History of User Experience Design

User Experience Design is a broad term which includes terms like Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Interaction Design, Physical and Visual Interaction Design, Interface Design etc. The term was first coined in 1940’s when the researchers realized that there has to be a lot of research done in order to understand that how the user connects to the machines. Mostly because military warfare invention was on peak of their development, the scientists had to keep in mind number of factors, of which Interaction Design was the most important one. Today’s what we broadly call User Experience Design was called Human Factors in US and Ergonomics in Europe. 

Study of Human Factors or Ergonomics

After the First World War, everyone became more interested in chips, computers and software. The so called Human Factors study or Ergonomics was taken to the next level. Visionaries had already imagined what we today call laptops, mobile phones and tablets. So now researchers started developing input and output devices for computers. Thanks to their research and design that we have mouse and keyboard, which are like eyes and ears of the computer.

Ergonomically Designed Keyboard and Touch pad

The first Computer Interaction Conference was held in 1982, where people realized the importance of Interaction Design (Which was now being called as Experience Design). Moreover, the scientists and researchers started developing products which were more Human Centric than the Function Centric. It was this time when huge machines, cockpits, kitchen equipment, automobiles etc. were all designed, keeping in mind the End User.

We today call this term as Empathy. Empathy is the capacity to recognize feelings that are being experienced by another sentient. 

Example of Empathy - Looking from the Perspective of the End User

So as for researchers, engineers and designers, Empathy acted as a backbone to incorporate the physical as well as the emotional aspect for the product. Gradually with the era of Personal Computers, the User Experience Design became a more important study. As the first computers came into market, there were many problems with this machine. Most of them were the Ergonomic and software errors, which created a resistance or hindrance between the User (Human) and the Computer (Machine). It was this instant, that engineers, designers and researchers first thought of Iterative Processes in their designs.  Before this, the professionals were quite skeptic and adamant about accepting the problems in their products and iterating them. But during the 1990’s, as the market became more and more competitive, it was important for the big companies to iterate their poor designs and make them into something world class. This was the turning point in the history of User Experience Design.

Since 2000, researchers realized the importance of User Experience and User Centric Design. We can see the paradigm shift in the experiences of Shopping Malls, Automobile Showrooms, Railway Stations, & Airports and absolutely everywhere you can imagine of. 

Internet Explorer Logo explains the Experience of Surfing which they serve here

Companies are now designing products which give an emotional selling point to its customers, which I call ESP. In the words of Steve Jobs – “We are no longer designing products. We are designing (often physical + digital) experiences”. I feel that’s the reason why Apple Corporation spends so much time and money to design their Apple Stores across the globe. There is a sense of awesomeness I get whenever I enter the Apple Store.

Bottom Line: 

Hence as UX Designers, it is important for us to understand this trend of User Centric Design. We just don’t have to focus on the Product Design or Interaction Design aspect of the product, but we have to look at this product from far outside & see that how the End User experiences the Product.