Early 1900s - Taylorism and the industrial revolution
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1948 - Toyota and the humanizing of the production system
1955 - Dreyfuss' Designing for people
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1966 - Disney and the role of joy
1970s - PARC and the design of personal computers
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1995 - Don Norman, the first User Experience professional
2007 - The Iphone
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EARLY 1900'S
These two gentleman researched how to get more efficiency out of human/machine interaction. In a way, this is the first example of user experience that we can observe.
In 1948, Toyota started asking their employee's input on which technology to use, and they valued them greatly. They saw an increase in productivity after this, and started paying more attention to how human interactions with machine could increase the company's revenues and benefits.
1955 - Dreyfuss and Designing for people
In 1955, Henry Dreyfuss, an industrial designer, wrote "Designing for people". His ideas, which involved the concept of delight, were a relevant turning point when looking at user interface.
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In 1966, Walt Disney announced what would become Disney World, and he described it as "a place where the latest technology can be used to improve the lives of people". Since then, Disney has been a huge inspiration for a lot of graphic designers.
Walt disney
1970's PARC and the design of personal computers
At that time, Xerox's research arm, PARC, created and designed computers for human use. Bob Taylor, a psychologist and engineer, lead a team to build, among others, the graphical user interface (also called GUI), and the mouse.
1995, DON NORMAN
In 1995, Don Norman got hired by Apple to work on the design and research their first line of human-centered products. He asked them to call him User Experience Architect, making the first use of this word in a job title.
At this time, he had already wrote his book titled "The design of everyday things" that also influenced a lot of designers.
2007 - The iPhone revolution
In 2007, Steve Job launched the first iPhone on the market, promising customers that it would be easier to use than any other smartphone on the market. What made the iPhone so successful was a great combination of hardware and software, and a touchscreen that was so amazing that it beat physical keyboards. It provided amazing user experience, which made Apple one of the leading companies today. Their success at that time made Apple focus on the importance of User Experience for each of their products since then!