Jef Raskin
Jef Raskin was an American computer scientist, programmer, writer, and university teacher, born in New York City on March 9, 1943.
Raskin was educated at Pennsylvania State University and Stony Brook University, building the academic foundation that would carry him across several overlapping careers. He worked as a programmer and businessperson alongside his academic roles, moving through a range of professional contexts that reflected how broadly his interests ran. He's noted for the Mac, the personal computer project that brought his work into the lives of a wide public and remains the most frequently cited point of reference when his name comes up.
As a writer, Raskin contributed to the body of thought surrounding human-computer interaction, adding a textual dimension to work he was also pursuing in practical and institutional settings. His career touched on teaching, programming, business, and writing in ways that didn't fall neatly into a single category, which makes him somewhat difficult to pin down with a single job title — computer scientist is probably the most accurate umbrella. He died on February 26, 2005, in Pacifica, California, a little under two weeks before what would have been his sixty-second birthday. The thread that runs most consistently through accounts of his life is his connection to personal computing, and specifically to the Mac project that first took shape under his direction.
Quotes by Jef Raskin
If our field is “to advance”, we must – without displacing creativity and aesthetics – make sure our terminology is clear.
Once the product’s task is known, design the interface first; then implement to the interface design.
What I proposed was a computer that would be easy to use, mix text and graphics, and sell for about $1,000. Steve Jobs said that it was a crazy idea, that it would never sell, and we didn’t want anything like it. He tried to shoot the project down.
I hate mice. The mouse involves you in arm motions that slow you down. I didn’t want it on the Macintosh, but Jobs insisted. In those days, what he said went, good idea or not.
I am confident that we can do better than GUIs because the basic problem with them (and with the Linux and Unix interfaces) is that they ask a human being to do things that we know experimentally humans cannot do well. The question I asked myself is, given everything we know about how the human mind works, could we design a computer and computer software so that we can work with the least confusion and greatest efficiency?
I hate mice. The mouse involves you in arm motions that slow you down. I didn't want it on the Macintosh, but Jobs insisted. In those days, what he said went, good idea or not.
When you have to choose among methods, your locus of attention is drawn from the task and temporarily becomes the decision itself.
If I am correct, the use of a product based on modelessness and monoty would soon become so habitual as to be nearly addictive, leading to a user population devoted to and loyal to the product.
