Why are Ada Lovelace and Lillian Gilbreth important to know about for IXD History?
Ada Lovelace and Lillian Gilbreth both played important roles as pioneers in the history of computers and industrial design. Their research has a huge direct connection to the later newly developed field of interaction design.
Lovelace, based on Babbage’s Analytical Engine, proposed the concept of letting machines accept instructions, which is regarded as the earliest computer program. She broke down complex calculations into simple instructions, letting the Analytical Engine complete complex commands. In addition, she suggested that the Analytical Engine could not only do mathematics but could also process anything expressed with symbols, such as music or text—as long as it could be transformed into numbers, the machine could handle it. In comics, the fact that she could think of this concept was clearly related to her talent in poetry and mathematics. I think her discovery laid the foundation for the field of human-computer interaction. This helped me understand how the interaction between humans and machines evolved from the very beginning to what it has become today. Computers now can do so many things, not only with numbers but also with text, sound, and images. So Lovelace’s concept is the root of all human-computer interaction logic.
As an industrial designer, Lillian Gilbreth was the first in history to apply psychology to industrial design. She was able to empathize with the feelings of people working in factories, rather than only caring about the efficiency of machines. Her and her husband’s time-and-motion studies are closely connected to interaction design. In interaction design, the most important thing is also the user experience. Whether a product can let humans use it comfortably and effortlessly plays a decisive role in its success. In interaction design, I also learned that the best way to test a user experience is to empathize. Many standards of usability for products come from real experiences.
Ada Lovelace and Lillian Gilbreth both focused on fields that very few people studied in their time. We learn about them not only because of their place in history or their influence on the development of interaction design. When learning their stories, I found some of their similarities. Ada, together with Babbage, proposed the earliest computer. Lillian, together with her husband Frank, proposed time-and-motion studies. They were both representatives of the earliest female inventors. They were also pioneers of a field. I see some of their common features as having interdisciplinary thinking. Ada was good at mathematics and literature, and although her talent in literature might have been limited, her gift allowed her to propose combining abstract symbols into computing. Lillian applied theories of psychology to engineering. This is important, because interaction design is also a profession that includes many different disciplines, connecting computer science, psychology, aesthetics, and other wide fields. This is also why, as interaction designers, we need to keep learning.