July 16th, 2007
Super Techies: Larry Tesler--the trail from Xerox PARC to Yahoo
We’ve started a new video program, Super Techies, where I interview some of the people who are major impact on the past and future of computing. First up is Larry Tesler, currently Yahoo’s vice president of user experience and design.
Tesler’s career is a roadmap of innovation in user interface design, from the early days of personal computing to the Web. From 1973 to 1980, he was at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, where he helped to develop “cut and paste, “modeless editing” and other features that are core to the graphical user interface.
From 1980 to 1997, Tesler was at Apple, serving as chief scientist, vice president of engineering, and vice president of the advanced technology group, and played a key role in the development of the Lisa and Macintosh in user interfaces, object-oriented programming, and multimedia technologies.
From October 2001 to April 2005 he was vice president of shopping experience at Amazon, the pioneering ecommerce and personalization Web site.
In the interview, Tesler discusses his early work in coming up with the graphical user interface at Xerox PARC and his subsequent role in evolving the human-computer interaction at Apple, Amazon and Yahoo. He also explains his “Law of Conservation of Complexity.”
Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CNET News.com, has more than 20 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering technology. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
