Monday, February 28, 2005

Mac and UI instigator Jef Raskin dead at 61

I posted the following to the CHI-Consultants list, an e-mail list of user interface consultants that Jef Raskin frequently posted to.

Amid all the news stories documenting Jef Raskin's work from more than 20 years ago, it would be a shame we on the CHI-Consultants list failed to recognize his recent and frequent contributions to our community.

His posts to seemingly simple questions were usually provocative. His stature and busy schedule did not keep him from answering questions from anybody who asked them. The field of user interface design has right answers and wrong answers, Jef believed, and we shouldn't stop looking for the right answers just because of convention, commercial pressures, or because research and experimentation is time-consuming and intellectually challenging. Not even his own authority was a sufficient excuse to stop looking for the best way: he even challenged the conventions he helped to create and popularize.

Jef's example showed there is no limit to the breadth of knowledge and interests that can be brought to bear on making computers easier for people to use. He offered the world insights into psychology, music, computer science, religion, and many things I'm only finding out about today. His untimely passing shows that 61 years was not enough time to solve all the problems the field has to offer. The high standard he set for our profession and his sudden absence from it poses a challenge, one made a little easier by the memory of his enthusiasm and his advocacy for human beings trying to tame technology.

1 Comments:

At 9:37 PM, Blogger bdamer said...

For the DigiBarn Computer Museum I have created a memorial page for Jef Raskin at:
Jef Raskin: a Life of DesignFeel free to add to it.
Bruce Damer, DigiBarn Computer Museum

 

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