In 1979 I proposed a commercial computer project that would be based on an improved user interface, rather than having its genesis in the latest processor or operating system. I called it "Macintosh." At the time, being a specialist in interface design was to be in professional limbo, unless you were lucky enough to be at Xerox PARC or a handful of other places. Now HCI is a widely recognized discipline, with thousands of us flocking together annually, it has spawned formal curricula for higher education, and we have over a dozen periodicals in which to immortalize our thoughts.

The paradox is this: in spite of all this churning, interfaces have not gotten better. The best that can be said is that we now tackle much more difficult tasks with only slightly greater levels of frustration and annoyance than we did a decade ago. But credit here is better assigned to application development than to interface improvement.

I will argue that most of what practitioners in the HCI field do is more akin to interior decorating than to architecture, and I ask (and try to partially answer) what the HCI analog of structural engineering might be.

Click here for the text of an article on "Intuitive=Familiar"

Click here for a followup list of references