5. Natural dialogue with machines?

5.1 User interface

A program transforms the computer into a tool adapted to a particular use, whether that use is building an airplane or writing a document. The user interface is the part of the software that mediates between the user and the program. In the past, the user interface was the last part to be designed. Now, it has become the first. For beginners and experienced users alike, what they perceive becomes "their" computer. This illusion is the simplified metaphor that everyone constructs to explain the system's actions or to provoke new ones.

It's worth noting the fundamental work carried out as early as 1973 by teams at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (XPARC), with the invention of the mouse and windows, which gave rise to the first commercial...