A generation of adults learned how to type thanks to Mavis Beacon. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, an educational software program, launched in 1987 and quickly became a bestseller. To this day, adults who came of age in the Eighties and Nineties remember Mavis’s tutelage. Mavis comes up in fond remembrances on social media; she is frequently referenced when the subject of typing is broached. And, often, people are shocked to learn that the woman who taught them that skill – a figure they remember from their childhood, someone they, in some cases, came to admire – never existed.
Mavis Beacon was a made-up character, conjured up at an age when consumers were still learning how to interact with computers. Creating an avatar such as Mavis was a way of making the software more accessible, the interaction more natural.
