Author: Marcus Lee

How Interactions Evolved from Web 2.0 to Today

The transition to Web 2.0 was a pretty big turning point in how people used the internet. Early web stuff was mostly passive - you just read information on static pages and that was it. With Web 2.0 the web became more of a...

field trips

Field Trips – Computer History Museum

My impression of the Computer History Museum was that it was way bigger and more interactive than I expected. The exhibits showed how computers changed from these huge machines that filled entire rooms to personal devices we use...

GUI

The Evolution of the Graphical User Interface: From Clicks to Intuitive Experiences

Since the early days of Macintosh and Windows, GUI has changed a lot. Early computers were pretty simple and boxy - like gray windows, pixelated icons, not many colors. Everything was controlled by mouse and keyboard, and you had...

xerox star

The Xerox Star: The Beginning of Modern Computing

When the Xerox Star came out in 1981, it was kind of a big deal because it changed how people thought about computers. Before that, you had to type in commands and know specific codes to make things work. But the Star had this...

mid-century innovations

The Mother of All Demos Category: Mid-Century Innovations

Douglas Engelbart's 1968 demo at SRI is called "The Mother of All Demos" and it was pretty crazy for its time. He showed off the first computer mouse, hypertext, video conferencing, real-time text editing, and people working...

fitts law

Designing with Gestalt and Fitts’s Law in Mind

When I'm designing interactive stuff, Gestalt principles help me make things look organized so users aren't confused. Like using proximity means putting related things close together, which makes it easier to understand what goes...

manifestos

Lessons in Rebellion — What the Early 20th Century Movements Teach Us

The early 1900s were kind of a mess, and artists back then were like "you know what, let's just do whatever we want." All these movements like Cubism and Dada basically said forget everything you learned about how art is supposed...

lovelace & gilbreth

Two Foundations of Interaction: Ada Lovelace and Lillian Gilbreth

So I've been reading about the history of Interaction Design and these two women kept coming up - Ada Lovelace and Lillian Gilbreth. They're from completely different time periods but both did stuff that was way ahead of their...