A Jef Raskin Interview From A Year Ago
I only just found out that Jef Raskin passed away last month. I thought I would post an email interview I had with him a year ago to illustrate some of his thinking in his last year:
On Mar 9, 2004, at 7:22 AM, Jeremy Wagstaff wrote:
Jef, sounds better if I send the questions by email... I have greatly enjoyed your book, a real eye-opener, although unfortunately time constraints may mean I am not able to digest as thoroughly as I should have. So please forgive any questions below which could be answered by a closer reading of your book! -- Would you mind giving a brief elaboration of your comment that 'I have learned a great deal about interface design, human psychology, and human physiology since creating the Macintosh project a quarter century ago -- and even then I wanted to use the mouse far less than the larger role given to it by later workers at Apple'. What have you learned, exactly? Where are we going wrong with the use of the mouse?
To ask what I have learned, exactly, is answered by my book and articles. There is no short answer that fulfills the requested "exactly". It is now well established (I sent you the latest and best reference) that mouse use should be minimized, and it has been long known (since at least the 1980s) how slow mouse operations are. The problem has been that keyboard-based solutions have been even worse in terms of learnability and memorability. But the mouse (or other pointing device; I prefer tablets for drawing and a good trackball for pointing, but that's personal preference) is essential for graphics. THE is designed to use both the keyboard and the mouse where they are appropriate and not use them where they are not; and I have found pleasant solutions that make THE both learnable and memorable -- as testing has shown.
Jef Raskin in the center ...
On Mar 9, 2004, at 7:22 AM, Jeremy Wagstaff wrote:
Jef, sounds better if I send the questions by email... I have greatly enjoyed your book, a real eye-opener, although unfortunately time constraints may mean I am not able to digest as thoroughly as I should have. So please forgive any questions below which could be answered by a closer reading of your book! -- Would you mind giving a brief elaboration of your comment that 'I have learned a great deal about interface design, human psychology, and human physiology since creating the Macintosh project a quarter century ago -- and even then I wanted to use the mouse far less than the larger role given to it by later workers at Apple'. What have you learned, exactly? Where are we going wrong with the use of the mouse?
To ask what I have learned, exactly, is answered by my book and articles. There is no short answer that fulfills the requested "exactly". It is now well established (I sent you the latest and best reference) that mouse use should be minimized, and it has been long known (since at least the 1980s) how slow mouse operations are. The problem has been that keyboard-based solutions have been even worse in terms of learnability and memorability. But the mouse (or other pointing device; I prefer tablets for drawing and a good trackball for pointing, but that's personal preference) is essential for graphics. THE is designed to use both the keyboard and the mouse where they are appropriate and not use them where they are not; and I have found pleasant solutions that make THE both learnable and memorable -- as testing has shown.
Jef Raskin in the center ...
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