Richard Buchanan is Professor of Design, Management, and Information Systems at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. Before joining the Weatherhead faculty in 2008, he served as Head of the School of Design from 1992 until 2002 and from 2002 until 2008 as Director of Doctoral Studies. While at Carnegie Mellon, he inaugurated Interaction Design programs at the Masters and doctoral level. He is well known for extending the application of design into new areas of theory and practice, writing and teaching as well as practicing with the concepts and methods of Interaction Design. He argues that interaction design does not stop at the flatland of the computer screen but extends into the personal and social life of human beings. In keeping with this, he has worked on the redesign of the Australian Taxation System, the restructuring of products and information for the United States Postal Service, and other consulting activities. At the Weatherhead, he has turned his work toward “collective interactions,” focusing on problems of organizational change and a reform of management education around the concept of “managing by design.” Buchanan is a widely published author and speaker. He is also Co-Editor of Design Issues, the international journal of design history, theory, and criticism published by the M.I.T. Press. He served for two terms as President of the Design Research Society, the learned society of the design research community.
He has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and an honorary doctorate from the University of Montreal.
