When I first learned about Ada Lovelace and Lillian Gilbreth, I was struck by how much of what they did resonated with some core values of today’s interaction design and technology industry. Many of the “mainstream” principles in UX design, like usability, inclusivity and accessibility were already being articulated by these women more than a century ago. It’s important to realize that so many ideas we practice now actually originated from their vision.
What stands out most in their work today is accessibility. Ada Lovelace imagined computing not just as a way to solve equations, but as a system that could manipulate symbols of any kind – music, language, patterns. This perspective expands computation beyond a narrow technical scope and points toward a design principle of supporting multiple interaction modalities and diverse user requirements. In many ways, she was already thinking about technology as something that should be adaptable and inclusive.
Lillian Gilbreth, on the other hand, integrated accessibility more directly into design practice. Through motion studies and ergonomic redesign, she consistently asked how tools and systems could reduce fatigue and enable participation from people who were often excluded, like people with disabilities, older workers, women managing domestic labor. Her approach mirrors how we now frame accessibility in UX design, which is not as an afterthought, but as a baseline requirement that makes interaction effective and equitable for everyone.
Personally, connecting their work to today’s design practice makes IXD history more alive. It reminds us that a lot of design principles are not a recent trend, but part of a much longer lineage. And women like Ada Lovelace and Lillian Gilbreth play a significant role in shaping and developing it.