In 1989, a single invention set off a chain of events that transformed the world and consequently, lead to the recent prominence of user experience design within the product development process.

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1989. The invention standardized how documents and other resources can be identified, searched, and accessed on the free internet. While it enabled people and organizations to connect with other people and organizations without limitations of place and time, it introduced technical limitations associated with the hardware and software that made access to the internet possible; it was all quite technical.

Initially, the internet was viewed as an entirely virtual space, distinguished from the physical "brick and mortar" world. The model in the preceding diagram illustrates a change in role of design, as companies and organizations moved into the digital domain and software development business.

Traditional "brick and mortar" entities, such as banks, insurance companies, retailers, organizations, and government agencies, found themselves owning, creating, and supporting complex software and hardware, which were necessary to extend their products and services over the internet. Initially, support for all things "computers" rested with IT departments, which previously handled office equipment. Software was often created internally, or purchased from vendors, but was not considered to be a critical part of a company's core mission or competency. It took several years for organizations to fully appreciate the magnitude of the shift in the importance of software and user experience and the opportunities they held. In the meantime, increased costs on customer support, and low customer satisfaction, became expensive evidence of the negative impact poor software interfaces has on the organization's bottom line, its reputation and its competitive edge.

Differences in professional culture, lingo, skill sets, tools, and compensation kept business and engineering isolated from each other. However, it turned out that designers can break the silos between the two groups. Increasingly, companies turned to professional designers to help with improvements to their desktop and web applications, as the latter became closely associated with a brand's public identity and financial success.

An emerging methodology, user-centered design, required greater collaboration between business and engineering teams, in order to sync up on end user needs and priorities. Design became the unifying thread that could lower cross-departmental barriers, as company focus shifted to the user experience. Still, it took years to change the view of design as it was necessary but insignificant over all, and this attitude was reflected in small budgets for design.

Software projects were treated as "one offs," and once the design was delivered to the development team, there was no need to keep the interface consultants around. Consequently, the permanent software developer staff was assigned with maintenance of the software. Developers added required features and functionalities wherever there was space on the screen, even if that screen bore no relationship to the function at hand.

Not familiar with the actual needs of end users and seeing the product's core value in an expanded functionality, developers produced many software packages that were bloated and, for the most part, unusable. The 80/20 rule, also known as the Parto Principle, became a popular description for software that had 80% of its users, and use only 20% of its functionalities.

The implications on the profitability of companies grew in significance:

• Software maintenance costs increased with the increase in features and complexity. Moreover, companies found it difficult to adjust the software quickly in response to market demands.
• Companies that purchased enterprise software to run critical functions, such as sales, accounting, inventory, or human-resources, often encountered software vendors who were reluctant to customize the software or were slow to update it, and found it difficult to migrate the data to a better vendor.
• The more complex and unintuitive the software, the higher its learning curve and the costlier its training. Instructor-led classroom training was common, but involved instructor fees and the expenses related to employee travel and missed days of work.
• User manuals were notoriously detailed, but only few people could figure them out. Those who did figured out the software, developed work-arounds, and undocumented ways to get it to do what they needed. Some organizations found themselves in the precarious situation where only a single person knew the ins and outs of a critical software, and the risk of losing that person threatened to disrupt the entire company.