UX Design is rising as one of the most popular terminologies in the software product development segment. Here, we’ll be discussing the history of UX and the major landmarks along its path.
What is User Experience? (as per ISO)
The field of user experience design is evolving fast – so fast that it was only in 2014 that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) published an official definition for “User Experience”.
ISO defines UX as “a person’s perceptions and responses resulting from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service”. Although UX certainly has a formal definition now, it remains relatively ambiguous.
How did user experience design begin? And how do designers work? We are answering these questions in this write-up.
The Beginning of UX
A good user experience is something people have been thinking about since the beginning of society. The first designers were focused on creating things that were easy and pleasant to use, even if they didn’t know it.
The first people who made tools probably thought they would be easier to use than whatever primitive tools people used before them. And when someone figured out how to harness fire, they probably thought it would make life easier too!
The First User Experience Designers
The first person to consider the concept of user experience was Hugh Dubberly, who started working in the field in 1993. He advised companies to focus on the human-computer interaction (HCI) between users and computers and created an interactive design practice called “Human Factors Design” for that purpose.
In 1994, Don Norman wrote The Invisible Computer: Why Good Products Make Us Smart and How to Make Them Better, which outlined how humans interact with technology. He also coined many terms that are still used today such as “interaction design,” “user experience” (UX), and “user centric.”
Alan Cooper went on to create a method for building software through his book About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design in 1996. It became one of the most successful books ever written about this field.
Jesse James Garrett’s 2004 article “Content Architecture” introduced a new way of organizing content—one which has since been adopted by many websites today.
Lastly, Donald A Norman’s 2005 book Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things showed how products could become more enjoyable if they were designed with people’s emotions in mind rather than just functionality alone—a concept we often talk about here at UX designers!
The Scientific History of UX
The significance of user experience (UX) in the design process cannot be overstated. UX designers are tasked with creating products that are easy to use and comprehend, but they must also consider how actual people in the real world will use them. It means they must think about who the user is and what their goals are when using the product.
This field has only recently become popular, though it did not start as a formal discipline or course of study. As far back as ancient Greece, philosophers were writing about why it was important for humans to develop skills for civilization itself to progress. Some of them are:
Aristotle believed that humans were born with certain innate abilities but needed time and effort for these abilities to develop fully.
Plato argued there was an idealized form for every object, for instance a chair, and when a chair-maker makes a chair, they should strive toward representing the ideal form when creating artworks.
Euclid developed geometry into an empirical science based on logical reasoning rather than faith or superstition. (Just like UX today is based on research and analysis rather than assumptions).
The Future of UX
UX designers are still a new breed of professionals, but their roles will only become more important as technology becomes more prevalent in our lives. As you progress in your career, keep an eye out for emerging trends that could impact UX design. For example, if you’re designing for mobile platforms like smartphones and tablets, consider what might happen when smartwatches or Google Glass-like devices become more common.
Never be afraid to experiment and try something new!
The future of user experience design will involve evolutions beyond simple improvements: we’ll see entirely new types of products emerge that could not have been imagined by user experience designers at all just a few years ago.
The new trends in the User Experience designing will be driven by frontier technologies (such as wearable computing devices), changing demographics (for instance, people may want computers with voice recognition capabilities), cultural shifts (vocal for local), and other factors. The user interface and user experience designing is about creating the ways people interact with computers. And it keeps on evolving.
Conclusion
Human-computer interaction is one of those things that has existed in the world for many years, but it wasn’t until we started calling it user experience design (or UX) that we realized this concept could be applied to all kinds of products. The history of user experience shows us how far we’ve come with technology and what changes there are still yet to come.