Two Women Who Pioneered User-Centered Design

TIMELINES FORUM

Timelines provides perspectives on HCI history, glancing back at a road that sometimes took unexpected branches and turns. History is not a dry list of events; it is about points of view and differing interpretations.

Jonathan Grudin, Editor

Jonathan Grudin Microsoft Research | [email protected] Gayna Williams Swash Consulting/If She Can I Can | [email protected]

Histories of HCI emphasize Gilbreth was born Lillie Moller Beta Kappa; she recalled the policy Vannevar Bush and the engi- [1] in Oakland, California, the old- being that “when it came to finding neers and scientists who in the est of nine children of a wealthy a good job, men needed the help of 1960s envisioned what comput- builder’s supply merchant who this honor more than women did.” ers would make possible: J.C.R. feared that educated women would She went to Columbia to study lit- Licklider, Douglas Engelbart, Ted become schoolteachers instead of erature, but the professor she had Nelson, Alan Kay, and Nicholas marrying rich men. At age nine she hoped to work with did not allow Negroponte. Their words and the attended first grade. She caught up women to attend his lectures. prototypes of Engelbart and Ivan and overcame her father’s opposi- Instead, she studied briefly with Sutherland have inspired countless tion to women’s education, com- Edward Thorndike, an influential researchers. In two conversations, muting by streetcar to UC Berkeley. experimental psychologist with Don Chaffin and Judy Olson sug- Majoring in English literature whom she remained in touch for gested the field would benefit from with enough education courses to four decades. Thorndike espoused a closer examination of the work of qualify for a teaching certificate, careful quantitative measurement Lillian Gilbreth and Grace Hopper, she was in 1900 Berkeley’s first and two principles that Gilbreth whose relationships to HCI had female commencement speaker. absorbed: Individuals are shaped been overlooked. They were right. Gilbreth was excluded from Phi by their environments and differ in their satisfactions. Lillian Gilbreth, 1878–1972 Gilbreth became ill during her First woman inducted into the National studies in New York. Hearing this, Academy of Engineering her father forced her to return to California and Berkeley, where In 1915, Lillian Gilbreth received the she earned a master’s in English first Ph.D. in industrial psychology. literature and completed a Ph.D. Arguably the founder of modern dissertation that was published human factors, she brought human serially in a journal in 1912 and psychology to the emerging field 1913 and as an influential book, of scientific management. Gilbreth The Psychology of Management, in received 23 honorary degrees and 1914. The publisher insisted that many awards. Although her work no publicity mention the gender preceded computer use, Gilbreth’s of “L.M. Gilbreth.” Her commit- range of user-centered methods tee had approved her conducting and choice of topics align with research on the East Coast but

maturing 21st-century HCI. insisted in 1911 that she reside on interactions 2013 December + November

