Keyboard and Mouse – don’t take them for granted

I’m now typing down this blog post in front of the screen. But imagine an alternative: Instead of using a keyboard, in front of me there is a large stack of paper cards and a hole puncher. I need to match every letter with an exact position on the card, then punch holes one by one. And–oops, a typo. We start over again.

Born in the era of personal computer, we always take the existence of keyboard and mouse for granted. But life will be so hard without a name in the history of human-computer interaction.

Doug Englebart and his teams are the absolute pioneer in the Human-computer Interaction (HCI) and Graphical User Interface (GUI) industry. He is one of the first scholars who recognize the importance of interactive visualization through the human-computer interaction, and the first one who brought up his Man-Machine Graphical Communication System that revolutionized the industry and lasted until now. All of his visions on the application of future personal computers became a common scene in the office working scenario in the next 40 years.

Before the invention of the keyboard and mouse, the way humans interact with the computer is through punch cards – in order to let the computer works for us, we have to first come down to a level with a language that “it” will understand. But that is not our natural way of communication. In fact, it’s so inefficient and so unfit in the aspect of interaction design. Machines should always elevate our working efficiency. If humans have to adapt themselves to the workflow of a computer, then something was absolutely wrong.

I also want to honor the contribution of Bill English behind the scene. There will be no “Mother of All Demos” without the devotion of Bill English, both financially and technically. In the 70s, the cost of devices to support this demo was huge. He was the one who made Englebart’s design visible to the public.