After watching videos and reading the articles on Ada Lovelace and Lillian Gilbreth, I think there are many similarities between both women especially the influences of the men in their lives. The first men that both Lillian Gilbreth and Ada Lovelace influence are their own fathers. Lillian Gilbreth’s father opposed her education but she overcame and was very successful academically. What makes her life and work significant to Interaction Design are techniques to maximize workplace efficiency, which she spearheaded with her husband and on her own after his death. Instead of approaching the problems as an industrial issue, she applied the social sciences to industrial operations, emphasized the importance of the worker rather than nonhuman factors. This is the same way Interaction Designers solving problems as we center humans in our designs. Together with her husband Frank Gilbreth, she pioneered industrial management techniques still in use today. Frank Gilbreth perhaps is the most influential man in her life. He encouraged his wife to pursue further education in psychology and apply it to the field of industrial management. Comparing to her husband, Lillian Gilbreth was less known and had less information. And even when she was mentioned, her name is paired with her husband’s, and most of them are interested in her family lives than her achievements in science.
Similar to Lillian Gilbreth, one of the biggest reasons why Ada Lovelace was encouraged to learn mathematics is her father. But it’s was not like he directly guided her to break out the traditional gender role, her mother promoted Ada’s interest in mathematics was to prevent her from following her father’s footsteps of being a poet. In her time, she met many scientists with many scientists such as Andrew Crosse, Charles Wheatstone, Charles Babbage, Sir David Brewster, Michael Faraday,… But perhaps Charles Babbage, the renowned mathematician, had the most influence on her. They met when she was just 17 and he quickly became her friend and mentor. When Babbage began the “Analytical Engine” project, Ada was the first to foresee the potential of the machine and described it with clarity. But Babbage had an old-fashioned attitude towards women, he saw her as ‘interpreters’ of his work, meaning that he was appreciated for her articles but he was not at all consider the idea of her helping him to make it all happen. Her translation, along with her notes and represent are still her greatest contribution to computer science. Ada Lovelace is now known as the first computer programmer. Recently she gained more popularity with the rapid growth of computer science but certainly not as much as her male counterparts.
I like how you see their contribution in modern interaction designers’ point of view –
solving problems as we center humans in designs.