SLIS Alumni News

Master of Information Science graduate, Jennifer McCormick (MIS '00), works as a user researcher at Microsoft Surface in Redmond, Washington. Before joining Microsoft in 2005, Jennifer worked at Eli Lilly and Company. She also took doctoral coursework at the University of Texas-Austin (2002-2003).

"The cool thing is that I utilize both the theory and practicum that I learned in SLIS courses such as Social Informatics and User Information-Seeking Behaviors as a core function of my job," Jennifer says.

What are your main duties as a User Researcher at Microsoft Surface?

I use information to influence Surface's design and development. My job involves gathering and synthesizing a diverse set of user-based information, including user needs, desires, practices, and usability testing data, in order to ensure that our product is designed to be exciting and intuitive. My expertise is in hardware user research, and day-to-day I get to answer questions about hardware design and usability to Surface developers and across Microsoft.

What do you like most about your job?

That first and foremost I use research to advocate for users. I'm inspired by the opportunity to develop a new generation of technology that is accessible across age and experience, and encourages face-to-face social interaction. Also, at Microsoft I get to work with some very smart and interesting people.

Do you have any advice for current students, either in terms of getting the most out of their education at SLIS or general career advice?

Definitely! The skill to recognize information needs and anomalies, clearly define user questions and problems, and strategize a plan to get an answer is a highly valuable skill that I use every day — and I learned it in my core SLIS courses. I would say it's critical to be able to understand and articulate how the skills learned at SLIS are valuable and transferrable across various professions and functions, because they really are. Lastly, I would encourage anyone interested in technology and user experience to think broadly about the implications of emotion and social interaction on the individual user experience.

Posted June 2, 2008