Introducing OpenWorkspace®

Doug Engelbart, a visionary computer scientist at Stanford Research Institute (SRI), presented his team’s work on augmenting human intellect—a framework that envisioned computers as tools to enhance how people process information, make decisions, and collaborate.

At its core, the framework transformed a video display into a communications device for storing and working with digital documents, breaking uncharted ground in interactive computing. The audience—visionary thinkers, engineers, and counterculture advocates—immediately recognized its revolutionary potential.

The Mother of all Demos came to do for technology what the following year’s ‘Woodstock’ festival did for music and the arts. Much like how Woodstock showcased music’s power to transcend cultural barriers, the Mother of All Demos revealed how networked computing could transcend physical ones. It was a prophetic glimpse into the modern work environment, as Engelbart demonstrated the concepts that came to form the foundation of modern desktop computing:

• The mouse.
• The application window.
• The hotkey.
• Word processing and Hypertext.
• The networked computer.
• The video call.
• Remote collaboration on the same document.

Using a five-finger keyboard and a new pointing device called a mouse, Engelbart navigated a graphical interface unlike anything seen before. The mouse enabled pointing, selecting, and drawing on-screen, while the keyboard handled copying and pasting text, much like today’s Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V (or Cmd+C/Cmd+V).

Each technology was groundbreaking in its own right, yet together, they enabled a new era of computing, unlocking the potential of a new computer-powered display born from a standard television set that could do so much more than any TV or monitor had done before it.

A standard TV set, modified to work as a computer monitor.

In 1968, there was no such thing as a computer display. Engelbart modified a standard TV to function as one, pushing beyond prior efforts that had used CRTs for early video games and digital drawing.

His innovation? A graphical, multitasking screen—more TV-like than the typical text-based computer monitors of the era.  Purpose-built for multitasking, the screen’s software enabled a split-screen capability previously seen only in broadcast studios or experimental film editing—enabling an all-new electronic device built for the budding personal computer user’s desk surface.

By segmenting the display into rectangular regions, Engelbart’s team addressed a fundamental challenge that shaped every major desktop improvement that followed:

The limited screen real estate of a monitor versus the expansive workspace of a traditional desk.

Six months after Engelbart’s demo, Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) was founded, leading to two of the three pillar’s of the today’s desktop graphical user interface: the “overlapping window” and the “desktop icon”.

By the early 1970s, Kay and Engelbart joined Xerox PARC, forming an elite research team tasked with designing the “Office of the Future.”

The ‘Overlapping Window’

At Xerox PARC, advancements in computer graphics fueled the next leap forward:

• BitBlting (Bit Block Transfer) made dragging and resizing windows smooth.
• Clipping ensured only visible portions of windows were redrawn, optimizing performance.

This enabled overlapping windows, mimicking stacked paper on a desk—a major usability breakthrough. Now, an unlimited number of windows could be open without consuming additional graphical resources.

Fifty years later, this concept remains the standard across Windows, macOS, Linux, and Chrome OS. It provided an alternative to Engelbart’s tiled windows, making desktop computing more flexible and intuitive.

And with that, the ‘overlapping window’ was born, and the desktop metaphor was complete.

Xerox Alto: The First Modern Computer

In 1973, Xerox PARC unveiled the Alto, the first standalone personal computer built for a single user. Though never commercialized, the Alto can be considered the grandfather of personal computers, it was a landmark innovation:

• The first high-resolution, portrait-oriented display (8.5 x 11 inches, mirroring office documents).
• The first graphical user interface.
• The first system with a mouse and overlapping windows.

The Alto was a sensation—the closest thing to a real-world digital desk at the time, showcasing the future of office computing, and innovating on the computer monitor with its first-of-a-kind 8.5 x 11 sized, portrait-oriented form that nodded to the printed documents of 1970s office work.

Complete with overlapping windows and a mouse, the Alto served as the proof of concept for the “office of the future” heading into the 1980s.

The Star set the standard for modern computing with:

• Visually detailed desktop icons for managing tasks.
• Popup menus for enhanced control.
• A unified design system, making the experience consistent across apps.

Its GUI became the template for the modern desktop. Soon after its release, the entire industry converged on its design, shaping the PC experience we still use today.

The IBM PC: Defining the Personal Computer

Just months after the release of the Xerox Star, IBM entered the fast-growing microcomputer market with the IBM PC—the first computer marketed explicitly as a “personal computer.”

The term “personal computer” had been coined a decade earlier by Stewart Brand, who covered Xerox PARC in a Rolling Stone feature that highlighted the Alto’s revolutionary potential. Unlike IBM’s mainframes, which were room-sized and shared by many users, the personal computer was a desk-sized machine designed for a single user.

