The Raskin Center
The Raskin Center preserves the work and legacy of Jef Raskin (1943–2005) — the computer scientist who created the Macintosh project at Apple Computer, designed the Canon Cat, founded the Raskin Center for Humane Interfaces, and spent his career arguing that computers should adapt to human minds rather than require humans to adapt to computers.
Raskin joined Apple as employee number 31 in January 1978. By 1979 he had written the internal memos that proposed the Macintosh — its name, its design philosophy, its target user, its price point. He named it after his favorite apple variety. He hired the first engineers. He articulated the vision that a computer could be so easy to use that it required no instruction.
He died on February 26, 2005, of pancreatic cancer, at 61.
The ideas he spent his career developing remain worth taking seriously. This site collects his published essays, unpublished writings, and the documented work of the Raskin Center for Humane Interfaces — the organization he founded to build software that embodied those ideas.
The complete collection of Raskin’s published and unpublished work, organized by category:
Published essays — covering aerodynamics (Coanda Effect, Airfoil), computing history (Holes in the Histories), interface design (Ubiquity interview), mathematics, culture, and society. His paper on the Coanda effect has been cited in Wikipedia and physics literature worldwide. His essay on Mac history corrects a historical record that has been wrong for decades.
Unpublished essays — work Raskin distributed but did not formally publish, including Widgets of the Week, Effectiveness of Mathematics, and Next Time Can Be Worse.
The Humane Interface — a detailed summary of his landmark book (Addison-Wesley, 2000), which proposed designing computer interfaces around human cognition. Still assigned in HCI courses worldwide.
Pictures and personal — photographs from his life as a pilot, pipe organ builder, and naturalist, plus his curriculum vitae.
→ Browse the full archive
The RCHI was the organizational home for Raskin’s later work. It built Archy — an open-source computing environment designed to be modeless, application-free, and navigated entirely through the LEAP search system. It also researched ZUIs (zoomable user interfaces) as an alternative to the folder-hierarchy model.
The RCHI’s work demonstrated, in working software, that the principles Raskin described in The Humane Interface were implementable — not just theoretical. Archy ran. Users could use it. The tradeoffs were real and specific, not abstract.
→ RCHI overview · Archy introduction · Core principles · ZUI specification
Media resources, biographical facts, and documentation of coverage of Jef Raskin’s work.
raskincenter.org was Jef Raskin’s personal and organizational website from 2005 until 2025. This archive preserves the content that was available there.
Jef Raskin (1943–2005) was an American human-computer interface expert who started the Macintosh project at Apple in 1979. He is best known for conceiving and starting the original Macintosh computer project, and for his book The Humane Interface (2000), which laid out principles for designing computer interfaces that work with human cognition.
Published Works
Unpublished Essays
Pictures & Photography
Humor
Biography
About Jef Raskin
Raskin began the Macintosh project at Apple Computer in 1979, envisioning an affordable, easy-to-use computer for everyday people. After leaving Apple, he designed the Canon Cat, founded Information Appliance Inc., authored The Humane Interface, and established the Raskin Center for Humane Interfaces. Beyond computing, he was an accomplished musician, pilot, photographer, and instrument builder.
Jef Raskin (March 9, 1943 – February 26, 2005) was an American human-computer interface expert best known for conceiving and starting the Macintosh project at Apple Computer in 1979.
Key Facts
- Born: March 9, 1943, New York City
- Died: February 26, 2005, Pacifica, California
- Known for: Creating the Macintosh project at Apple (1979), authoring The Humane Interface (2000), developing the Canon Cat computer
- Education: B.S. Mathematics and B.A. Philosophy (SUNY Stony Brook), M.S. Computer Science (Penn State)
Major Works
- The Humane Interface: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems (Addison-Wesley, 2000)
- Coanda Effect paper on aerodynamic lift
- Canon Cat computer (1987)
- Swyft software system
- SwyftCard for Apple II
Jef Raskin’s work has been covered by major technology publications including Wired, ZDNet, MIT Technology Review, Engadget, Computerworld, InfoWorld, Slashdot, and The Register, among many others.
The Raskin Center for Humane Interfaces (RCHI) was a research and development organization founded by Jef Raskin to build computing technology designed around how human minds actually work.
Raskin had spent his career arguing that most computer interfaces were built the wrong way — designed around implementation convenience, historical accident, and engineering preference rather than around the cognitive properties of the people who would use them. The Macintosh project at Apple, which he created, was an attempt to change that. The Canon Cat, which he designed at Canon in 1987, was a more complete attempt. The RCHI was the final and most systematic one.