Thursday, November 1st, 2007 by Peter Jones
The Dayton region currently includes Dayton, Cincinnati, and Southwest Ohio. The UX community has developed since the late 1980’s, with early usability labs constructed at Reynolds and Reynolds, NCR, and LexisNexis. The University of Dayton built a (literally) million dollar usability lab in 1990, giving you an idea of the early commitment to the field.
UX in Dayton enjoys a strong connection to the Human Factors Engineering tradition, with the field having started at Wright Patterson AFB in WWII with Paul Fitts and Alphonse Chapanis. The USAF Human Effectiveness Directorate continues today as the direct heritage of the origination of the field, located here at Wright-Patterson AFB, one of the largest US military research centers. Dayton is the site of the first HFES local chapter of Southwest Ohio, started in 1957. The evolution of HF here has also resulted in Dayton’s active community of practice in Cognitive Engineering, a field well-represented by the growing decision and cognitive engineering consultancy Klein Associates.
Dayton was an early center for invention, with the Wright Brothers, then Delco Labs and NCR having grown from inventive work. LexisNexis and Reynolds were early innovators in user interface design in the late 80’s. User Experience has been a necessary partner in the growth of high-tech, with LexisNexis and Elsevier having developed world-class UX capabilities. From a UX employment, the Southwest Ohio region has never been a major interactive agency, advertising firm, or marketing consultancy area. Cincinnati’s world-class marketing/design firms notwithstanding, this region has a history of technology invention and industrial design. As a world-leading technology region, a strong heritage of invention has led to significant advances in large-scale industrial and military systems, and product design.
Posted in Cincinnati, OH, USA | Dayton, OH, USA
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