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campus to be awarded her Ph.D. projects] were always considered Johnson & Johnson. She defined This was not possible, as by then not merely as workers but inves- work practices to help nurses she had five children with Frank tigators, having respect for their avoid injury and to aid typists, Gilbreth, a bricklayer turned build- knowledge of their own work and cashiers, saleswomen, sandwich ing contractor enthusiastic about utilizing their experience” [3]. makers, and others in working Frederic Taylor’s scientific manage- The couple is best known more efficiently. Often she first ment concept. At Lillian’s urging, through a book written by two of filmed and talked with especially Frank had left his business and their children and a 1950 movie efficient workers. She worked for the two were conducting research, of the same name, Cheaper by the months at a Macy’s sales counter teaching, and consulting on sci- Dozen. They emphasized Frank’s to understand the nature of the entific management for firms in role before he died in 1924, leav- work and sources of fatigue. She Europe and North America. Lillian ing Lillian a single parent of 11 wrote, “When you go into your Gilbreth wrote and in 1915 suc- surviving children aged 2 to 18. man-designed kitchen … you have cessfully defended a second Ph.D. Some consulting clients aban- a simple enough problem in the dissertation, “Some Aspects of doned Lillian on Frank’s death, elimination of unnecessary fatigue Eliminating Waste in Teaching,” at but she soon established a strong in the household…. If those who Brown University. By then, seven of reputation. She saw all of her supply the soap, the water, the their 12 children had arrived. children through college while sinks, the dishes, etc. actually During this period, she also maintaining an unbroken record washed some dishes, we would researched and wrote books based of singular accomplishment. She have much better equipment in on their work titled Bricklaying worked for a wide range of firms a short time.” She developed the System, Concrete System, Field System, and published extensively. kitchen “work triangle” used today, and Motion Studies, listing only The range of Lillian’s work defies along with specific devices that Frank as author. The titles seem easy summarization. Historian came into wide use, such as refrig- consistent with Taylorism [2], the Jane Lancaster’s impressive biog- erator door shelves and foot-pedal- pioneering conceptualization of raphy, Making Time, describes a operated trash containers [4]. a scientific approach to measur- person with extraordinary powers World War I casualties galva- ing work. But the Gilbreths split of observation and analysis and nized a focus on designing prac- acrimoniously with the wealthy, an unparalleled ability to trans- tices and training to enable the autocratic, and jealous Taylor, late results into action by working handicapped to work. Gilbreth who focused solely on measuring hard and efficiently, networking continued this work and extended time and viewed workers as dim- strategically, and collaborat- it to the civilian handicapped, witted, in need of rigid control, ing effectively. She innovated in designing kitchens for disabled and motivated solely by money. redesigning work practices from female homemakers. Of one, she The Gilbreths added the study of bricklaying to surgery and in noted emphatically that “there motion as a step in optimizing product design, as with a futur- wasn’t a single thing in it which work practices, and recognized istic desk for IBM’s 1933 Chicago wouldn’t be equally good for a the complexity of the relationship World’s Fair exhibit. Most signifi- person who had nothing in the between motivation and the desir- cantly, she broke new ground in world the matter with her except ability of reward. They explored two major areas: women’s work [being] overweight.” She examined training, stress, and fatigue. Even and designing for disabilities. the abilities of older workers and when it produced higher wages, A 1998 thesis, “Lillian Moller opposed age discrimination. Noting Taylorism was often resisted by Gilbreth’s Extensions of Scientific that about 85 percent of purchas- workers; the Gilbreths fared bet- Management into Women’s Work: ing was by women, she explored ter. Their respect for workers 1924–1935,” captures the first of approaches to increasing customer

November + December 2013 December + November anticipated sociotechnical and these. Her basic research on men- satisfaction. Her engagement over participatory design. One office struation and fatigue concluded time is not unlike the evolving

boy, an Italian immigrant, wrote that women could continue work- focus of HCI as computer use of the Gilbreths, “The workmen ing without difficulty. Her one moved beyond technical domains. selected [to be observed and filmed foray into market research, in the Gilbreth served five U.S. presi-

interactions during work-process optimization 1920s, was on sanitary napkins for dents in significant roles. Although

