Jef Raskin

Jef Raskin is the human-computer interface expert who began the Apple Macintosh project for Apple Inc. and is the author of The Humane Interface, which in large part builds on his earlier work with the Canon Cat. Raskin received a B.S. Mathematics and B.A. in Philosophy from the State University of New York and an M.S. in Computer Science from the Pennsylvania State University. As an assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), he taught classes ranging from computer science to photography.

Raskin joined Apple in January 1978 as the 31st employee. He later hired his former student Bill Atkinson from UCSD to work at Apple, and began the Macintosh project.

Raskin designed the Canon Cat, released in 1987.

At the beginning of the new millennium, Raskin undertook the building of Archy (formerly The Humane Environment, or THE). Archy is a system incarnating his concepts of the humane interface, by using open source elements within his rendition of a ZUI or Zooming User Interface.

Jef Raskin passed away on February 26, 2005, at the age of 61, reportedly due to cancer.