Doug Engelbart

Fully, Douglas C. Engelbart.

Doug's devoted his life to AugmentingHumanIntellect. Computers today still fall short of the vision he had in the '50s. Doug's also realized much of his vision in systems, including some still in use today. Doug is the recipient of the 1997 TuringAward.

Doug invented the mouse. Unlike Apple, who used the mouse to make things easy to learn, Doug used the mouse to make things easy to use.

Doug is director of the BootstrapInstitute.

Doug's NLS system was the first to implement hypertext, hypermedia, networked collaboration (aka groupware) and a host of other innovative technologies. The first public demonstration of this system, at Stanford in 1968, has become known as TheMotherOfAllDemos.

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easy to learn vs. easy to use

It a classic JakobNielsen vs. DougEngelbart approach to user interface design. Doug is interested in making people more productive by using computers. He noticed that the difficulty of mankind's problems was increasing at a greater rate than our ability to cope. This is why he decided to make AugmentingHumanIntellect his life's work.

His analogy is that if we were focused on making everything easy to learn, rather than easy to use, we would all be riding tricycles. The bicycle is harder to learn to ride, but much more powerful.

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The history of Engelbart's research can be found in BootStrapping by ThierryBardini? ISBN 0804738718 .

See Chapter 9 of ToolsForThought by HowardRheingold ISBN 0262681153 .

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"To this day, Engelbart is really pissed.... He is a bitter guy.... He shouldn't be because he is revered, but he is bitter, because he thinks that user-friendliness is a red herring and he is partly right." -- AlanKay, quoted in BootStrapping, chapter 7

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See BrickifiedPencil

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CategoryPerson