A personal journey through the design career of Norm Cox, designer of the first graphical interface. Includes stories, case studies and anecdotes from seminal projects through 33 years of consulting.

1. TRUE CONFESSIONS
OF AOF A

2. Design
Interaction
Experience
Information
Interface
Usability
Human Factors
Research
Digital
Online
Web
Analyst
Architect
Consultant
Contractor
Developer
Designer
Engineer
Evangelist
Manager
Researcher
Specialist
“Hello. My name is Norm, and I’m a…
UI
GUI
UCD
User
Usability
Visual
Junior/Senior
Lead/Head
Strategic
Principal
Human

3. “What’s my destiny, Mama?”
Forrest Gump

5. ARCHITECTURE
Landscape ArchitectureLandscape Architecture
Mechanical Engineering
Philosophy
Psychology
(Accounting)
Anthropology
Library Sciences
Marketing & Management
Journalism
Business
Computer Programming
Typography
ADVERTISING
LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITYARCHITECTURE

6. X E R O X , c. 1972 - 1982
Xerox Memorywriter 6015

7. X E R O X , c. 1972 - 1982
Xerox 820 Word Processor

8. A L T O, c. 1976

9. A L T O, c. 1976
• Bitmap displayBitmap display
• Detachable keyboardDetachable keyboard
• 3-button Mouse3-button Mouse
• First email programFirst email program
• First WYSIWYG editorFirst WYSIWYG editor
• Vector graphics editorVector graphics editor
• Raster (paint) editorRaster (paint) editor
• CursorsCursors
• Overlapping windows UIOverlapping windows UI
• Ethernet connectivityEthernet connectivity

10. A L T O, c. 1976 M A Z E W A R

11. A L T O, c. 1976

12. A L T O, c. 1976

13. David Liddle
Director: Xerox Sys. Dev.
Founder: Metaphor C.S.,
Interval Research
Prof: Stanford Univ.
Bill Verplank
Teacher, Mentor, Scholar
IxD, HFE
Prof: Stanford Univ.,
Interaction Design Inst., Ivrea
Alan Kay
Inventor: GUI, OOP, Smalltalk,
“OLPC: One Laptop Per Child”
Prof: UCLA, Kyoto Univ., MIT
Rsrch Fellow: Apple, Disney, HP
Founder: Viewpoints Rsrch. Inst.
John Warnock
Founder: Adobe Systems
Inventor: Postscript, PDF
Larry Tessler
VP Apple Research
Dir. Apple Lisa, Mac
UI development
Charles Simonyi
Developed WYSIWYG editing
Directed development of
MS Word, Excel
Traveled to space
Dating Martha Stewart
Charles Irby
Director: Xerox Adv. Dev.
Founder: Metaphor C.S.
David Canfield Smith
Inventor: GUI, icons, KidSim
Ralph Kimball
Pioneer and author:
Data Warehousing
Founder: Metaphor C.S.,
Red Brick Systems,
Kimball Univ.
Stu Card
Sr. Research Fellow,
Xerox PARC
Director PARC UI Research
Author
Adjunct Prof: Stanford Univ.
John Seely Brown
Chief Scientist: Xerox
Director: PARC
Founder: Inst. for
Research on Learning
Visiting scholar: USC
P A R C R O L L C A L L, c. 1978
Bob Metcalfe
Co-Inventor: Ethernet
Founder: 3 Com
Yogen Dalal
Co-Inventor: Ethernet
Founder: Claris, Metaphor C.S.
Managing Director: Mayfield Fund

14. T H E P A R C C U L T U R E

15. T H E P A R C C U L T U R E

16. Alto’s bitmapped display (far left)
Smalltalk graphical U I (left)
Doug Englebart’s “mouse” (far left)
Early commercial 3-button mouse (left)
T H E P A R C C U L T U R E
Laser Printing
Ethernet

17. “T H E O R I G I N A L D E S K T O P”
C O N C E P T, c. 1976
Taken from Dave Smith’s Stanford doctoral thesis
entitled “Pygmalion”.
Dr. David Canfield Smith
The Alto workstation

18. S T A R I C O N F O R M A T, c. 1978
72 x 72 pixels

19. S T A R I C O N S T U D I E S, c. 1978-79

20. S T A R I C O N U S A B I L I T Y T E S T R E S U L T S, c. 1979
Final icon designs refined from test results.

21. S T A R I C O N U S A B I L I T Y T E S T R E S U L T S, c. 1979
• Printer
• Tissue box
• Shredder
• Suggestion box
• Fax machine
• Toilet paper dispenser

22. S T A R I C O N R E F I N E M E N T S

23. S T A R U N I F O R M V I S U A L L A N G U A G E

25. S T A R S C R O L L B A R E N I G M A

26. A P P L E L I S A c. 1983 A P P L E M A C c. 1984

27. X E R O X S T A R c. 1981
Document-centric model
A P P L E M A C c. 1984
Application-centric model
MacPaint
MacWrite
MacDraw

28. M E T A P H O R C O M P U T E R S Y S T E M S, c. 1983
Decision Support System (DSS)
Ralph Kimball
Pioneer and author:
Data Warehousing
Founder: Metaphor C.S.,
Red Brick Systems,
Kimball Univ.

