Thoughts on Interaction Design

Chapter Two. Computing and Human Computer Interaction

Computers were not intended to be vehicles for entertainment and content delivery. Computers were intended to compute. Highly specialized work required highly specialized machinery, and the computational ability of the machine that used vacuum tubes and punched cards was not thought to be of much use for anyone outside of a small circle of like-minded engineers. That circle, however, contained a number of great thinkers, scientists and generals: the military can be credited for advancing, from idea to production, many of the technical advances we take for granted today.

Understanding the history ...