Microsoft Research | jgrudin@microsoft.com
In this column we take a break from HCI history to revisit two earlier 20th-century technology successes. Rather than moving bits, these were people-movers. Early in the century, Henry Ford revolutionized the design, manufacture, and use of automobiles. Subsequently, Howard Hughes revolutionized the design and use of aircraft. Each was a self-taught engineer who created an industry that changed the world.
Success has many parents. Biographies of Ford and Hughes identify sources of inspiration, reservoirs of determination and perspiration, supportive conditions, and good fortune. Each man had qualities that helped early in life but seemed to harden into damaging eccentricities. Neither one can be held up as a general role model. Nevertheless, some of their methods anticipate those we strive for today.
We did not invent these methods! Ford and Hughes differed from their competitors in adopting incredibly traveler-centered approaches to design. These contributed significantly to their successes, yet generally go unmentioned. Henry Ford first engaged in extensive iterative design based on testing of prototypes by end-users (drivers), and only later focused on the manufacturing efficiencies for which he is best known. Howard Hughes employed remarkably incisive participant observation for requirements analysis; had he not, he would likely be known today as a film producer, record-setting pilot, and eccentric, and not as the force behind commercial air travel that he became.
“If you travel the roads in the neighborhood of Dearborn you can find all sorts of models of Ford cars. They are experimental cars—they are not new models. I do not believe in letting any good idea get by me, but I will not quickly decide whether an idea is good or bad. If an idea seems good or seems even to have possibilities, I believe in doing whatever is necessary to test out the idea from every angle.”
— Henry Ford (with Samuel Crowther), My
Life and Work, 1922
May + June 2008
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When a new mode of transportation appears, the public asks “How fast can it go?” Ford sought a vehicle that was useful, not fast. He grew up on a farm; his first aim was to use an internal combustion engine to power a tractor. Determining that this was not feasible at a cost farmers could afford, he shifted to automobiles. When he needed financial backing and publicity, he turned his attention briefly to speed and built two race cars that set world records. But he dropped that pursuit; in words that we might apply to the early focus on processor speed in computing, he wrote, “The industry was held back by this initial racing slant, for the attention of the makers was diverted to making fast rather than good cars.”
Ford was not alone building cars from scratch in the late 19th century. But he was different. Most inventors got a car running to their satisfaction, and then took it on a long exhibition tour. Ford
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