User-Centered Systems Design: A Brief History - Foundations for Designing User-Centered Systems - page 31

Chapter 2
User-Centered Systems Design: A Brief
History

Abstract The intention of this topic is to help you think about design from a
user-centered perspective. Our aim is to help you understand what questions to ask
when designing a technology or a system or when you are evaluating a design that
already exists. We focus on physiological, cognitive, and social aspects of the
human user, aspects that will affect how someone will use what you design. This
chapter introduces some historical background to the field of User Centered
System Design, and introduces current themes.

2.1 Introduction

It has long been recognized that we need to consider human capabilities and
characteristics when designing technologies and systems. As Nickerson summa-
rized in 1969, when the potential for computer-based technologies was first being
fully recognized: ''the need for the future is not so much computer oriented people
as for people oriented computers'' (Nickerson 1969 , p. 178 in the IEEE version).
Since then a number of fields have grown up, expitly concerned with how to
design effective technologies and systems that are intended for human use. User-
Centered Systems Design (UCSD or HCSD or when the word ''human'' is used
instead of ''user''), User Experience (UX), User-Centered Design (UCD), Inter-
action Design (IxD) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) are areas of research
that have taken up that call and are concerned with improving how people interact
with computers. Each of these has a slightly different focus and breadth, and each
encompasses many different approaches. What they all have in common is that
they grow their methods and deliverables in response to changes in the techno-
logical landscape.
In this chapter we offer an overview of the intellectual roots of these areas of
research and development. Early work focused on the learning and use of com-
mand-line interfaces and on programming languages. Following the development
of now familiar) WIMP interfaces (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer) and