HackerTube.dev

Bret Victor - The Humane Representation of Thought

Colin McDonnell · 57.9K views · 2015-06-17 · 56:22

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

Bret Victor's closing keynote at UIST and SPLASH 2014 argues that our tools for thinking ignore most of human sensory and motor capability. He sketches representations that engage more modalities beyond screens and keyboards.

On Hacker News

HN treats it as a foundational Bret Victor talk that reshaped how people think about software and interfaces, often cited alongside Dynamicland.

Recommended by 4 HN people across 6 months · HN mentions 2017–2025

Topics

GUI, HCI & interface historyUX & UI designTech pioneers & interviews
Search by tags
bret victordirect manipulationdynamiclandrepresentationinterface design

What people said

Stwerner · 2018-04 · Strong recommendation

Really excited to go through all the other talks listed here I'm not familiar with! Three talks that I tend to reference a lot and have had a huge impact on the way I think about software: The Soul of Software: Avdi Grimm - [LINK] The Humane Representation of Thought: Bret Victor - [VIDEO] How to Program Independent Games: Jonathan Blow - [LINK]

Read the original HN comment ↗
yesenadam · 2023-01 · Recommendation

For the people asking who is Bret Victor: When "What are your favourite tech talks of all time?" is asked on HN, he gets more mentions than anyone else, usually. Some of his talks: Inventing on Principle [LINK] The Future of Programming [LINK] The Humane Representation of Thought [VIDEO] Media for Thinking the Unthinkable [LINK] Seeing Spaces [LINK] Drawing Dynamic Visualizations [LINK] [LINK]

Read the original HN comment ↗
badassiel · 2021-09 · Recommendation

It just so happens I was thinking about spatial org just yesterday, that it would be so nice if I can have 'villages' of tabs on a (geographical) Map. Amazing co-incidence that I woke up to bonsai browser notification! You might find The Humane Representation of Thought[1] by Bret Victor[2] useful, where he demonstrates by example, how existing tools/software (generally speaking) doesn't utilize all the 'superpowers' that we acquired via evolution. --- [1]: [VIDEO] [2]: [LINK] Edit - grammatical fixes

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Colin McDonnell, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks
  • SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
  • Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources