Our Field
Initially, man-to-computer communications were based on special computer codes, so only professionals could do that.
Then the Menu idea was introduced: The computer gives the user a choice of several actions at each step, and the user just selects the pertinent item. This approach was a great leap forward, since the user did not have to be a computer professional any more. Because of that, menu-based (mostly windows-based) software became extremely widespread.
And yet… With the Menu approach we were still too far from our ultimate goal: To be able to communicate with a computer, our electronic assistant, just as we do with our human assistants.
We want to be able to just tell the computer what we want in whatever words we choose, not having to wait for its prompts and instructions, and not depending on our ability to understand them and make correct choices.
That had determined our area of work.