Karen McGrane

Want to learn more about the history of interaction design? This is where I started:

Pre-computing History

Early interaction design, from the earliest systems for tabulating and managing information. Starts in the late 1800s with innovations in business information systems, punched card systems, and major wartime innovations in human factors. Ends with the development of the first computing systems during WWII.

• Great Brains, Episode 1, The Machine That Changed the World
• When Computers Were Human, Computer History Museum
• Steven Lubar, Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate: A Cultural History of the Punched Card.
• G. Pascal Zachary, The Godfather
• William Aspray, Computing Before Computers (Google Books)
• James W. Cortada, Before the Computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, & Remington Rand & the Industry They Created, 1865-1956 (Google Books)

Professional Computing, Mainframe, and Command Line History

The role of computing and information systems in professional contexts, including post-war developments in academic, scientific, and corporate environments. Covers early mainframe systems, programming languages, and command line interfaces, the invention of the transistor, as well as early research and theory into hypertext and other support for human cognition.

• Inventing the Future, Episode 2, The Machine That Changed the World
• Vannevar Bush, As We May Think
• J. C. R. Licklider, Man-Computer Symbiosis
• Douglas C. Engelbart, Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework
• Douglas C. Engelbart, The Click Heard Round the World
• Douglas Engelbart, The Mother of all Demos
• Martin Greenberger, The Computers of Tomorrow
• PBS, Transistorized!
• Tracy Kidder, The Soul of a New Machine (Google Books)
• Fred Brooks, The Mythical Man Month (Google Books)
• Tom Wolfe, “Two Young Men Who Went West,” Hooking Up (Google Books)

Personal Computing, GUI, and Internet History

The onset of personal computing, in the form of low-cost computing systems available to individual users. Focuses on the development of the graphical user interface and its impact on personal and professional use, with some review of more recent history, including the internet and mobility.

• Neal Stephenson, In the Beginning Was the Command Line
• The Paperback Computer, Episode 3, The Machine That Changed the World
• The Thinking Machine, Episode 4, The Machine That Changed the World
• The World at Your Fingertips, Episode 5, The Machine That Changed the World
• The Mouse and the Desktop from Bill Moggridge, Designing Interactions (Google Books)
• My PC from Bill Moggridge, Designing Interactions (Google Books)
• From the Desk to the Palm from Bill Moggridge, Designing Interactions (Google Books)
• James Fallows, Living With a Computer
• PBS, Triumph of the Nerds
• Mike Tuck, The Real History of the GUI
• Richard T. Griffiths, History of the Internet for Historians (and just about everyone else)
• John Markoff, What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer (Google Books)

General Interaction Design History Resources

Resources related to the overall history of user-centered design, including the history of human factors, HCI, and interaction design disciplines.

• John Carroll, Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
• Brad Myers, A Brief History of Human Computer Interaction Technology
• Mark Rettig, Interaction Design History In A Teeny Little Nutshell
• Saul Greenberg, History of Human Computer Interaction
• Terry Winograd, From Computing Machinery to Interaction Design
• David Meister, The History of Human Factors and Ergonomics (Google Books)
• Henry Dreyfuss, Designing for People (Google Books)
• Howard Rheingold, Tools For Thought

General Computing History Resources

Resources related to the overall history of computing, including major university and corporate archives.

• Joel Shurkin, Engines of the Mind: The Evolution of the Computer from Mainframes to Microprocessors (Google Books)
• Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray, Computer: A History of the Information Machine (Google Books)
• Paul E. Ceruzzi, A History of Modern Computing (Google Books)
• IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
• Computer History Museum
• Charles Babbage Institute
• Columbia University Computing History
• American University Computing History Museum
• IBM Corporate Archives
• IEEE History Center
• Computer History Collection, Smithsonian Institution

Filed under: Machines with Brains