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tangential to user-centered design, with Lillian Gilbreth”). She earned Grace Hopper famous for?” Both as it was with Vannevar Bush honorary doctorates and engineer- women had attended the Grace and J.C.R. Licklider, her service ing awards not previously given Hopper conference. Both interns underlines her prominence, as to a woman. MIT appointed her said, “The bug!” Hopper described does her being featured posthu- to a position in 1964, when she the placement of a moth that mously on a U.S. postage stamp. was 86. In 1965, she was belatedly had crashed a system in a log, In 1930, Gilbreth was appointed elected to the National Academy popularizing the term bug for the to the U.S. Emergency Committee of Engineering. She retired in 1968, origin of a software failure. Both for Unemployment. She initiated when she was 90. men said she had done something a program that mobilized almost In conclusion, Lillian Gilbreth “important in computer science.” three million women to collect brought psychology to the rigor- The female intern said Hopper unemployment data, previously not ous study of how technology can worked on computers “for the measured, and to create new jobs. better support work. Although she Navy or Army.” The prize went to She led the temporarily success- did not work on computers, she the female researcher, who knew ful opposition to the proposal that pioneered highly relevant methods married working women should be for human-technology interac- fired; the committee responded, tion in a career with a trajectory “[We] see no way in which the gov- resembling that of HCI as it slowly ernment can discriminate against builds out efforts to support the married women now employed…. disabled, the elderly, and occupa- This does not commend itself tions traditionally held by women. to us as sound from a business point of view or desirable from a Grace Hopper, 1906–1992 social point of view.” After a year, I had a running compiler and nobody though, the government began fir- would touch it. They told me computers ing women whose husbands were could only do arithmetic. employed. When Hoover did not —Grace Hopper support the committee’s recom- mendations, she resigned. Other Grace Hopper is familiar primar- service is shown in Table 1. ily through the annual Women Academic appointments came in Computer Science conference late in her life. The Gilbreths ran named for her. In an unscientific informal free summer schools on gender-balanced survey, we asked scientific management in the early two established HCI research- 1920s. Following Frank’s death, ers and two HCI interns, “What is to supplement contract work as a means of support, Lillian ran a formal course from her home 1920s Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau with laboratory projects and field trips to private companies. Frank 1930s President’s Emergency Committee for Employment had lectured annually at Purdue. 1940s War Manpower Commission When he died, Lillian was invited, 1940s Office of War Information and in 1935 at age 57 she became Purdue’s first female engineer- 1940s Chemical Warfare Board ing professor. She was soon a full 1950s Civil Defense Advisory Council professor with appointments in three departments, also advising 1940s–1950s Advisor to Women’s Army and Navy Corps (WACS and WAVES, the dean on careers for women then Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services) (with Amelia Earhart, who said, 1960s President’s Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped “The most rewarding part of work-

ing at Purdue was my connection • Table 1. Lillian Gilbreth’s government service. interactions 2013 December + November

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Hopper had written the first compiler. None of these HCI professionals said, “Grace Hopper was the first HCI visionary.” But she was. Reading her papers, it is clear that she pioneered user-centered design. Grace Murray graduated from the Hartridge School for Girls in 1924, within days of Lillian Gilbreth being widowed 20 miles away. She attended Vassar and at Yale acquired a master’s, a Ph.D. in mathematics, and a husband, Vincent Hopper. She began teaching at Vassar in 1931 and in 1943 left to join the Naval Reserve. Lieutenant Hopper was assigned to the Navy’s computation project at Harvard. That set her direc- tion for life: She turned down a full professorship at Vassar to continue working with computers in the Harvard Computation Lab, at Eckert-Mauchly/Remington Rand, in the U.S. Navy, and at Digital Equipment Corporation [5]. In the 1940s and 1950s, computers were not used interactively. Programs ran uninterrupted from start to finish, computing mis- sile trajectories, nuclear fission processes, and eventually some business processes. Programs were written, mostly by mathematicians and engineers, in machine code— addresses, registers, and opera- tions represented by sequences of 0s and 1s—or assembly language, with simple mnemonics converted into machine code. Such programming was difficult and the programs were hard to debug, main- tain, and port to other computers. Grace Hopper saw that computer processing could remove this ardu- ous interface and “free mathematicians to do mathematics.” Thirty years later, this goal—freeing computer users to focus on their tasks—was fundamental to the

interactions interactions 2013 December + November emerging field of human-computer