Thanks to its open architecture, robust software ecosystem, and powerful 16-bit processor, the IBM PC quickly became the industry standard. Compared to earlier 8-bit machines like the Apple II, IBM’s PC could run multiple programs more effectively.

A key factor in its success was Microsoft’s MS-DOS operating system, which became the foundation for PC computing. Its BASIC programming environment was widely adopted by developers, cementing Microsoft’s dominance and making the “PC” synonymous with Microsoft software.

By 1983, IBM had sold over 750,000 units, making the IBM PC a commercial success. However, it also marked the last major milestone of the text-based computing era—before the GUI took over and reshaped personal computing forever.

The Apple Lisa: The Bridge to the Macintosh

In 1983, Apple Computer introduced the Lisa, the next major system after the Xerox Star to popularize the graphical user interface (GUI) and desktop metaphor. The Lisa refined these concepts with:

• Drag-and-drop desktop icons (e.g., moving files or sending them to the wastebasket).
• The now-standard “maximize” button, allowing users to focus on single tasks without distraction.

Priced at $9,995, the Lisa positioned itself between the expensive Xerox Star ($16,595) and IBM’s more affordable PC (~$3,000).

Meanwhile, other industry players continued advancing digital workstations. Sun Microsystems built high-performance systems with faster processors, more memory, and enhanced networking, while companies like Apple, Commodore, Lisp, and Microsoft adapted Star’s GUI, each adding their own design themes to windows, icons, and popup menus.

By 1984, Apple refined the Lisa into the Macintosh—offering many of the Star’s innovations at a more accessible price of $2,495. Unlike IBM and Sun, which promoted open systems, Apple embraced Xerox’s closed (proprietary) model, making Mac the next integrated hardware-software system to follow the Star’s legacy.

The Commodore Amiga: Advancing Graphics and Keyboard Input

By 1985, personal computer ownership had grown 30-fold since the start of the decade. Among the most innovative systems of the time, Commodore’s Amiga 1000 pushed graphics and input capabilities forward with custom chipsets and drivers.

Notably, its keyboard driver could process key events independently of the operating system, enabling advanced keyboard shortcuts and custom key mapping—features that were revolutionary at the time but have since become standard in today’s keyboard-driven desktop experience.

Windows 1.0 and the Birth of ‘Alt+Tab’

In 1985, Microsoft released the first version of Windows, expanding on the Amiga’s keyboard-driven navigation with a groundbreaking feature: Alt+Tab.

At a time when window switching was a new concept, Alt+Tab cleverly leveraged muscle memory to let users cycle through open windows efficiently—paving the way for keyboard-driven multitasking.

By 1987, Windows 3.1 refined Alt+Tab by adding window icons next to their names and moving the switcher feedback from the bottom-left to the center of the screen.  These refinements made Alt+Tab more intuitive, reinforcing its role as a core feature of Windows navigation—one that remains essential today.

By the end of the decade, the once-revolutionary Xerox Star had faded under the weight of market forces and its own successors. While it saw limited commercial success, its ideas and technologies lived on, dispersing across the tech industry like the remnants of a supernova.

Many of the Star’s designers and engineers carried its vision forward as they moved to Apple, Microsoft, and other rising players, embedding its innovations into systems that were far better positioned to define the commercial landscape of the 1990s.

Beyond internet access, updated productivity tools, and gaming advancements, Windows 95 introduced a major refinement to the desktop GUI: the Taskbar.

Its most iconic feature, the Start Menu, provided a streamlined way to access applications—”serving up icons on a platter.” But the Taskbar’s true innovation wasn’t the Start Menu; it was its Taskbar buttons.

For the first time, users could instantly summon minimized or overlapping windows with a single click, transforming window management and making multitasking on the desktop far more intuitive.

Years later, Apple’s Mac OS X introduced the Dock, positioned at the bottom of the screen and serving the same purpose as the Windows Taskbar—providing quick access to applications and open windows.

Similarly, where Windows had Alt+Tab to summon an overview of open windows as thumbnail images, Mac OS X adopted ‘Command+Tab’, offering a nearly identical desktop switching experience. These refinements reinforced the convergence of desktop UI elements across operating systems, shaping the modern user experience.

By the turn of the millennium, the launch bar spanning the bottom edge of the desktop and a keystroke-driven desktop overview had officially become fundamental elements of the desktop experience. Alongside the overlapping window and the desktop icon, these innovations cemented themselves as ubiquitous features of modern computing, shaping the way users interacted with their systems for decades to come.

