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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."
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 ||
Controversial in his views, at least he had some mindshare and was pushing the envelope in innovation with his interface experiments. Rather than incrementally changing what has become the de facto UI over tha past 20 years, he was willing to step out of the box, get some metrics and push a vision for "easy to use" software and interfaces.
Not just some crank with wild ideas, he was able to get some of his visions into practice and leverage that developmental capital into newer and more refined methods and idioms.
We've lost a visionary folks, and that's just a shame. His loss hurts us all.
Sad news indeed. :(
Heres some more information I found about the naming of macintosh apples.
"The Macintosh project began at Apple as one code-named Annie, and spearheaded not by Steve Jobs (he actually lobbied against the Mac project at one point) but by Jeff Raskin, a former computer professor and Apple employee number 31. Raskin is generally credited with quickly changing the codename from Annie to Macintosh, an obvious tie to the Apple brand. Macintosh was spelled differently than the apple variety, however, in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid trademark disputes. Apple itself, lore has it, was named by Steve Jobs for either his love of the Beatles (and their Apple Records label), his interest in health foods, or because of his fond experiences working in the apple orchards of Oregon during a brief stint at college there. Or for none of those reasons. Except for the short-lived Pippin operating system, Apple the company thankfully avoided any other product references to varieties of apple, the fruit."
(taken from creativepro)
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--
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[Log Out] [Remain Logged In]
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
From Linda Blum, his wife, comes this note: Dear Friends, Jef died this evening, surrounded by friends and family, with some favorite music playing. While I am overcome by a profound sense of sadness and am not looking forward the days, weeks and years ahead without him, I am also relieved that he did not suffer for a long time and that he is at peace and no longer in pain. There will be a memorial service, time and date to be determined. ----------- My first thoughts: We lost one of the great ones today, a good and generous man. Jef Raskin died of cancer this evening, after being sick for several months. A wonderful spirit and renaissance man, who inspired me and many others. He created the Macintosh project at Apple in 1979, naming it after his personal favorite fruit He left Apple to form Information Appliances, where he designed the Canon Cat with an innovative interface. He continued refining human interface design, publishing his ideas in The Humane Interface (Addison Wesley, 2000.) The Humane Interface ideas are being implemented in the Raskin Center project Archy, where is son, Aza, is a programmer. His artwork was displayed at New York's Museum of Modern Art. He conducted the San Francisco Chamber Opera Society and wrote the score for a movie, "Smog Patterns," shown on PBS. He has a patent for a "Construction Technique for an Airplane Wing," and was a noted model airplane designer, an accomplished archer, and an occasional race car driver. Website is http://jef.raskincenter.org/home/index.html .There is also a collection of photographs and history at http://www.digibarn.com/friends/jef-raskin/index.h tml Jennie Bourne and I are in the midst of making a movie about him http://www.jefthemovie.com .
The blurb was incorrect. Jef did not design the Mac user interface. He had basically nothing to do with the Mac, in fact. He started the project with his idea for a computer that should be easy to use, but he left the Mac project in 1981, years before the team produced an actual computer.
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
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.
Slashdotters, I have been working with the Raskins for several years to document Jef's life and work for the DigiBarn Computer Museum. I have turned Jef's page at the museum site into a memorial page for him. See what Jef was all about (more than just GUIs) at:
Jef Raskin: A Life of Design and the rest of the DigiBarn is of relevance to this topic at:
DigiBarn Computer Museum
Thanks!
Bruce Damer, Curator