Slashdot Mirror
GUI Pioneer Jef Raskin Has Passed Away
Viridian writes "Jef Raskin, GUI pioneer, interface expert, Apple employee #31, and the man most credited with the creation of the Apple Macintosh, died of cancer on Saturday February 26, 2005. It was Raskin who named it after his favorite fruit, the McIntosh apple, although he said that he changed the spelling to "Macintosh" to avoid potential copyright conflicts with McIntosh, the audio equipment manufacturer."
Bill Gates pays his respects
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
Steve is usually a touchy feely type guy, i'm surprised that there's not anything on the Apple site about it, however small.
cleverly disguised as a responsible adult ||
Well, oft criticized on here, I still hope his humane interface project keeps going...
"When no-one around you understands start your own revolution and cut out the middle man"
Bugger.
There are few enough decent UI designers out there who understand what is actually important over what "looks real pretty". Here was a man who was more interested in it working for people, than it looking good on a poster.
The original Mac interface is a design classic, where design is about function, not about style.
So next time you design an interface or a web page remember the creator of the Mac. What you create will be WORSE than the Mac.. BECAUSE of all the colours and "clever" bits you used.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Farewell sir, and thanks.
Ed Almos
Budapest, Hungary
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. - Tacitus, 56-120 A.D.
I have started reading his webpage and about The Humane Interface, and I have to say that this guy really knew what computers were for. For getting work done, to use as a tool for your tasks at hand. I think a lot more programmers could learn from him.
I can't spell ripburger
He truly was one of my heroes, though I only realised it the last few years. Respect to him, condolances to them he left behind.
*steps back and bows again*
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
I was looking forward to The Humane Environment (THE). It looked rather promising. I'm sure it will continue development, but without the man who actually had a good grasp on UI technology and THE behind it, the development is likely to go the wrong way. Imagine what would have happened if Stallman's Emacs was given over to Bill Gates to manage. We'd have wound up with a really hard to use word processor the also does calendaring, web browsing, e-mail composition, and a whole host of other things + Clippy. Oh wait... Beyond this, it must really suck for his family since he is of far more signifigance to them than he will ever be even to people who think he was a UI genius (myself inluded).
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I found your insights to be spectacular. I used to work in a Software Etcetera and make fun of Macintosh computers all the time. Of course then I was a hardened Windows user pushing software. I'm glad I finally came around and bought a Macintosh. The interface simplicity, and how much of it Windows derived, really sold me and now I own three.
...and of course the stories about you at http://www.folklore.org are an inspirational read.
.deviatefromtheabsolute.
--Confirmation Dialog--
Jef Raskin, are you sure you want to log out?
[Log Out] [Remain Logged In]
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
That is not entirely correct. The Newton name is obviously apple related, although not a type of fruit, of course.
Raskin is one of my personal heros as well. He will be missed.
We UI developers of various industries owe Jef their deepest gratitude. We also owe you, his family, our gratitude as well. Thank you for letting him work the long hours, for helping him endure what seemed like fruitless (no pun intended) meetings that probably frustrated him from time-to-time, and for listening to him rant aloud about his interface musings as he bored you for hours (don't the great ones often do that?).
I'm sure you realize how much Jef's work has affected, no, changed, our lives. Everyone in the modern world has been touched by Jef's work. Probably more so than most great artists of any genre. Not everyone likes the Beatles, but almost everyone has used a computer interface at work or at home that has been influenced by Mr. Raskin. The users, of course, don't think of Jef every time they click a dialog box, but society is different at every level because of his work. Computers are accessible and usable to almost everyone because not everyone understands what a "command line" is.
Our prayers, thoughts, and thanks for Jef Raskin and his family on this sad day. Godspeed Jef.
Sincerest thanks,
Users and User Interface Developers Everywhere
Words like "aggrandizing" and "arrogant" seem ill suited to a man quick to answer his email, even from unknowns like me. Anyone who doubts Raskin's contribution should pick up a copy of "The Humane Interface" and read it, and try to find anything to compare it with. After Doug Englebart, I don't know anyone who made a similar contribution to usability.
Raskin, whether you liked him or not, forced you to think about the issue of usability in the light of learnability, which are too often very separate things. It is possible for an interface to be hard to learn, yet very usable once you understand how it works, and god knows the opposite is also true. This is obviously not a very commercial idea, and possibly why he never got on with Steve Jobs.
Raskin knew that usability isnt just what looks good in the showroom, but what endures and helps the user once the eye candy has worn off. Very few have been prepared or able to make that leap.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
I see a lot of comments here regarding whether Raskin was really the cornerstone of the Macintosh. I don't think any of US can really answer that, but it seems to me that Mr. Raskin fits Apple's definition:
Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
I look forward to Apple's website reflecting Raskin's role more fully, perhaps reflecting some of the excellent material at Digibarn, including Jef's original review of the project in 1981. But the slowness of a Sunday response on the website should not be taken as evidence of lack of respect. After hearing that Jef also had pancreatic cancer, Steve Jobs reached out directly to him privately. The battles of twenty years ago do not need to still be re-fought; far more interesting is to support the Archy project, which Jef in his last days was trying to get to an alpha release. It would be a fitting tribute for Apple to step in with support, and incorporating some of Jef's recent work would make the Mac a much more efficient machine for many kinds of work. Time to coome together, and support and extend Jef's work as a tribute. db
I absolutely agree. The current direction of (mainstream) user-interface design is incredibly dull. In Raskin's book The Humane Interface, some of his ideas throw up more questions than answers, but he at least articulates a genuinely different model of interaction from the current WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers) mode of operation shared by Mac, Windows and Linux.
He once remarked that there was little difference between Mac and Windows. I know that's likely to raise the ire of Mac users, but I think he was right. Any interface on the Mac can be duplicated on the PC (and vice-versa), and this includes the number of steps taken to complete a task. No, this won't necessarily make the PC more pleasant to use - the point is that both platforms share the same methods of interaction with minor (although important) differences.
Consider Java: how could such a language promise cross-platform capability if these two operating systems were really so different in their behaviour and methods of interaction? Or iTunes? How could Apple write iTunes for Windows which pretty much mimics the same functionality as the Mac version if Windows didn't share the same fundamentals as the Mac?
You can argue about the aesthetics of the interface, the general simplicity of operation the Mac has over similar tasks in Windows (and hence the general "user experience"), but none of this changes the fact that both systems share a common UI foundation. No-one seems to be challenging this existing framework - looking beyond it (gimmicky 3-D interfaces haven't impressed me) and that's why the direction of interface design feels so stagnant.
Me: Please right click on the desktop.
User: What's a right click?
Me: Press down the right button on the mouse. A Menu should appear.
How does twenty years change the fact that a two button mouse button is harder to use than a one button mouse for a total computer illiterate?
Here's a couple tips for you:
1. If you are involved in computer UI design, do some web design for a while. Then tell us that right click menus are necessary.
2. Calling users "idiots" because they cannot figure out an unintuitive interface is anti-social and it will not make you popular with the ladies.
Gawd bloody f'ing geeks. Grow up, move out of your parent's basement and develop some empathy for the "normals" for crying out loud.
I happen to use a two button+scroll with my powerbook at my desktop but I get by just fine with one button on the trackpad because the UI is designed to work with one button. There is always a main menu item for each context menu item.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.