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The Book Section
The Book Section

Our honeymoon with digital technology is over: We are tired of having to learn huge, arcane programs to do even the simplest of tasks; we have had our fill of crashing computers; and we are fatigued by the continual pressure to upgrade. The Humane Interface delivers a way for computers, information appliances, and other technology-driven products to continue to advance in power and expand their range of applicability, while becoming free of the hassles and obscurities that plague present products.

The Apple Macintosh helped to introduce a previous revolution in computer interface design, drawing on the best available technology to establish many of the interface techniques and methods now universal in the computer industry. With this book, Raskin proves again both his farsightedness and his practicality. He also demonstrates how design ideas must be built on a scientific basis, presenting just enough cognitive psychology to link the interface of the future to the experimental evidence and to show why that interface will work.

"Deep thinking is rare in this field where most companies are glad to copy designs that were great back in the 1970s. The Humane Interface is a gourmet dish from a master chef. Five mice!"
--Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group Author of Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity

To view the documents in this site category, please see the links to your right under the heading "The Book."

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 Curriculum Vitae

In the News Archive

Updates and Additions

 (Review) A Design Manifesto: Rethinking the User Interface

Buy The Humane Interface

Summary of The Humane Interface

THI in Languages

The Humane Interface Cover

 A Conversation with Jef Raskin - Ubiquity

A Good Airfoil for Small RC Models

Canon Cat Manual

Canon Cat Reference Card

Canon Cat Reference Guide

Coanda Effect: Understanding Why Wings Work

Computers by the Millions, An Apple Document from 1979

Holes In The Histories

How a Toy Drove the Design of the Universe

How to Balance a Model Airplane

Humbug: Nursing Theory

I Before E, if Taken with Caffeine

Improved RC Aircraft Transmitter and Control System Design

In Defense of Music Education

Mr. Rogers and Mr. President

Pacifica Moods

Robot Rules the Rugs

Shanghaied to the Windward Islands

The Bible Hoax

The Bible Hoax Program

The Dismal State of Computer Curricula

The Flawed Calculus of Torture

There is No Such Thing as Information Design

Vitriolic, Spleen, and Invective: an Academic Debate

Voting for a Portal

WANTED for Crimes Against the Interface

Will Computers Ever Become Easy to Use?

 Airplane Pictures

Apple's Publications Department

Cyborg Jef

Double Rainbow

Estey Folding Chaplain's Harmonium

Floating Carbon

Jef Outdoors

Jef with Eniac

Jef's One-Page Solar System

Mission Blue Butterfly

Organ Picture

Paper Beams

Picture of Jef Raskin

Pipe Organ

The Elusive Green Flash

Waters & Sons Harmonium 1858

Western Wind

 12 Percent of Something

A Swiss Tourist Guide

Alien Arithmetic: An Experiment

An History of the Yarmulke

Aza's Sparkler

Eating B'dang B'dang

How To Decrease the Cost of Health Care

How To Read a Model Plane Review

Pshtwar B'dang

The Body Weight of a Bed-Bound Patient

Warning

 Dimyskery Sam

Effectiveness of Mathematics

Finally, We Do Something Right

Jacob's Stone

Letters to Dad

Math and Science Book Reviews

Next Time, It Can Be Worse

Off-the-Wall Comments on the Ten Commandments

The Merry, Exciting Life of the Musician!

The Old Slipstick

The Piper Cub Offense

The Soft Sell on Hard Sails

Twestid Wrods: Debunking a web item

Usborne Medieval Port

Widgets of the Week

   
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