) The Closed World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
12.
Eisenstein, E.L. (1983) The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
13.
Engelbart, D.C. (1963) `A Conceptual Framework for the Augmentation of Man's Intellect', in Paul W. Howerton and David C. Weeks (eds) Vistas in Information Handling, vol. 1, pp. 1-29. Washington, DC: Spartan Books.
14.
Erickson, T. (1997) `Designing Agents as if People Mattered', in J.M. Bradshaw (ed.) Software Agents, pp. 79-96. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
15.
Ferguson, C.H. and C.R. Morris (1993) Computer Wars. New York: Times Books (Random House).
16.
Fraase, M. (1990) Macintosh Hypermedia: Vol. I, Reference Guide. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company.
17.
Greenberg, S. and I. Witten (1985) `Adaptive Personalized Interfaces - A Question of Viability', Behavior and Information Technology4(1): 31-45.
18.
Hanson, D. (1982) The New Alchemists: Silicon Valley and the Microelectronics Revolution. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.
19.
Jones, T. (1983) `The Grand Old Man', Psychology Today (Dec.): 50-56.
20.
Kay, A.C. (1984) `Computer Software', Scientific American (Sept.): pp. 53-59.
21.
Kay, A.C. (1987) Doing with Images Makes Symbols: Communicating with Computers, video tape. Stanford, CA: University Video Communications.
22.
Kay, A.C. (1990) `User Interface: A Personal View', in Brenda Laurel (ed.) The Art Of Human Computer Interface Design, pp. 191-207. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
23.
Kay, A.C. (1991) `Computers, Networks and Education', Scientific American (Sept.): 138-148.
24.
Laurel, B. (1993) Computers as Theatre. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
25.
Leonard, A. (1997) Bots: The Origin of a New Species. San Francisco, CA: HardWired.
26.
Levy, S. (1994) Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer that Changed Everything. New York: Viking.
27.
Maes, P. (1994) `Agents that Reduce Work and Information Overload', Communications of the ACM37(7): 30-40.
28.
McLuhan, M. (1962) The Gutenberg Galaxy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
29.
McLuhan, M. (1964) Understanding Media: The Extensions Of Man. New York: Signet Books.
30.
Mitchell, T. , R. Caruana, D. Freitag, J. McDermott and D. Zabowski (1995) `Experience with a Learning Personal Assistant', Communications of the ACM37(7): 1-91.
31.
Nyce, J.M. and P. Kahn (eds) (1991) From Memex to Hypertext: Vannevar Bush and the Mind's Machine. Boston, MA: Academic Press.
32.
Nystrom, C. (1987) `Literacy as Deviance'. Et cetera (Summer): 111-115.
33.
Ong, W.J. (1977) Interfaces of the Word. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
34.
Ong, W.J. (1982) Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Methuen.
35.
Papert, S. (1980) Mindstorms. New York: Basic Books.
36.
Papert, S. (1996) The Connected Family. Marietta, GA: Longstreet Press.
37.
Piaget, J. (1952) The Child's Conception of Number. New York: Humanities Press.
38.
Postman, N. (1985) Amusing Ourselves To Death. New York: Penguin.
39.
Postman, N. (1992) Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
40.
Reeves, B. and C. Nass (1996) The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Place. New York: Cambridge University Press.
41.
Rheingold, H. (1985) Tools for Thought. New York: Simon & Schuster.
42.
Rheingold, H. (1991) Virtual Reality. New York: Summit Books.
43.
Rose, F. (1987) `Pied Piper of the Computer', New York Times Magazine (Nov.): 56-141.
44.
Ryan, B. (1991) `Dynabook Revisited with Alan Kay: Is the Reign of the Desktop Computer About to End?', Byte (Feb.): 203-208.
45.
Schroeder, R. (1997) `Virtual Worlds and the Social Realities of Cyberspace', in. B.D. Loader (ed.) The Governance of Cyberspace, pp. 95-107. London: Routledge.
46.
Smith, D.C. and C. Irby (1982, 1990) `Xerox Star User Interface: An Overview'. SIGGRAPH Video Review, Issue 56: CHI '90 Technical Video Program-User Interface Technologies and Applications (video tape).
47.
Turkle, S. (1984) The Second Self. New York: Simon & Schuster.
48.
Whorf, B.L. (1956) `Language, Mind, and Reality', in John B. Carroll (ed.) Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf, pp. 246-270. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
49.
Williams, R. (1974) Television Technology and Cultural Form. New York: Schocken Books.
50.
Zachary, G.P. (1997) Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century. New York: Free Press.
51.
Zuboff, S. (1988) In the Age of the Smart Machine. New York: Basic Books.
