History Of The Button

September 22, 2006 11:42 AM

History of the Button, a weblog devoted to 'tracing the history of interaction design through the history of the button, from flashlights to websites and beyond'. This presentation [4.5MB .pdf] provides a quick-fire pictorial history of the things we push to do stuff.
posted by jack_mo (12 comments total)

Excellent, I love all sorts of interaction archeology. And I find the Revox C36 incredibly cute; it smiles sweetly.
posted by kingfisher, his musclebound cat at 11:45 AM on September 22, 2006

They mean the history of the pushbutton. I see nothing about buttons of the other type.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 12:13 PM on September 22, 2006

There is nearly nothing more satisfying than depressing a big, fat pushbutton, feeling the mechanism kick on, and hearing a whirrr as said mechanism begins to purr merrily along.

thanks for the post
posted by bobobox at 12:31 PM on September 22, 2006

I want to get in a plug for the Web's own Really Big Button That Doesn't Do Anything, supposedly in near constant non-operation since 1994. I've no connection with same, except as a satisfied long term user.
posted by paulsc at 12:36 PM on September 22, 2006

They're no knobs.
posted by Captaintripps at 12:52 PM on September 22, 2006

Great post, thanks jack_mo
posted by Kwine at 1:21 PM on September 22, 2006

I saw this presenation at webvisions this year. Pretty good talk, and one of those things that makes you start to notice how poorly everything around us is designed. It really fit nicely with Luke Williams keynote based on Bruce Sterling's Shaping Things (amazon link)
posted by rschroed at 1:24 PM on September 22, 2006

Thanks jack_mo for posting my blog and thanks everybody for the nice words. It's always makes the world a bit smaller when other people enjoy the same odd esoteric things that I do.

Bill
posted by billder at 2:16 PM on September 22, 2006

My favorite button is labeled "frape'", closely followed by the one labeled "mute".
posted by Tube at 2:36 PM on September 22, 2006

Great post. Thanks!
posted by vacapinta at 4:47 PM on September 22, 2006

I see nothing about buttons of the other type.

Heh, I nearly put 'not the ones on clothes' or similar in the post, because when I first clicked on a link to the site, I was looking forward to learning all about ancient clothing fasteners.
posted by jack_mo at 5:25 PM on September 22, 2006

I see nothing about buttons of the other type.

If you're interested in that, here it is: History of the (Other) Button
posted by billder at 5:34 PM on September 22, 2006