Doug Engelbart (1925–2013) trained in electrical engineering and became one of the seminal figures of computer interface design. Inspired by the writings of American engineer and inventor Vannevar Bush, he set up the Augmentation Research Centre at Stanford Research Institute and set about developing new ways for people to directly interact with information.

By 1969 Engelbart and his team had looked at all the tools people used to interact with computers — keyboards, printers, screens, light pens and track balls — and had built some devices of their own, including the computer mouse. The mouse created a powerful interaction between people and computers. When the user moved the mouse in the real world, the pointer on the computer screen moved in the virtual world, mimicking the user's movements.