Therbligs
Image by Jeff Suro taken from History of Usability
I’ve always been drawn to history and often ask myself, or my wife, “I wonder how that came about?” As I was driving to work this week listening to Professor Darren Hood’s podcast The World of UX with Darren Hood on Spotify, my interest was piqued as he discussed the history of UX.
Most UXers have probably heard about “Kaizen” or “Just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing” employed by the Japanese car manufacturer, Toyota, in the late ’40s, or about Don Norman’s work with Apple in the early ’90s. But Darren Hood talks about the pioneers of usability in the early 1900s starting with Frederick Winslow Taylor who worked with Henry Ford to help his workers perform more efficiently on the assembly line.
Image taken from https://www.uxbooth.com/articles/where-ux-comes-from/
In researching the history of UX, I also came across the work of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, who aimed at increasing efficiency in the workplace by reducing the number of motions in a task, coined by them as “therbligs.”
So while “UX” may still be a more recent term, the practice of simplifying tasks to make them easier and more efficient for users has been around for a long time. As I continue on my path in becoming a UXer, I will draw on the history of UX to guide me, one therblig at a time.
