Hi designers!
Welcome to the 17th edition of CUxD newsletter for Fall 2025 – a curated set of learnings, inspiration, resources, and tips. We’re Clément & Sia, Internal Outreach Leads, and we’ll be writing to you on behalf of CUxD every week.
If you’re not familiar with CUxD (Cornell User Experience Design), we’re a centralized community for UI, UX, and product designers at Cornell. We learn and grow together both professionally and socially!
Want to be more learn more about UX design?
Table of Contents
History of UI
Every week, we’ll explore a topic in design. In this edition, we’re exploring the history and evolution of UI. User Interface of UI is the point of interaction between users and a system.
Pre-UI era – 1940s-1950s
Interaction happened through switches, punch cards, and printouts. Only trained operators could use computers, and there was almost no on-screen feedback.
Command Line Interface – 1960s-1970s
People typed commands using monospace text grids to control systems directly. Powerful and scriptable but hard to learn without memorizing syntax.
GUI revolution – 1970s-1980s
Windows, icons, menus, and pointers turned computing into direct manipulation. What you see on screen finally matched what you got.
The Web Interface – 1990s
Pages were mostly static with blue underlined links and table layouts. A strong DIY vibe emerged as designers hand-coded HTML.
Mobile and Touch – 2000s
Touch replaced the cursor and UI patterns shifted to gestures and responsive layouts. Interfaces favored large targets and skeuomorphic cues for clarity.
Web 2.0 aesthetic – late 2000s
Sites leaned into glossy gradients, rounded boxes, and playful icons. Social features and widgets made the web feel alive and participatory.
Flat design revolution – early 2010s
Textures and heavy shadows gave way to flat color, grid discipline, and typography-led hierarchy. The goal was clarity and scalability across screens.
Material design and design systems – mid 2010s
Platforms introduced shared rules, tokens, and component libraries. Subtle elevation and motion communicated structure while teams built faster and more consistently.
Expressive UI – 2020s
Depth, blur, and micro-interactions returned in a softer, more tactile way. Interfaces adapt to context and stretch beyond screens into voice, spatial, and immersive inputs.
Internships
New York, NY, $55 / hr
San Francisco, CA, $38 – 51 / hr
College Park, MD, Boston, MA & Columbus, OH, $28 / hr
Greensboro, North Carolina, $17 – 46 / hr
Burlington, NC, $22 – 25 / hr
Advice from a fellow designer
About
Afran Ahmed, Info Sci ‘26, from Queens, NY
Fav Figma shortcut
Cmd+D! Great for speeding up explorations
Previous work experience
Product Management Intern @ Hilton, Product Designer & Manager @ Cornell Hack4Impact, Product Manager @ Medium Design Collective
Proudest design project
I’d say Ithaca Community Recovery! It was my first time ever PM’ing a project and I had to work closely with our technical lead and development team, too. That was a fun challenge that motivated me to keep working hard with my team of designers to strike the right balance between making designs both accessible but also development-friendly, all while making sure we were addressing the problem space. And, after being its development over the past few semesters, it recently got featured in the Cornell Chronicle!
Advice
Be your authentic self always. The world needs the diversity that you bring through your thoughts, performance, and personality. Let your work be a reflection of you, as informed by your thinking processes relative to whomever you are creating for! My hope is that in doing so, your work is able to be a representation of you and also something you can be happy with and motivated to do everyday.
Design inspiration
Some cool designs for your dopamine hit.
Outro
That’s all for this week!
Have any feedback or want to see something on the newsletter next week? Email us at [email protected] or reply directly to this email.
See you soon,
Clément & Sia @ CUxD