Ada Lovelace and Lillian Gilbreth are two remarkable women to have created an early legacy in IxD history, even if their work is not directly related to computers. Ada Lovelace, often regarded as the world’s first computer programmer in the 19th century, was a significant contributor to this upcoming industry even before the first computer was made. Her work laid the foundation for the future evolution of machines that would help with computations applying the human mind. Ada envisioned that the Analytical Engine, a mechanical computer designed by Charles Babbage, could do more than just numerical calculations, and understood that numbers could represent various entities like letters and musical notes. She also wrote detailed instructions for calculating Bernoulli numbers, including loops and conditional branching which are used widely today in programming and software development.
Lillian Gilbreth, known as the founder of human factors, set up the principles of user-centered design leading to innovations in workplace efficiency with a profound impact on optimizing working practices, ensuring safety, promoting women’s employment, and designing for disabilities. Her emphasis on ergonomic workplace design and user-centered principles paved the way for modern interaction design to be applied to physical and digital contexts with a growing focus on accessibility, user experience, and operational efficiency. Her pioneering work in understanding human behavior in the workplace remains an influence in designing intuitive and user-friendly interfaces reflecting the core concept of human-centered design. She established proficient methods for interaction between humans and technology.
Ada Lovelace and Lillian Gilbreth had noteworthy careers, providing incredible insights, creative thinking, and pragmatic approaches for the way forward. So much so that the dynamism and evolving nature of Interaction Design is still shaped by their legacy even though it originates from different eras and domains. The contributions by these women were recognized yet not given enough credit within the realms of interaction design. While Ada Lovelace’s work laid the groundwork for modern computing, Lillian Gilbreth contributed to the development of practical systems for human-technology interaction.
Sources:
Grudin, Jonathan, and Gayna Williams. “Two Women Who Pioneered User-Centered Design.” Timelines Forum, Microsoft, 2017, www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Two-women-who-pioneered-user-centered-design.pdf.
Kim, Eugene Eric, and Betty Alexandra Toole. “Ada and the First Computer.” Scientific American, vol. 280, no. 5, 1999, pp. 76–81, www.jstor.org/stable/26058246.
