Graphical user interface
A graphical user interface GUI is a type of user interface which allows people to interact with a computer and computer-controlled devices which employ graphical icons, visual indicators or special graphical elements called "widgets", along with text labels or text navigation to represent the information and actions available to a user. The actions are usually performed through direct manipulation of the graphical elements.
Precursors to graphical user interfaces The precursor to graphical user interfaces was invented by researchers at the Stanford Research Institute, led by Douglas Engelbart. They developed the use of text-based hyperlinks manipulated with a mouse for the On-Line System. The concept of hyperlinks was further refined and extended to graphics by researchers at Xerox PARC, who went beyond text-based hyperlinks and used a GUI as the primary interface for the Xerox Alto computer. Most modern general-purpose GUI's are derived from this system. As a result, some people call this class of interface a PARC User Interface (PUI) (note that PUI is also an acronym for perceptual user interface).
PARC User ...