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interaction. Hopper’s 1952 pro- transparent but more flexible Journal of Human-Computer Studies gram to “compile” a higher-level programming languages such as in 1994. Nevertheless, to see language into machine code—the FORTRAN or LISP. Nevertheless, how far we have come, consider first compiler—enabled math- Hopper was a major influence the context of what were argu- ematicians to write programs far in academic computer science, ably the two seminal events in more quickly. Acceptance of the especially within ACM. For human-computer interaction. concept was not immediate, but example, she led the first ACM Vannevar Bush and the Memex. Hopper and others worked to make nomenclature standardization It was 1945. The Second World compilation and the resulting pro- effort, replacing commonly used War was over and soldiers were grams faster and more efficient. “magic brain” terminology such returning. The U.S. government To benefit mathematicians and as thinking and memory with terms launched a campaign to con- engineers, Hopper designed a such as processing and storage. vince the women who had joined programming language, MATH- The Navy was a base for Hopper’s the workforce in large numbers MATIC, that incorporated arith- broad range of collaborative activi- to turn their jobs over to men. metic terms. As business comput- ties. She served for 25 years, retir- Many who resisted were laid off ing slowly grew in the late 1950s, ing three times. She was asked to or forced into lower-paying jobs. Hopper developed FLOW-MATIC, return, exempted from the man- Vannevar Bush was an MIT based on English words rather than datory retirement age by special professor and administrator, an abstract commands. She consulted approval of the president. When advisor to President Roosevelt, users and determined that abbre- she retired for good in 1986, Rear and an architect of the National viations would not work: Within Admiral Hopper was the oldest Science Foundation. In 1945, different divisions of the same active-duty commissioned officer, he published two essays in The company, abbreviation use was at almost 80 years old. She is cel- Atlantic Monthly, “As We May Think” inconsistent. She demonstrated ebrated as an influential computer and “The Builders.” The first the easy substitution of French or scientist; her pioneering role in described a hypothetical com- German words for English terms, making computation accessible to puter-like machine, the Memex. but this early localization effort less technical users is not stressed. This essay directly inspired was stopped because her man- Most HCI histories overlook her Douglas Engelbart, Ted Nelson, agement felt “it was completely anticipation of our core vision. and other computer scientists. It self-evident that an American is still widely read and quoted. computer built in Pennsylvania HCI and Gender The Memex was to include couldn’t possibly be programmed Here we have honored the accom- vast stores of microfilm moved in French or German.” plishments of two pioneers whose mechanically and read by inge- A major effort to produce a visions preceded transistors nious optical devices. Bush envi- common programming language and the dramatic possibilities sioned a Web-like multimedia for business relied on Hopper and that semiconductors inspired. associative memory. “Picture a FLOW-MATIC. Some computer sci- Despite our progress in over- future investigator in his labora- entists on the committee argued coming past discrimination, tory. His hands are free, and he for abstract terms, which have their major advances in explor- is not anchored…. As he moves advantages in mathematics and ing and addressing user needs about and observes, he photo- engineering, but business users are not widely recognized. graphs and comments. Time is overwhelmingly preferred pro- CHI has always advocated automatically recorded to tie the grams with transparent English gender-neutral terminology and two records together…. As he commands. The result, COBOL, practice. Our partners in human ponders over his notes in the eve- became the most widely used factors and management infor- ning, he again talks his comments

language following the arrival of mation systems were slower in into the record…. When the user 2013 December + November mainframes in the mid-1960s. coming around. Despite their is building a trail, he names it,

Computer scientists do not longevity, neither pioneer lived inserts the name in his code book, always value HCI and did not to see the International Journal of and taps it out on his keyboard.” always value COBOL or Hopper’s Man-Machine Studies, founded in Bush described how such a

contributions. They preferred less 1969, become the International machine could be used by a wide interactions

