Graphical User Interfere (GUI)

A graphical user interface (GUI) (sometimes pronounced gooey) is a type of user interface item that allows people to interact with programs in more ways than typing such as computers; hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices; household appliances and office equipment with images rather than text commands. A GUI offers graphical icons, and visual indicators, as opposed to text-based interfaces, typed command labels or text navigation to fully represent the information and actions available to a user. The actions are usually performed throughdirect manipulation of the graphical elements.

The term GUI is historically restricted to the scope of two-dimensional display screens with display resolutions capable of describing generic information, in the tradition of the computer science research at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). The term GUI earlier might have been applicable to other high-resolution types of interfaces that are non-generic, such as videogames, or not restricted to flat screens, like volumetric displays.

A graphical user interface (GUI) is a human-computer interface (i.e., a way for humans to interact with computers) that uses windows and icons and menus and which can be manipulated by a mouse (and often to a limited extent by a keyboard as well).

GUIs stand in sharp contrast to command line interfaces (CLIs), which use only text and are accessed solely by a keyboard. The most familiar example of a CLI to many people is MS-DOS.

Another example is Linux when it is used in console mode (i.e., the entire screen shows text only).

A major advantage of GUIs is that they make computer operation more intuitive, and thus easier to learn and use. For example, it is much easier for a new user to move a file from one directory to another by dragging its icon with the mouse than by having to remember and type seemingly arcane commands to accomplish the same task.

sources: Taken from GUI Definition, and wikipedia