MIKE COBLE

ABOUT MIKE

Mike Coble has a BA in Mathematics from Washington University in St Louis and an MS in Computer Science from the University of Missouri in Rolla (now Missouri University of Science & Technology). He is a leader in the field of software user experience with a passion for making technology people can use and 20+ years in the software industry practicing user-centered development methods. Previously, Mike was the Director of User-Centered Design at Tripos, a major supplier of discovery informatics software used by drug discovery researchers in pharmaceutical and biotech organizations. There he transformed the software development culture, moving scientists and programmers toward a focus on understanding and meeting their users' needs. Mike developed a Quality of Use metric that guides teams via empirical measurement. Mike's background in software engineering gives his design recommendations added credibility with developers. Early in his career at Tripos, he built an user interface building tool that revolutionized the way user interfaces were designed and developed; it is still used today. Mike has worked with and impacted dozens of development teams and also taught and demonstrated key user-centered design techniques. Mike now works as a consultant through his firm, Coble Usability.