User interface

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This page was created by a member of the free volunteer community supporting OLPC.

All that what sits between the ones and zeros, the laptop and you as a human being able to read, interact with the laptop is : the User Interface.

As you know a computer works with electricity, | and 0 - one and zero's, a memory, a screen, etc. You can try to put your 2 fingers somewhere near where the powerplug enters the laptop or something of the sort and see how well you can make the laptop understand what you want it to do or understand what the laptop is giving you as a result, but probably you won't be repeating the experience too often.

So we humans and computers need some devices to interact with each other without getting hurt: a keyboard might be handy, a screen to visualise things. Some of us can actually read binary code: the ones and zero's, but it's really much easier to have some program to read these ones and zero's for you and transforms them e.g. in to letters and numbers on a laptop's screen.

Let's say, editing a text document. Somewhere it all comes down to ones and zeros on the memory of your computer. But it is great that someone figured out and wrote a program to get from these ones and zero's - current/no current - a loaded capacitator / non loaded capacitator, to a text-editor program.

All that what sits between the ones and zeros, the laptop and you as a human being able to read, interact with the laptop is : the User Interface.