"The course digs into everything that goes into creating design token systems and themeable user interfaces to help Multi All-The-Things organizations meet the multifarious needs of their digital products. Design tokens may be the latest incarnation, but software creators have been creating themeable user interfaces for quite a long time! As with all things, we can study history to learn from our past to inform our future. So let's dig in!"
"The history of the graphical user interface (GUI) is fascinating and naturally involved a lot of research, iteration, and development before being unleashed upon the world. The first commercial computer featuring a GUI was the Xerox Alto in 1973. Behold it in all its glory:"
"Game & computer designers were contending with extremely limited processing/memory resources, so they were forced to get extremely creative in order to support full-color screens. Sprites were used to manage the graphics and different states for UI elements, and color themes cleverly transformed the same shapes into different characters. Themed UI elements!"
Design tokens represent a modern continuation of long-standing techniques for themeable user interfaces. Early GUIs emerged in the 1970s with the Xerox Alto (1973) and reached market form with the Xerox Star (1981). The 1970s also saw video-game innovations such as Pong and Galaxian that advanced full-color RGB displays. Developers used sprites, multiple states, and color themes to economize limited hardware while producing distinct UI appearances. The 1980s expanded full-color displays and introduced new design opportunities and constraints. Historical graphics, theming, and resource-driven ingenuity inform contemporary token systems and themeable interfaces.
Read at Brad Frost
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