Obituary: John E. Karlin, Helped Define the Telephone Experience for Bell Labs
The Little Silver resident was instrumental in determining features like round buttons over square and how they should be arranged on the phone as an industrial psychologist for Bell Labs from 1945 to 1977.
John E. Karlin, 94, a well-known local fixture who helped steer telephone calls away from exchanges to all-number dialing following World War II and developed the phone keypad, died on Jan. 28, according to an article in The New York Times. Karlin, a Little Silver resident, worked for Bell Labs from 1945 to 1977 as an industrial psychologist, according to the article, and was responsible for helping to develop features like the length of a phone cord, the size of its buttons once rotary dialing became a thing of the past and the format of the phone keypad. An accomplished violinist, Karlin was a member of the board of trustees of the Red Bank Chamber Music Society and the Monmouth Conservatory of Music, according to Legacy.com. He was part…
