The Rise and Fall of The Desktop

This is Not my Beautiful House: Examining the Desktop Metaphor, 1980-1995

This essay by Everest Pipkin examines the rise of the ‘desktop’ as the dominant UI in the 80s and 90s, the various ways it was implemented, as well as attempts to remake it to be more user-friendly, rather than merely business-friendly.

Ultimately, though, it was the World Wide Web that would provide that user-friendly interface, by giving the users the power to make their own environment. And in many ways, the web would subsequently drive the evolution of the user interfaces we have today.