Technology of Software

Information Design, as an area of study, is most commonly associated with computer hardware and software technologies. Software development has evolved since its beginning in the 1940s. Programming languages, computer hardware and software technologies change rapidly. It is difficult to say whether changes in software development are the catalyst behind changes in hardware technology, or hardware technology advances spur the changes in software development. These two areas of development are dependent on each other. In a presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Computing Machinery, David K. Allison, the chairman of the Smithsonian Information Technology & Society National Museum, states:

When we approach the history of computing, we frequently think of it as the history of machines. We periodize the subject in terms of generations of designs: The mainframe generation, the minicomputer era, the PC revolution. We look at the significance in the changes in processor development, in memory capacity, in networking. These are important subjects. But often lost among them is what I believe is a more important story: the story of the relationships between the computer and its users, and how that relationship has evolved. (Allison, 1996).

Allison divided computer technology evolution by the beginning of three periods in computer history illustrating major developments in the cultural implementation of computing technology:

Early use by scientists and engineers solving national security problems- symbolized by the development of the ENIAC in the 1940s.
Early use by big business - symbolized by the ERMA in the 1960s. Infusion in almost all areas of life - symbolized by personal computers in the 1980s. (Allison, 1996).

The "first automated calculating machine" research - which developed into the ENIAC - was instigated by a need to "quickly generate ranging tables for the US Army artillery." (Allison, 1996). Allison suggests that the initial impetus to create "calculating machines" for military and defense purposes greatly influenced the trajectory of evolving computer technologies. Allison proposes that had the ENIAC been designed for peaceful purposes the technology may have developed quite differently. By the time the ENIAC was completed, and a great deal of money had been invested by the government, the original purpose "of computing ballistics tables" was no longer such a pressing priority, therefore the developers tried to emphasize that the technology could be used for purposes beyond those required by the military. Allison suggests "these user requirements not only determined the nature of the machine, but also affected the course of the early history of computer development in America." (Allison, 1996) Allison adds that these new computers fostered "the growth of computational solutions to scientific problems … numerical solutions to problems began to be used much more widely in science." These new computers were "primarily for scientific computing that could be used effectively only by computer professionals." (Allison, 1996).

As computing technology began to be applied to the problems of business, it became apparent that the needs of the user could be quite different than those in the scientific community. The next generation of computers was designed to be used by business people, not scientists. They were designed to handle banking transactions and accounting information. (Allison, 1996). The entrance of computers into the business world was the beginning of computer technology "defined in terms of the user, not in terms of the hardware." (Allison, 1996). The computer was no longer a tool used exclusively by scientists and computer programmers.

The development and popularization of the personal computer in the 1980s brought changes to many industries. Entertainment, art, science, medicine, education, energy, agriculture, transportation, business, finance, and manufacturing were all affected and altered by the introduction of computers. Almost every aspect of our modern culture has been affected by the use of computer hardware and software. Professionals in almost every field have adapted to the computer as a primary tool in their daily business operations. This is especially true for fields under the umbrella of Information Design, such as graphic design and publishing, and those involved in the development of computer software.

In an interview by Laurel Harper of How magazine, Jessica Helfand predicted that "…[creative professionals'] particular skill sets within the design profession will become more self-evident - business and strategy, for instance, or software development." (qtd. Harper, 1998). Helfand further states:

…one big opportunity for designers is to do what is now commonly known as "information architecture" - navigation, organization and mapping spaces….it puts the emphasis on us to be engineers rather than innovators, advocating our problem-solving abilities to the exclusion of our visionary strengths…we should be inventing new ways to tell stories and engage audiences, new languages, new metaphors and new opportunities to communicate visually, verbally, kinetically, creatively, over space and time, today and in the years to come. (qtd. Harper, 1998).

Computer technology continues to evolve and has become an integral part of our daily lives. In David K. Allison's presentation to the Annual Meeting of the Association of Computing Machinery, he attempts to evaluate the advances in computer technology that will have the most impact going forward. He states:

…the most important change in recent decades has not been in…processing power or the size of computer memories or even in the drop in cost. It has been the increase in the range of information computers can process and the variety of user interfaces …Computer "data" now encompasses not only numbers and text, but also pictures, video, sound, graphics, three-dimensional shapes and all sorts of images: fingerprints, DNA maps, barcodes, etc. Virtually anything that humans sense can now be expressed with a digital representation. I don't know yet of digital smell or tastes interfaces, but if they don't already exist, then I expect they soon will. (Allison, 1996).

Many computer and software companies, such as Adobe, Apple Computer, IBM, Microsoft, and Sun, have been very innovative in developing new technologies. The evolution of distributed software, networking, and client/server technologies has changed the way that software is developed and deployed. According to The Media Center, "business models based on the economics of interconnected and intranetworked markets are emerging, some already applied by the new economy companies that have disrupted traditional media - eBay, Monster, Yahoo and Google." (The Media Center, 2005). These companies directly impact software companies that primarily develop desktop software, such as Microsoft. An example of this is shown by the excerpt below from a recent Press Democrat article concerning Bill Gate's announcement that he will step down from the day-to-day operating duties at Microsoft within the next two years:

But the move, analysts said, points to the changes sweeping the software industry. Probably more than any other person, Mr. Gates has been identified with personal computer software, while the center of gravity in computing is increasingly shifting to the Internet. "I think we'll look back at this day as the separation between two eras in software - the first being software in a box, and the second software distributed over the Internet for free and funded by advertising," said George F. Colony, chief executive of Forrester Research. "The new era requires a complete re-examination of Microsoft's business model, which has been one of most profitable the world has ever seen." (Markoff and Lohr, 2006).

Another interesting aspect of the merging of desktop and web-based software is the "end of the software release cycle." (O'Reilly, 2006). According to Tim O'Reilly, a leading technology book publisher:

…[company] operations must become a core competency. Google's or Yahoo!'s expertise in product development must be matched by an expertise in daily operations. So fundamental is the shift from software as artifact to software as service that the software will cease to perform unless it is maintained on a daily basis. Google must continuously crawl the web and update its indices, continuously filter out link spam and other attempts to influence its results, continuously and dynamically respond to hundreds of millions of asynchronous user queries, simultaneously matching them with context-appropriate advertisement. It's no accident that Google's system administration, networking, and load balancing techniques are perhaps even more closely guarded secrets than their search algorithms. Google's success at automating these processes is a key part of their cost advantage over competitors. (O'Reilly, 2006).

These articles point out that innovation in computer technology in the present and the future concentrate on processing and presenting information with an emphasis on the users. As computers have become embedded in almost every aspect of life, professionals from many fields benefit from a deeper understanding of software and computer technology. In particular, the fields of media and entertainment have embraced the computer and software technology, thereby creating new modes for creative expression. According to Gregory Bond's article Software as Art, there is a symmetry and beauty to a well-designed program that resembles a work of art. Bond suggests that although this beauty has always been known to programmers, it is just now coming to light for new groups of admirers - "…artists, grounded firmly in the new-media artistic community." (Bond, 2005). Bond suggests further that "few other artistic media…offer so many possibilities for self-expression" and that software development is transitioning "from programmer-centric to artist-centric." (Bond, 2005). •