Susanne (Eklund) Brokaw Senior User Interface Designer, Google
What I studied at the I School:
Focused on HCI/User Interfaces
What I do now:
Senior User Interface Designer, Google
An interesting stop along my career path:
My first exposure to "information" as a career was as an Information Project coordinator for new students at my university. The truly fun part of the job wasn't about information, though — it was pairing up freshman roommates. Do you put creative personalities with neat people? Early risers with night owls? Math majors with English majors? You get the idea. Fun stuff!
Information issue that interests me today:
All aspects of UI design and usability. AJAX, changing web paradigms, the challenges of managing
UI across many product lines.
Copyright issues and book search engines (such as Google Print!)
A Web site I recommend: http://www.goodexperience.com/ — When you become a UI designer, you start to see good and bad design everywhere. Road signs, gum packages, etc. This site is pretty fun and can teach you a lot.
How I stay connected to the I School:
I try to recruit at the iSchool once or twice a year. I love hearing about the year's crop of final projects, and I learn what general topic areas or technologies are currently hot among the iSchool crowd.
I School memory:
Endless nights in the upstairs lab working on group projects. Mastering the powerpoint preso. Thirsty Thursdays!
Something few people know about me:
I am passionate about ancient Mediterranean history and culture. If I could do it all over again, I might be living in Rome, writing historical novels and soaking up the sun.
My career path:
Prior to the iSchool, I worked at Oracle Corporation. I'd started working there immediately after graduating college with a Bachelors in English. At Oracle, I assisted patent attorneys with routine matters — research, event planning, writing. But then I discovered the web app. With some
technical help from a peer, I built a patent information system using Perl and a home-made database. Working with the lawyers to design the feature set and the UI got me interested in HCI and usability, and I went to iSchool to get some real education to complement with my self-taught skills.
The iSchool gave me the foundational skills and knowlege I needed to pursue my ideal career, UI Design at Google. Besides HCI coursework, which is directly relevant to what I do each day, I've found that many other iSchool skills make me more effective in the workplace. Working with diverse teams, forming project plans and defining deliverables, keeping projects on track — these are all things I learned at the iSchool, either from my classes or my classmates. I learned how to present information to a large group in a concise, informative, persuasive way. I learned to look holistically at how people interact with information and technology. And I acquired a deep desire to create well-designed products — better interfaces, better feature sets. I leverage these skills at Google, every day.
In my current role as Senior User Interface Designer, I design features and products for Google commerce applications. I work closely with usability analysts, product managers, and engineers to bring a product from concept to reality. I also help to coordinate the work done by other designers so that our end product feels cohesive and comfortable. My job role requires both creative and analytic thinking,
both big-picture design and pixel-level design. It's a fun ride.
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