Henry Dreyfuss, User Personas, and the Cybernetic Body

From where do contemporary prototyping and testing practices arise? How does biased data influence prototype creation? The industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss is often credited within interaction design and human-computer interaction communities as an important figure in the movement towards user-testing. Dreyfuss’ methodology advocates for including the end-user in early stages of the design process. This shift within the history of industrial design was significant as it broke with the tradition of a waterfall-type of approach by incorporating user feedback into product development. Dreyfuss’ prototypes of the “average” American user, titled “Joe and Josephine,” influenced many designs for decades after their dissemination. However, Dreyfuss’ data source for the creation of these designs has not been examined closely. In crafting “average” bodies, Dreyfuss reflected, in his choice of data set, socio-cultural specific notions of “normal.” This essay looks to re-examine the historical foundations for contemporary user-testing practices in an effort to shed light on issues of biased data within technological design processes.