29. I B M C O R P O R A T E D E S I G N P R O G R A M , c. 1988
?
Tom Hardy
Director: IBM Corp.
Design Program
Sam Lucente
Manager, Corporate
Design
Richard Sapper
Corporate Industrial
Design Consultant
Milan, Italy
Paul Rand
Corporate Graphic
Design Consultant
Yale University
Edward Tufte
Corporate Information
Design Consultant
Yale University
Norm Cox
Corporate Experience
Design Consultant

30. E D W A R D T U F T E Professor emeritus of Political Science, Statistics and Computer Science, Yale University
Author, Artist and Pioneer in the field of Data Visualization

31. O S / 2 O P E R A T I N G S Y S T E M, c. 1988-90
+
OS/2 Operating System

32. 1 9 9 6 S U M M E R O L Y M P I C S, A T L A N T A , c. 1995

33. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
B U S I N E S S P R O C E S S M A N A G E M E N T, c. 1997
CUSTOMER
SALES
ACCOUNTING
FINANCE
PRODUCTION
SUPPLIER
SHIPPING
WEEK 1 WEEK 2 WEEK 3 WEEK 4 WEEK 5

34. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
B U S I N E S S P R O C E S S M A N A G E M E N T, c. 1997
CUSTOMER
SALES
ACCOUNTING
CREDIT BUREAU
PRODUCTION
SUPPLIER
SHIPPING
WEEK 1 WEEK 2 WEEK 3 WEEK 4 WEEK 5

35. V O I C E R E C O G N I T I O N, c. 1995
ViaVoiceViaVoice®®
an.thro.po.morph.ism
n: To attribute human qualities or characteristics
to an animal, object or organization.

36. vs.
A P P L E v. M I C R O S O F T , c. 1988 - 1993
T H E S T A K E S
• $14B in damages
• Ownership of “concept” of GUI
• “Bundling” of concepts
• New precedent copyright law

37. A P P L E v. M I C R O S O F T , c. 1989
W I N D O W S 2 . 0
W I N D O W S 1 . 0
W I N D O W S 3 . 0
A P P L E L I S A

38. A P P L E v. M I C R O S O F T , c. 1989

39.  Operates 12,000 outlets in 90 countries worldwide.
 Employs more than 300,000 staff.
 Parent company (YUM Brands is the largest restaurant company in the world.
 Serves more than 1.3 million pizzas daily.
 Offers approx. 1,000,000 different combinations of pizza.
H O L I S T I C D E S I G N
P I Z Z A H U T , c. 2001

40. H O L I S T I C D E S I G N
P I Z Z A H U T , c. 2001
50% OF MY
PIZZAS ARE
WRONG!FINALLY!

42. H O L I S T I C D E S I G N
P I Z Z A H U T , c. 2001
SEQUENCE DIAGRAM
not so cleverly disguised as an
EXPLODED VIEW
Build a perfect pizza!
Build a perfect pizza!

43. H O L I S T I C D E S I G N
Proposed redesign of order entry terminals.
Consistent visual language
Expanded “natural language”
order tickets
Visual job aids redesigned to be simpler, more flexible, and easy to read and understand.
Ergonomic recommendations for
“just in time” information and
maximum task efficiency.

44. R E D U C I N G P I Z Z A S T R E S S . . .
Restaurant General Manager (RGM)
Identifying Stress FactorsIn Restaurant Operations
Operations Questionaireand Opinionaire
Facilitated by:
COX&HALL
June, 2001
Opinionaire: 400 respondents
On-site observations: 12 restaurants

45. E U R E K A F I N D I N G : L A W O F U N I N T E N D E D C O N S E Q U E N C E S
slip
lapse
mistake
violation
Unintentional
Intentional
}
}

46. E U R E K A F I N D I N G : L A W O F U N I N T E N D E D C O N S E Q U E N C E S
Compensation Policies for
franchisees were actually
encouraging “violations” of
quality standards in the
restaurants.
slip
lapse
mistake
violation
Unintentional
Intentional
}
}

47. B Y T H E N U M B E R S ...
67% Reduction in training time for pizza
production staff (Reduced from 3 shifts to 1).
60% Reduction in time to become proficient
in pizza assembly (Reduced from 3-5 days to 1-2).
80% Production accuracy percentage (Up from 50%,
with some restaurants reporting near 100% accuracy).
50% Improvement in staff confidence
••• Greatly improved relationships between
corporate management and RGMs, resulting
in less stress, less turnover and more profitable
working environments.

48. T H I N K E R
V
T H E

49. CONVERSANT
WORKING KNOWLEDGE
EXPERT
THOUGHT LEADER
INTERACTIONDESIGN
INFORMATIONARCHITECTURE
USEREXPERIENCE
TYPOGRAPHY
GRAPHICDESIGN
HUMANFACTORS
COMMUNICATION
COGNITIVESCIENCES
JOURNALISM
PSYCHOLOGY
SALES/MARKETING
BUSINESS
COMPUTERPROGRAMMING

50. Thank you.
4901 BEHRENS ROAD
COLLEYVILLE, TX 76034
www.COXHALL.com
NCOX@COXHALL.com
817-688-2467 mobile
Design
Interaction
Experience
Information
Interface
Usability
Human Factors
Research
Digital
Online
Web
Analyst
Architect
Consultant
Contractor
Developer
Designer
Engineer
Evangelist
Manager
Researcher
Specialist
UI
GUI
UCD
User
Usability
Visual
Junior/Senior
Lead/Head
Strategic
Principal
Human