A GUI offers graphical icons, and visual indicators, as opposed to text-based interfaces, typed command labels or text navigation to fully represent the information and actions available to a user. The actions are usually performed through direct manipulation of the graphical elements.

The term GUI is historically restricted to the scope of two-dimensional display screens with display resolutions capable of describing generic information, in the tradition of the computer science research at Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). The term GUI earlier might have been applicable to other high-resolution types of interfaces that are non-generic, such as videogames, or not restricted to flat screens, like volumetric displays.

The precursor to GUIs 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 GUIs 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).


Following PARC the first GUI-centric computer operating model was the Xerox 8010 Star Information System in 1981. Followed by the Apple Lisa in 1982.

The GUIs familiar to most people today are Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and the X Window System interfaces. Apple, IBM and Microsoft used many of Xerox's ideas to develop products, and IBMs Common User Access specifications formed the basis of the user interface found in Microsoft Windows, IBM OS/2 Presentation Manager, and the Unix Motif toolkit and window manager.

These ideas evolved to create the interface found in current versions of Microsoft Windows, as well as in Mac OS X and various desktop environments for Unix-like operating systems, such as Linux. Thus most current GUIs have largely common idioms.

Designing the visual composition and temporal behavior of GUI is an important part of software application programming. Its goal is to enhance the efficiency and ease of use for the underlying logical design of a stored program, a design discipline known as usability. Techniques of user-centered design are used to ensure that the visual language introduced in the design is well tailored to the tasks it must perform.