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Excerpt from Vannevar Bush’s “The Builders” For those interested in more of Vannevar Bush’s take on how science progresses, Bush depicted scientists as if they were building an imposing edifice by quarrying one block at a time: those who bring them food during neered the merger of psychological “[T]he workers sometimes proceed in erratic the labors, and cooling drink when considerations and engineering, ways. There are those who are quite content, given a few tools, to dig away unearthing odd blocks, piling the days are warm, who sing to encountering the ambivalence them up in the view of fellow workers, and apparently them, and place flowers…” toward HCI expressed by many not caring whether they fit anywhere or not. Unfor- Bush inspired many men to computer engineers and scien- tunately there are also those who watch carefully become computer engineers tists. There remains work to do. until some industrious group digs out a particularly ornamental block; whereupon they fit it in place with and computer scientists. How much gusto, and bow to the crowd. Some groups do many women his words inspired Postscript not dig at all, but spend all their time arguing as to to pursue careers in these This concludes the Timelines series: 37 the exact arrangement of a cornice or an abutment. Some spend all their days trying to pull down a block fields is open to question. essays by 27 authors over eight years. or two that a rival has put in place. Some, indeed, nei- Douglas Engelbart and the Mother The diverse perspectives and topics ther dig nor argue, but go along with crowd, scratch of All Demos. At the 1968 Fall could be starting points for future his- here and there, and enjoy the scenery. Some sit by Joint Computer Conference in San torians of human-computer interaction, and give advice, and some just sit. “On the other hand there are those rare men Francisco, Engelbart gave a truly to whom today will be as distant as of vision who can grasp well in advance just the phenomenal demonstration of the the era of paper tape and punch cards block that is needed for rapid advance on a section future of computing [6], introduc- is now. of the edifice to be possible, who can tell by some ing many features that came into subtle sense where it will be found, and who have an uncanny skill in cleaning away dross and bringing it widespread use over the next three Acknowledgments surely into the light. These are the master workmen. decades. Engelbart was not respon- Thanks to Judy Olson and Don Chaffin For each of them there can well be many of lesser sible for the printed FJCC program. for directing us to Gilbreth and Hopper, stature who chip and delve, industriously, but with A page titled “For the Ladies” to Richard Anderson for calling our little grasp of what it is all about, and who nevertheless make the great steps possible.” lists tours arranged by the Ladies attention to the announcement of the Program Committee “combining a 1968 Fall Joint Computer Conference, sampling of sightseeing, education, and to Jane Lancaster for her wonderful culture, and simple relaxation” (see book and for confirming Gilbreth’s MIT range of professionals: patent attor- page 18). It concluded by noting, connection in the 1980s. neys and other lawyers access- “Cocktail dresses are appropriate ing issued patents or legal cases, for evening functions.” ENDNOTES: 1. Lillie was a family name. When at Berkeley, chemists consulting the literature, By 1973, change was in the air. Gilbreth decided Lillian was more dignified. historians accessing records of dif- The first bestselling HCI book, 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Winslow_ ferent epochs, salesmen checking James Martin’s Design of Man- Taylor customer records, mathematicians Computer Dialogues, begins, “I 3. Lancaster, J. Making Time: Lillian Moller Gilbreth—A Life Beyond “Cheaper by the Dozen.” doing low-level arithmetic, scien- am informed that the Women’s Northeastern University Press, 2004, 136. tists accessing data for analysis. Liberation Movement will object to 4. The article “Are You Sure Your Software Is It was inspiring. It also included the title of this book.” Well, aware- Gender-Neutral?” in this issue addresses inadver- tent gender bias in software design. 142 male pronouns—and two ness is an important step, and no 5. Beyer, K.W. Grace Hopper and the Invention of female pronouns in a description of one said elemental decency would the Information Age. MIT Press, 2009. how a typist with electrodes on or come easily. 6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY in her head might be able to type Lillian Gilbreth and Grace ABOUT THE AUTHORS without using her fingers. Hopper had remarkable, creative, Jonathan Grudin is a principal Bush’s second 1945 Atlantic influential, and long careers, researcher in the Adaptive Systems and Interaction group at essay, reprinted from Technology contributing deep insights, new Microsoft Research. Review, developed a clever meta- methods, and practical applica- phor of scientists and engineers tions. Their contributions are not Gayna Williams is the founder of If quarrying stone for a building. wholly unrecognized, but they She Can I Can and Swash Consulting.

November + December 2013 December + November After describing different activities deserve much more credit in the that help or hinder progress (see fields of user-centered design and

sidebar), he introduces “those men human-computer interaction. of rare vision.” Gilbreth and Hopper were subject Bush saw a place for others to to discrimination because they DOI: 10.1145/2530538