What Do IT-People Know About the (Nordic) History of Computers and User Interfaces? A Preliminary Survey

Anker Helms Jørgensen

    Research output: Conference Article in Proceeding or Book/Report chapterArticle in proceedingsResearchpeer-review

    Abstract

    This paper reports a preliminary, empirical exploration of what IT-people know about the history of computers and user interfaces.  The principal motivation for the study is that the younger generations such as students in IT seem to know very little about these topics.  The study employed a free association method administered as email.  Eight students and four researchers participated, between 26-34 and 48-64 years of age, respectively.  Responses totaled 222 and we analyzed and categorized them.  First, the Nordic touch was extremely limited.  Secondly, the knowledge of both students and researchers seems heavily based on personal experience so that the researchers know much more about the earlier days of computing and interfaces.  Thirdly, there is a tendency amongst the students to conceptualize the history of computers in interface features and concepts.  Hence, the interface seems to become the designation or even the icon for the computer.  In other words, one of the key focal points in the area of human-computer interaction: to make the computer as such invisible seems to have been successful
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationHistory of Nordic Computing 2
    Number of pages7
    PublisherSpringer Publishing Company
    Publication date2009
    Pages38-44
    ISBN (Print)978-3-642-03756-6
    Publication statusPublished - 2009
    EventHistory of Nordic Computing 2 - Tampere, Finland
    Duration: 21 Aug 200723 Aug 2007

    Conference

    ConferenceHistory of Nordic Computing 2
    Country/TerritoryFinland
    CityTampere
    Period21/08/200723/08/2007
    SeriesIFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology
    Number303/2009
    ISSN1868-4238

    Keywords

    • IT knowledge
    • History of computers
    • User interfaces
    • Human-computer interaction
    • Empirical study

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