Thought Portal

This week, I'm playing one of my favorite episodes of the podcast 99% Invisible where host Roman Mars and producer Sam Greenspan look at control panels in science fiction -- the clunky, the elegant, and the just plain baffling. But those user interfaces have one thing in common: they're mostly blue. Chris Noessel and Nathan Shedroff also discuss the real-world lessons designers should take from SF, and they come up with an intriguing theory as to why some of the most risible sci-fi user interfaces may not be so absurd.

Asked to picture a computer programmer, most of us describe the archetypal computer geek, a brilliant but socially-awkward male. We imagine him as a largely noctural creature, passing sleepless nights writing computer code. According to workplace researchers, this stereotype of the lone male computer whiz is self-perpetuating, and it keeps the computer field overwhelming male. Not only do hiring managers tend to favor male applicants, but women are less likely to pursue careers a field where feel they won’t fit in. It may be surprising, then, to learn that the earliest computer programmers were women and that the programming field was once stereotyped as female.