The word 'User' was a unknown word in the early 80's. Car drivers were drivers (assumed to be men) and housewives (assumed to be women) used kitchen equipment but only engineers, technicians and those in 'the know' used computer equipment: they were the user, not everyday people. I was a rather experimental 'Ergonomist'. I wanted to influence, to change the way things were done. I was happy to take risks. Nigel was more conventional than me but was prepared to take a chance on me and my methods.
The story starts with Dr Ivan Brown at the Medical Research Council (MRC) in Cambridge. He was asked for contributions to the evolving term of Information Technology or IT as it came to be known. The National Electronics Council wanted to create a report* and he asked me to join the committee. Nigel wasn't on the committee but his colleague Ian Umbers, from the Dept of Industry was.
I made the report a glossy affair and it had a Forward by the Duke of Kent** and tons of recommendations for different national organisations. Although Nigel isn't mentioned as being in the editorial group this report set the scene for the formation of the British Computer Society (BCS) Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Special Interest Group.
We were both determined to make it's first conference BCS HCI85 a success. Academic conferences, at that time, were monologue events: programme committees created the structure based on their view of the subject: at the end of each session,attendees were given the chance to ask questions. In a revolutionary move, Nigel gave me four goals for the conference to achieve: thus making it a Strategic rather than a Scientific event. I recruited participants who called themselves 'Goalies'. These intrepid souls attended sessions of their choice and collectively reported back in the daily final plenary session and integrated their views with spontaneous reactions from all the other attendees.
The goalies had lunch with me which enabled them to bounce ideas off each other. This conference was indeed different. It was what was needed at the time and Nigel delivered. That conference contributed to the emerging professional scene which influenced the Alvey Programme where I subsequently organised 5 Research Planning workshops on Voice Recognition, Pattern Recognition, Human Factors, Man/Computer Interaction and one other.
All this was possible because Nigel had the courage to trust me. He decided to break the rigid format of previous Scientific Conferences. That conference and those workshops illustrated what the UK Academics could do if they worked together, shared their thoughts, ideas and concepts outwith the confines of their establishments/universities. Nigel was in the right place: the National Physical Laboratory NPL. He had the clout, the knowledge and the authority to change the way people ... Users ... were viewed by the Computer Industry. It was a message that Steve Jobs and the early Apple folk absorbed easily but not so the emerging computer establishment. They needed national and international standards to encourage them and this is what he and Tom Stewart did through their tireless subsequent efforts.
Sadly in 1989 my career was brought to a nasty end when a drunk driver nearly killed me at 08.30 one September day ... so I never met Nigel again but I am still in touch with Jonathan Earthy and Brain Sherwood Jones who were two of the goalies.
Nigel was a very respected British Scientific civil servant who served his country and his subject to the best of his ability. May he rest in peace.
...
* A scanned version of this report is available upon request.
** This is what he said ... 'Information Technology Year' (1982) has reminded many people in this country that we are standing now on the threshold of a technological revolution. The changes we
can expect to see during the next five to ten years seem likely to be even more dramatic than those brought about
by the first Industrial Revolution. Hardly anyone will avoid being affected in some way by the new technology and it is clear that society will need to reshape itself to meet this challenge.