This is a video produced by Apple in 1988. It’s amazing how visionary it is.

Given the technology landscape in 1988 this takes some incredible imagination and as a user experience practitioner, what I find most surprising is how much the users are at the center and not the technology.

Here’s snapshot of 1988:

• Hit movies were Die Hard and Rain Man
• Seoul hosted the Olympic Games
• Chart toppers were Guns N Roses “Sweet Child ‘O Mine”, George Michael “Faith”
• People were using MS-DOS v4 and Windows was in version 2.x
• Apple IIc+ and Macintosh IIx released
• 5.25 inch “floppies” were still widely used
• The internet was still ARPANET

At a time when computer ownership was not widespread and users were still struggling with MS-DOS command lines to interact with computers, the technology in the video takes a background role in support of the goal of each of the characters. These goals are:

• Author/mother: write a research and write a paper, organize her
• materials and communicate with her kids
• Students: study chemistry and conduct experiments
• Teacher: monitor and guide students
• Architect: create and present designs to client
• Girl with disabilities: make a cake for mom

The video shows the following (yet to be developed) technologies to achieve these goals. It is shocking to see how many of those technologies are now available today. And yet the interactions are still not as natural as in the video:

• Voice commands
• Natural speech recognition
• Gesture recognition
• Video conferencing
• Flat panel display
• Smart agents
• Shared desktop
• Distance/remote learning
• Real-time animation/simulation
• 3D modeling

Today, the video seem comical, but remember it was 1988. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for the authors to see a future like this one. Can we imagine what it will be like in 2020 let alone 2030?

Compare Apple’s video with a more recent video produced by Intel in 2007. Here it is obvious that the technology plays center stage and the humans are just extras.

The optimism in Apple’s video is commendable. The optimism that we will get technology right – in service of our needs and goals, not the other way round.

Something so simple is so easy to forget.