Marion Buchenau

Marion Buchenau has a long and varied work experience, beginning with a postgraduate tutor and course administrator role at Steinbeis Transfer Zentrum in Stuttgart, Germany in 1993. Marion then worked as a researcher and designer in office human factors and office design at Fraunhofer Gesellschaft IAO in Stuttgart, Germany in 1992. In 1995, they took a summer internship within the Advanced Technology Group at Apple. In 1997, they worked as a contract interaction designer at IDEO, co-designing the UI for the first telephone hardware for Deutsche Telekom. Marion then moved to a senior interaction designer role at IDEO, working on design strategy, UX and interaction design, and multi-disciplinary team leadership and project management for clients such as HP, Microsoft, Alstom/Schilling Robotics, Steelcase, Medtronic, and Canon.

From 2000 to 2003, Marion Buchenau was the principal at blueboltdesign, providing individual or small team consulting services for user experience strategy and design research, interaction design, UI and visual design, and usability testing. Marion then worked as a user experience lead at SKETCH Collaborative from 2009 to 2018, leading the San Francisco-based UX design team on two long-term projects from ideation to realization. In 2018, they took a 1-year fellowship as a design director at IDEO.org, collaborating with the World Bank, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Water. Finally, they are currently a director of UX design at Daylight since 2019.

Marion Buchenau obtained their Bachelor's degree in Industrial and Product Design from Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd in 1988-1992. Marion then went on to receive an MA in Computer Related Design (Interaction Design) from the Royal College of Art in 1994-1996. In 2014, they obtained a Standup Paddleboard Level 1 and 2 Teaching Certification from the ACA (American Canoe Association).