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New Media & Society
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Bridging the Differences between Social Theory and Technological Invention in Human-Computer Interface Design

SUSAN B. BARNES

Fordham University, New York

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.

Key Words: Engelbart • Graphical User Interface (GUI) • human-computer interaction • interactive computing • Kay • social constructionism • technological determinism

New Media & Society, Vol. 2, No. 3, 353-372 (2000)
DOI: 10.1177/14614440022225850
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