Therefore, let me argue that the actual dawn of user interface design first happened when computer designers finally noticed, not just that end users had functioning minds, but that a better understanding of how those minds worked would completely shift the paradigm of interaction.      Alan Kay 

"I am a constructivist. I think that knowledge is a matter of constant, new construction, by its interaction with reality, and that it is not pre-formed. There is a continuous creativity."

Jean Piaget

"I am a constructivist. I think that knowledge is a matter of constant, new construction, by its interaction with reality, and that it is not pre-formed. There is a continuous creativity."     Jean Piaget

Both Jean Piaget and Alan Kay’s discoveries involved major paradigm shifts grounded on their study of the human mind.  In the case of Piaget, children learning and mental development and in the case of Kay how everyday users could interact with computers (i.e. Graphical User Interfaces).

In this 3rd decade of the 21st century, we are witnessing amazing advances in hardware such as 5G/Edge computing and in software such as HTML5, Websockets, node.js, and even “clutzy” Javascript  with ES6+  is maturing into a solid and powerful programming language. These advances are opening up a number of exciting new Web frontiers. One of the most interesting and also challenging is multi-user real time collaboration using the “Visual Cloud”.

In order that the full potential of the Web be  realized in these new frontiers, like real time human collaboration,  mastery of technical  advances although required is  not sufficient, new paradigms and methods are also needed and these need to be based on a better understanding  of  the working of the human mind.