Humanities

Timothy Keirnan

Tim Keirnan
"It's easy to make things hard. It's hard to make things easy."
—Bergman/Chapanis

Contact

  • Assistant Teaching Professor of User Experience & Technical Communication
  • Affiliated Assistant Teaching Professor, Psychology and Human Factors
  • Former Interaction Engineer at Ford Motor Company

Biography

Master of Technical and Scientific Communication, Miami University
B.S. in Audio Engineering, SUNY College at Fredonia

Professor Keirnan was a frequent industry guest speaker at Michigan Tech classes starting back around 2002, and now lives the dream of teaching full-time and living year-round in the Copper Country.  In 2005, he and Tom Brinck started the Design Critique: Products for People podcast, which discusses UX design topics, critiques product designs, and interviews practitioners and lumninaries from a people-centered perspective. As a UX professional, Professor Keirnan worked as a consultant and employee across financial services, software, manufacturing, and automotive sectors, culminating in nine years at Ford Motor Company before his change to teaching.

Professor Keirnan teaches a three-course sequence in UX research, design, and evaluation, as well as a class in Technical and Professional Communication. One of several hobbies is re-purposing  old Windows and Macintosh computers into second-life Linux machines that stay out of landfills by serving friends, family, and community members far beyond manufacturers' "planned obsolescence" dates.

Links of Interest

Specialties

  • User Experience Research and Design
  • Technical and Professional Communication
  • Human-Machine Interface (HMI)