Incarnating Mavis was a Haitian-born woman called Renee L’Esperance, spotted behind a cosmetics counter at Saks Fifth Avenue by one of the men behind the company that sold Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. Creating an avatar such as Mavis was a way of making the software more accessible, the interaction more natural.
Mavis Beacon was a made-up character, conjured up at an age when consumers were still learning how to interact with computers. 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 comes up in fond remembrances on social media she is frequently referenced when the subject of typing is broached. To this day, adults who came of age in the Eighties and Nineties remember Mavis’s tutelage. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, an educational software program, launched in 1987 and quickly became a bestseller. A generation of adults learned how to type thanks to Mavis Beacon.
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