He is one of the pioneers of the modern graphical user interfaces (GUI) for computers, having invented such techniques as the desktop metaphor, dialog boxes, and universal commands.
Smith graduated from Chillicothe (Ohio) High School in 1963 and was inducted into the Chillicothe High School Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame in 2007[1] Smith attended Oberlin College, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in mathematics in 1967.
During his senior year, Smith realized he didn't want to pursue a career as a mathematics professor, which had been his goal up to then.
Fortunately, the field of computer science was just getting started; it seemed tailor made to funnel his interest in mathematics into solving real world problems.
He developed an initial interest in artificial intelligence (AI) after reading Computers and Thought by Edward A. Feigenbaum and Julian Feldman.
At that point people could apply it to some of the thorny problems of human civilization, and real scientific progress could be made.
It wasn’t until the turn of the century that computers finally became powerful enough for artificial neural networks (ANNs) to reach their potential.
He turned to Alan Kay, an assistant professor in computer science at Stanford who also worked in the AI lab, for help.
In their first meeting to discuss the thesis (an ill-formed desire to do computer programming visually), Kay handed Smith a stack of books on art and philosophy, including Visual Thinking by Rudolf Arnheim, The Act of Creation by Arthur Koestler, Art and Illusion by Ernst Gombrich, and The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field by Jacques Hadamard.
This surprised Smith a great deal, since he had been expecting books on algorithms and data structures, programming language design, compiler construction techniques, etc.
During this time, Smith also worked at Xerox PARC, where he associated with Alan Kay’s Learning Research Group which developed Smalltalk, one of the first object-oriented programming languages.
Cognition had been implemented on dedicated high-power workstations, which became uncompetitive due to the increasing power of low-cost personal computers using Intel chips.
But that was a tough market around the turn of the century before the iPad, and eventually Stagecast went out of business due to a lack of funding.
The other five designers were Larry Clark, Eric Harslem, Charles Irby, Ralph Kimball, and Jim Reilly.
While working on the Star, Smith helped develop four main features: the desktop metaphor, dialog boxes, the icon designs, and universal commands.
To introduce a computer that knowledge workers could easily understand and interact with, Smith believed it was imperative to incorporate objects and ideas they were already familiar with.
This led him to represent common office items, such as documents, folders, file cabinets, and wastebaskets, in his icon designs for the Star.
[5][6][7] A dialog box is a small window that contain clickable options, allowing users to communicate a command to the computer.
As development on the Star progressed and drew closer to completion, he and the other designers decided that the icons needed a more professional look.
These tests were used to determine which of the different sets were most aesthetically pleasing, identifiable to the real world object they represented - such as a printer or mailbox - and how fast users could locate a given type of icon in a screen full of them.
[5][6][7] For eight years, Alan Kay, Allen Cypher, and Smith worked closely together in the Apple Advanced Technology Group to find a way to teach children how to program.
In hardware, the designer does not descend to the level of individual transistors and resistors, but rather, goes to a component catalogue, selects a set of integrated circuits, and pieces them together.
However, in software, the designer deals with the lowest level elements: conditional statements, variables, and procedure calls.
For this project, Smith acted as the user interface consultant and contributed a new universal command: Link.
Link would later be added to the list of universal commands such as cut, copy, paste, and undo, that worked with all components.
This language used the PLisp technology previously developed by Larry Tesler, Horace Enea, and Smith at Stanford.
Smith believed that programming was not inherently hard, but that the true problem was that computer scientists had failed to create an easier way to learn and do it.
He believed that the 5th graders were “around the age where they didn’t have the creativity and enthusiasm crushed out of them by the education system, yet old enough to be inventive”.
Although the kids looked at creating simulations with Creator as making video games, Smith believed he was implicitly teaching them the scientific method.
In his own words, Smith said several venture capitalists told his company, "We love your software, and could we please have a copy for our kids?