Desktop Metaphor

This article has some… issues. It’s like a poorly organized desk, cluttered with unverified claims and missing essential citations. Someone needs to sweep through and bring some order, but frankly, I doubt they’ll get it right. If you’re looking for a clean, factual account, you might want to look elsewhere. This is more of a… draft.

The Desktop Metaphor: A Familiar Facade

In the realm of computing, the desktop metaphor serves as a fundamental set of unifying concepts. Its purpose? To simplify the user’s interaction with a graphical user interface, making the complex seem… manageable. It’s an attempt to translate the abstract digital world into something tangible, something akin to the familiar landscape of a writing desk.

Imagine your computer monitor as the surface of your actual desk. On this surface, you can arrange objects: documents that you’re currently working on, or folders containing collections of those documents. When you decide to open a document, it doesn't just appear; it opens into a window, which is essentially a visual representation of that document laid out on your desk. And just like a real desk might have small, handy tools, the desktop metaphor includes what are termed desk accessories—think of a miniature calculator or a digital notepad, readily available for quick tasks.

However, the purity of this metaphor is, shall we say, frequently compromised. As desktop environments have evolved, the concept has been stretched and contorted. The primary driver is often usability, which, let's be honest, tends to trump strict adherence to a concept. So, you’ll find things on your digital desktop that would never grace a real one: trash cans for discarding unwanted items, or representations of disks and network volumes, which might be better conceptualized as filing cabinets rather than things you’d casually place on your desk. Furthermore, elements like menu bars or taskbars have no direct real-world analogue on a physical desktop. While some environments might offer a virtual wall calendar accessible through these bars, it’s a far cry from the physical object itself.

A History Etched in Innovation (and a Few Missteps)

The genesis of the desktop metaphor can be traced back to the pioneering minds at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in the 1970s. Individuals like Alan Kay and David C. Smith were instrumental in its development, refining the concept through a series of groundbreaking software applications. The experimental Xerox Alto was the first machine to showcase an early iteration of this metaphor, but it was the Xerox Star, a commercial venture, that brought it to a wider, albeit limited, audience. It’s worth noting that the idea of using window controls to organize information predates the desktop metaphor itself. A rudimentary version of this could be seen in Douglas Engelbart's legendary "Mother of All Demos". However, PARC truly integrated this concept within the Smalltalk programming environment, giving it substance.

Before the widespread adoption by PARC, the market saw some rather… primitive attempts. In 1983, the Commodore 64 home computer featured a program called Magic Desk I. This was a rudimentary GUI that presented a low-resolution depiction of a desk. It had elements like a telephone, drawers, and a calculator. Interaction was handled via a sprite shaped like a hand, controlled by the same joystick used for video gaming. Selections were made by pressing the joystick’s fire button. The Magic Desk I even emulated a typewriter with sound effects. Other features included a calculator, a rolodex organizer, and a terminal emulator. Files could be tucked away in the desk's drawers, and yes, there was even a trashcan. It was… an attempt.

The computer that truly catapulted the desktop metaphor into the mainstream, making it the standard over the older command-line interface, was the Apple Macintosh in 1984. Since then, it has become virtually unavoidable in modern personal computing. You'll find it embedded in the desktop environments of operating systems like Windows, macOS, Linux, and other Unix-like systems.

Some systems adhered more rigidly to the metaphor than others. BeOS, for instance, presented external hard drives directly on the 'desktop,' while internal drives required clicking an icon that represented the computer itself. Contrast this with Mac OS, which, by default, placed all drives on the desktop. Windows, on the other hand, offered access through a "Computer" icon.

The Amiga took a more direct approach, drawing its terminology straight from workshop jargon. Its desktop was called Workbench. Programs were referred to as tools, smaller applications as applets, and directories were simply 'drawers.' These directories were depicted as either open or closed, visually reinforcing the metaphor. Much like the classic Mac OS and macOS, icons for physical media like floppy disks or CD-ROMs would appear on the desktop when inserted, mirroring the physical presence of these items on a workbench.

The Paper Paradigm: Familiarity as a Guiding Principle

The "paper paradigm" is the underlying conceptual framework for most modern computer interfaces and operating systems. It’s characterized by elements like black text on a white background, files contained within folders, and the ubiquitous "desktop." This paradigm wasn’t the brainchild of a single entity; it was a collaborative effort involving pioneers like Douglas Engelbart, Xerox PARC, and Apple Computer. Their shared goal was to make computers more approachable by mirroring the familiar workspace of the era—a place filled with papers, folders, and a desk. Engelbart first unveiled this concept to the public in 1968, in what is now famously known as "The Mother of All Demos".

As John Siracusa observed, the initial introduction of the GUI to users unfamiliar with such interfaces required careful explanation. Explaining that an icon "represents your file on disk" was a common approach. However, users, in their pragmatic way, quickly simplified this. The icon was the file. The file was the icon. Any notion of indirection or representation was shed, deemed unnecessary mental clutter. This direct association with reality resonated far more deeply.

Over time, however, the strict adherence to the paper paradigm has waned. The introduction of features like "shortcuts" (which are mere links, not the actual files), hypertext, and non-spatial file browsing represents a departure. Shortcuts and hypertext, in particular, lack any direct equivalent in the physical world. Non-spatial browsing can also be perplexing for new users, as it allows for multiple windows representing the same folder to be open simultaneously—a physical impossibility. These deviations, and others, mark a departure from the pure paper paradigm.

Notes and References

"Desktop Metaphor". csdl.tamu.edu. Archived from the original on 2001-02-22. Retrieved 2011-06-09.
Koved, Larry; Selker, Ted (1999). "Room with a view (RWAV): A metaphor for interactive computing". IBM TJ Watson Research Center. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.22.1340.
Thacker, Charles P., et al. Alto: A personal computer. Xerox, Palo Alto Research Center, 1979.
Reimer, Jeremy (2005). "A History of the GUI (Part 2)". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2009-09-14.
Reimer, Jeremy (2005). "A History of the GUI (Part 3)". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2009-09-14.
"Realworld Desk".
"About the Finder..." arstechnica.com. 2003.

External Links

ArsTechnica article on the spatial Mac OS Finder