From the category archives:

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Tabs, tabs, and more tabs…

by Richard Pak
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This post on Smashing Magazine about vertical navigation had me thinking about the book Anne and I are writing (manuscript due this Friday; panicking…I’m a 10 on the Wong-Baker scale).  In one of the chapters I discuss tab navigation.  When I was looking for a particularly bad example of the use of tabs I remembered Amazon’s website circa 2000.  Fortunately, [...]

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History of Multi-touch Research (Bill Buxton)

by Richard Pak

BusinessWeek has an article on the veiled threat that Apple has made to competitors regarding multi-touch technology.  But the interesting part was a link to a whitepaper written by Bill Buxton.  It’s a great historical overview/crash course of touch and multi-touch research that preceeded Apple’s work back almost 30 years.
Multi-touch technologies have a long history. To put it in perspective, [...]

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1960’s Human Factors : The Titan II Missiles

by Anne McLaughlin
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I went on a trip to Tucson over the holidays and toured the last Titan II missile silo. A brief history: from 1963-1982 these missiles were part of the cold war “peace through deterrance” and “assured mutual destruction.” In essence, they provided one reason not to attack the US: even were we destroyed, these missiles would still launch to destroy [...]

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The Mouse turns 40

by Richard Pak

A tip from reader Peter Squire: The Mouse turns 40 years old today.
Forty years of a awesome device that has seen several changes because of HF.
Here is Douglas Engelbart demonstrating the mouse 40 years ago:

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50th Anniversary of the Eames Lounge Chair

by Richard Pak

The chair has three upholstered pieces, each attached to a curved plywood shell. The larger one is the seat; the smaller two are back supports. All three are strategically angled to maximize your comfort. Charles and Ray Eames, the husband-and-wife design team behind the chair, had a remarkable understanding of ergonomic principles long before these were developed into a science [...]

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