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Design is arguably *the* defining human endeavor  that separates us from all other
species. Take a look around you right now and you'll notice that  *everything* has
been designed – from how you sleep to how you eat and to how you communicate;
everything around you has been designed by someone. In other words, user
experience design, or UX design, is  *everywhere* – from how you interact with your
smartphone to how your home is designed. Of course, not all experiences are *well
designed*. And that's why UX design is such an incredibly exciting and  rewarding
field to be in.
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We can trace UX design all the way back to the ancient Romans. They developed
theories of aesthetics to construct amazing buildings that have stood the test of time.
Vitruvius, a renowned Roman architect who wrote the first-ever book on architecture,
asserted that good design must have the qualities of *durability*, *usefulness* and
*aesthetics*. These qualities are *as* important to UX design today as they were
millennia ago.
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From the early 1970s to '80s, UX design was known as "human-computer
interaction", or *HCI*. HCI rose to prominence just as personal computers became
mainstream, and that was not a coincidence. You see, before the 1970s
computers were just large machines that were operated by punching lines of code. So,
for most people, computers were really, really hard to use. But in the 1970s, Xerox
PARC introduced the first personal computer. And it was not only small, but it
utilized the first *graphical user interface*.
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Instead of lines of code, you used Windows icons and a mouse. And it started a
revolution! Soon, companies like Apple and Microsoft were heavily borrowing from
the Alto to create their own personal computers. This explosion of personal
computing in the 1970s and 1980s led people to ask questions like "How should
people interact with computers?" and "How can we make that interaction as intuitive
as when we interact with other humans?". As people started finding the answers to
these questions, the field of human-computer interaction, or HCI, started to grow.
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Originally, HCI practitioners were mostly from fields such as cognitive psychology
and computer science, and they were mostly focused on the concept of *usability*:
how to make computers as intuitive as possible. As the field of HCI grew, designers
quickly realized that designing intuitive computers required a greater understanding of
other fields such as *motion graphics*, *storytelling* and *linguistics*. UX design
today is really just  a continuation of what was called *HCI* in the 1980s
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 and *interaction design* in the 1990s. Today, we're dealing with a whole new set of
products and services, the smartphone, virtual and augmented reality and artificial
intelligence. But the questions we are asking as UX designers are *exactly the same*.
It's still about "How can we make the experience of interacting with a computer,
a smartphone, a product, a service as *intuitive*, *smooth* and *pleasant* as
possible?".
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Don Norman, the prominent designer who coined the term "user experience", once
said that *design is everything*. What he meant was that UX designers are not only
concerned with the product *when* it is being used but also *before* the product has
been purchased and *after* it has been used. Let's think about the smartphone, for
example. As UX designers, we care not only about making the software easy to use;
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we also care about *designing the right marketing campaign*, about *creating a great
unboxing experience*, as well as *making troubleshooting as painless as possible*.
Of course, on top of that, we need to make sure  that the product or service that you're
offering   actually addresses the need of the user in the first place. If not, you'll just be
designing in a vacuum and no one will care how smooth or pleasant the experience is.
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This is why UX design has become such a huge umbrella term which
encompasses many fields, including *visual design*, *usability*, *psychology*,
*sociology* and *aesthetics*. If you're interested in the *questions* that UX
designers ask and if you're excited about finding the *answers*, then we have some
very good news for you! The first piece of good news is that because  UX design is
such a multidisciplinary field, the barriers of entry are very low. It doesn't matter
where you come from or what you majored in;
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you'll always have something relevant to bring to the field of UX design. All you need
is a constant drive for absorbing new knowledge and constantly improving yourself.
The second piece of good news is that it's extremely challenging and rewarding to be
a UX designer. There's an endless depth to the job, and you'll always be coming up
with new  possibilities and new solutions. And, finally, the great news is that you can
start *right now*! You can start learning UX design *today*. At the Interaction
Design Foundation, because we're a non-profit
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we're able to deliver online UX courses at an extremely high quality and at a
surprisingly low price. You can also pick up a few books at your library, or you can
read some articles online. The point is you can take action right now. You can start
learning UX design, and then you can make the world into a better design place than
when you found it.