Back to the future: A retrospective on early predictions

Professor Brian Shackel’s paper “Designing for People in the Age of Information” was published in 1984. In his paper, Shackel looked ahead to the research areas that he considered important and makes some predictions for the future. This paper provides a current perspective on his views, assessing which areas he successfully predicted and which he did not, and contextualising his work in the field that he significantly shaped.