Linux’s Compiz and the Challenge of 3D Desktop Navigation

Linux’s Compiz window manager introduced a fascinating innovation—the desktop cube, which transformed the desktop into a rotatable 3D workspace. It was a visually striking concept that reimagined window management in a spatial computing format.

However, much like many of today’s spatial computing ideas, the leap from 2D to 3D proved too drastic for widespread adoption. Users had spent decades developing muscle memory for the flat, 2D desktop interface, modeled after traditional office desks and paper-based workflows.

Ultimately, the Compiz cube was ahead of its time, demonstrating the possibilities of 3D computing but failing to replace the deeply ingrained 2D desktop paradigm.

Windows XP: Refining the Desktop Experience

Windows XP introduced a more polished, intuitive, and visually appealing user interface, defined by its distinctive green Start button and blue Taskbar. These refinements made navigation smoother and the desktop more user-friendly.

XP also explored the potential of semi-transparent windows, an early attempt to make overlapping windows feel more intuitive by subtly revealing content beneath them. Though limited at the time, this concept laid the groundwork for later transparency effects in Windows Aero (Vista/7) and modern UI designs.

Window Snapping: Modernizing Screen Management

One of the most widely adopted innovations in screen management was the ability to “snap” windows to the edges of the screen, splitting the desktop into halves, thirds, or quarters.

Windows 7 popularized window snapping, refining earlier concepts from tiling window managers like:

• xmonad (April 2007)
• Awesome (September 2007)
• i3 (March 2009)

At its core, snapping windows into organized sections was a modernized version of Engelbart’s tiled windows—a practical adaptation for larger screens and multitasking workflows. For good reason, it became a ubiquitous feature across operating systems and remains essential to desktop productivity today.

The Shift to Mobile: The Age of Apps

While the pace of desktop innovation had clearly slowed, progress was still being made—until everything changed around 2009. The industry’s focus shifted away from the workstation toward something new and exciting: mobile computing.

The iPhone had crossed the chasm. No longer just a phone, it became a digital hub, and its Home Screen + App Store model promised to be the Swiss Army knife of the digital world. Soon, there was an app for everything—every task, activity, and even coffee preference.

Competition exploded. Instead of one app per need, there were five, ten, or twenty. By 2012, the App Store had surpassed 500,000 apps, and Apple celebrated by offering one lucky customer a $10,000 gift card for making the 25 billionth app download.

The era of apps over workstations had officially begun.

The Expansion of the App Economy

Google’s Android Market followed suit, surpassing 10 billion downloads, solidifying the app-centric model as the new standard for digital interaction.

As specialized apps became the norm on mobile, the same fragmented approach made its way to the desktop—through the web browser. Web apps had already gained traction with the rise of Gmail, Google Maps, and social media platforms, leading to a shift where users increasingly relied on individual, task-specific web apps instead of traditional desktop software.

This transition further blurred the lines between desktop and mobile, making the browser the new operating system and reinforcing the app-driven paradigm across all devices.

The Web Browser Becomes the New OS

In 2013, Microsoft launched Office 365, offering web-based versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint as an alternative to traditional downloadable software. Other developers quickly followed, reinforcing the browser as the gateway to millions of single-purpose apps and services.

Suddenly, users found themselves managing duplicate versions of the same apps—one in the browser, one on the desktop—while also juggling an overwhelming number of windows and tabs.

Decades of progress toward streamlining desktop productivity had gone off course. And just like that, through no fault of its own, the desktop became ‘application-centric’.

Featured Applications: The New Face of New OS Releases

In recent years, new applications—some revolutionary in their own right—have taken center stage in major OS releases. Rather than introducing fundamental improvements to the desktop itself, operating systems now showcase apps as defining features, integrating them directly into the Taskbar or even embedding them into the desktop itself.

These apps often serve as headline additions, shaping the perception of progress, even as the core desktop experience remains largely unchanged.

Windows 11 Snap Groups: Expanding Window Snapping

Windows 11 introduced Snap Groups, extending the functionality of window snapping by allowing users to save and reopen clusters of apps in predefined brownie-sheet layouts directly from the Taskbar.

This enhancement streamlined multitasking and workspace organization, making it easier to restore structured layouts without manually repositioning windows—a small but meaningful step in improving desktop efficiency.

Apple’s Continuity: Unifying the Ecosystem

Apple made significant strides in Continuity, extending macOS’s design system and key UI elements—such as widgets—across its ecosystem of iPads, iPhones, and even corded VR goggles.

This seamless integration reinforced Apple’s “one ecosystem” vision, allowing users to transition between devices effortlessly. While these advancements expanded cross-device functionality, they primarily extended existing designs, rather than evolving the desktop experience itself.

