Jef Raskin Quotes

Users do not care about what is inside the box, as long as the box does what they need done.

A computer shall not waste your time or require you to do more work than is strictly necessary.

Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining.

How in the world do you sell something that's different? That's the biggest problem. The world's not quite ready to believe. It's like in the early days at Apple, they said, "What's it good for?" We couldn't give a really good answer so they assumed the machine wasn't going to sell. But I do know the way I plan to sell my product is by word of mouth. Some people will try it and say, "This product really gets my job done. It doesn't have fifteen fonts. I can't print it out in old gothic banners five feet long, but I sure got that article finished under the deadline." That's how I can sell it. Later, people will understand it.

It would be wonderful if we could just tuck in a few loose ends and change a handful of details of present systems to have them work properly. Unfortunately, we have learned that the GUI concept has fundamental flaws that cannot be corrected by small changes. These flaws have to do with incompatibilities between the designs of both GUIs and command-line interfaces and the way our brains are wired. As we cannot change the way our minds work, we must change the interface design.

When you have to choose among methods, your locus of attention is drawn from the task and temporarily becomes the decision itself.

I've moved on, grown and learned in the years since then, and am designing interfaces that make the Mac's GUI feel as clumsy to use as the Mac made the old DOS-based systems feel primitive.

I hate mice. The mouse involves you in arm motions that slow you down. I didn't want it on the Macintosh, but Jobs insisted. In those days, what he said went, good idea or not.

Very often, when told of a new idea, he will immediately attack it and say that it is worthless or even stupid, and tell you that it was a waste of time to work on it. This alone is bad management, but if the idea was a good one he will soon be telling people about it as though it was his own.

I have always liked Steve personally, but I have found it impossible to work for him and retain much enjoyment in my work.

Jobs regularly misses appointments. This is so well-known as to be almost a running joke. It's not funny, hurts Apple's image when he does it to outsiders, and wastes our time and energy when it is done to another employee.

Right now, computers, which are supposed to be our servant, are oppressing us.

Icons, windows, mice, big operating systems, huge programs, integrated packages.... I would like to remind the world that just because two things are on the same menu doesn't mean they taste good together.

Human logic [emphasis added] was forced on us by the physical world and is therefore consistent with it. Mathematics derives from logic. This is why mathematics is consistent with the physical world.

A computer shall not harm your work or, through inaction, allow your work to come to harm.