[hootener]

Don Hopkins! I've read the pie menus paper more than once in my academic career, and it took this post for me to make the connection between The Sims (which I played in my youth), pie menus, and you.

So, since I have the opportunity to fanboy out a second: thank you for your contributions, both to gaming and human-computer interaction.

[SimHacker]

Thank you! I still ask Ben Shneiderman to review stuff that I write, and value his feedback -- I've learned a lot from him, and he really cares a lot for users and is great at explaining stuff. He's the one who insisted on calling it HCI instead of CHI, to put Humans before Computers. I got to talk with Mark Weiser about The Sims before he passed away, and he thought it would be popular, but he never got to play it, unfortunately. He certainly had a clear vision about where ubiquitous computing was heading, and would be fascinated and excited about what's possible now, so I try to be that way myself on his behalf.

[hootener]

Ben Shneiderman toured my laboratory a couple of months back. He actually took the time to sit down and use and discuss some of the UI stuff I was developing as part of my PhD research.

I'm sure he doesn't remember it, but those 15 minutes were extremely beneficial to me. He's a super humble, brilliant scientist and designer. I have the utmost respect for him.

[SimHacker]

Yes, he's a really nice personal guy who listens well and is great at writing and talking. He loves to wave his hands around and gesture as he talks, so it's really fun to watch his talks on fast forward, and guess what he's talking about! ;)

I'll bet he remembers, and tells people about your look and feel that he saw and felt!