Immersive Spatial Computing: A New Frontier for the Desktop

In recent years, augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and virtual reality (VR) have introduced entirely new ways to experience the classic desktop.

Today’s glasses and headsets represent the biggest advancements in control and display technology in decades, if not ever—at least in the realm of personal computing. The ability to select an icon or window just by gazing at it, then activate it with a simple pinch, is a remarkable technological achievement. Yet, it also feels bittersweet, in that these interactions would seem far more natural had the mouse not come first.

In theory, the idea of a purely natural, gesture-based computing experience—now popularly known as “spatial computing”—is fascinating. But the concept itself has been rebranded time and again—from science fiction depictions of touchless interfaces to the cutting-edge headsets of today. While the technology has evolved, the fundamental question remains:

Is this the future of computing, or just another iteration of input evolution?

The Limitations of Immersive Computing for 2D Work

While immersive, gesture-based computing excels in applications that are inherently 3D—such as modeling software—it has yet to prove itself as a compelling alternative for traditional 2D workflows.

Despite years of advancements in VR and spatial computing, users remain no closer to adopting headsets for everyday desktop tasks than they were when VR first emerged. The classic desktop paradigm—with its mouse, keyboard, and flat screen—continues to dominate knowledge work, highlighting the gap between technological potential and practical adoption.

Why AR and VR Haven’t Replaced the Desktop

Emerging research is shedding light on why AR and VR have failed to gain traction for traditional work. Studies conclusively show that users perform significantly better with a standard desktop setup—a real monitor controlled by a tactile mouse and keyboard—than with any immersive 3D implementation using headsets and gesture-based controls.

Latest Findings: 2024 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

This year’s SIGCHI Conference (Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction) featured multiple studies validating earlier findings:

• Users reacted significantly faster and fixated on objects for less time on the classic 2D desktop compared to a virtual 3D desktop.
• One study tested three different fields of view and found that users took twice as long to complete tasks in immersive VR than with a traditional monitor and mouse.
• Users completed tasks faster and with fewer errors on a standard desktop.
• Information recall took significantly longer in head-mounted displays (HMDs).
• Users fixated on objects for longer durations in VR, disrupting task flow and causing longer selection times (Kargut, Gutwin, and Cockburn, 2024).

These findings reinforce the idea that while immersive environments may excel in 3D modeling and spatial applications, they remain inefficient for traditional 2D work, where speed, precision, and cognitive ease are paramount.

More Evidence Favoring the Traditional Desktop

Additional research presented at 2024’s SIGCHI Conference reinforced the performance gap between traditional desktops and immersive VR/AR environments for work-related tasks.

• Lower Cognitive Effort in Desktop Environments
  One study found that desktop-based environments required less cognitive effort than VR-based ones. The simpler, more focused interface of a traditional desktop was better suited for tasks requiring precision and minimal distractions (Steinicke, 2024).
• AR Performed No Better Than VR (and Sometimes Worse)
  Another study found that glasses-based AR environments did not outperform VR and, in some cases, performed worse. Participants in AR setups reported being more affected by real-world distractions, whereas VR environments provided a more enclosed, focused experience, leading to different user engagement levels (Yan, 2024).
• A Potential Solution: Peeking at the 2D Desktop
  A separate study proposed an ironic workaround: allowing users to “peek” at their traditional 2D desktop without fully exiting their VR workspace. It found that briefly viewing the real desktop during VR sessions was useful in professional and multitasking scenarios, where quick access to non-immersive content (e.g., documents or emails) remained essential (Wentzel et al., 2024).

These findings suggest that while immersive computing has its strengths, the traditional 2D desktop remains irreplaceable for most productivity tasks—even within VR itself.

The Verdict: The Classic Desktop Still Reigns Supreme

As fascinating as head-worn devices and natural gestures may be, they fail to offer a compelling alternative to the classic desktop for inherently 2D work.

For users considering head-mounted displays as a replacement for traditional desktops, the barriers are significant:

• Performance limitations – As highlighted by SIGCHI 2024 research, immersive environments introduce cognitive and efficiency drawbacks that impact productivity.
• New hardware investment – Switching to a VR/AR setup requires purchasing specialized devices.
• Learning curve – A new operating system and interaction model must be adopted.
• Physical constraints – Users must wear a headset (at worst) or glasses (at best)—a notable departure from the effortless accessibility of a standard monitor.

Taking into account both scientific research and the failure of various cutting-edge control methods to gain traction, it is clear that—at least for now—the mouse, keyboard, and classic, two-dimensional desktop still rule supreme for knowledge work, unmatched in speed, precision, and usability.