Over the past 30 years, designer, writer, and researcher Bill Buxton has been collecting input and interactive devices whose design struck him as interesting, useful, or important. In the process, he has assembled a good collection of the history of pen computing, pointing devices, touch technologies, as well as an illustration of the nature of how new technologies emerge.

Bill Buxton is the author of Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design. A Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, he has a 30-year involvement in research, design, and commentary around human aspects of technology. He was a researcher at Xerox PARC, and Chief Scientist of Alias Research and SGI Inc. He has been awarded three honorary doctorates, is co-recipient of an Academy Award for Scientific and Technical Achievement, received an ACM/SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Award, and is a Fellow of the ACM. He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto and Distinguished Professor of Industrial Design at the Technical University Eindhoven.

Microsoft is showcasing the collection – in addition to a mobile-friendly, Tag-enabled HTML browse experience, the website offers an interactive experience that uses Silverlight PivotViewer.

See the collection here.

And below is a neat one to showcase – The DataHand

Bill Buxton’s Notes

This keyboard works by having each of your ten fingers choosing the character you want by selecting from a radial menu. You can push down, or move north, south, east or west, and get a different character for each. The character you get corresponds pretty well to the character you get with the same finger when you move it from home position on a conventional QWERTY keyboard. The idea is to reduce arm fatigue.

Device Details

Company: DataHand Systems Inc. | Year: 1990