Scott Isensee graduated from Moorhead High School in 1976 where he was salutatorian and a National Merit Scholarship recipient. Isensee earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology from North Dakota State University, a master’s degree in industrial psychology from Kansas State University and a master’s degree in computer science from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Isensee worked for IBM from 1983 to 1999 as a user interface architect and designer. While at IBM he led a team of designers, programmers and writers, developed new styles of user interface, wrote guidelines and developed tools for user interface design, and served as managing editor of Internetworking, an online journal of the Internet Technical Group. He also represented the United States on ISO and ANSI committees on user interface design standards. While at IBM he received 21 IBM Patent Filing Plateau Awards and seven IBM Publication Plateau Awards.

His other positions have included designing the Netpliance i-opener information appliance, working on a medical information system as a consultant to Kaiser-Permanente HMO, serving as lead of the cross-company user interface architecture group that designed the Common Desktop Environment (CDE) GUI for UNIX, and designing hardware and software for the banking industry. Since 1999, Isensee has been a user interface architect at BMC Software where he designs user interfaces for systems management products.

Isensee holds 50 U.S. patents, is the author of numerous technical publications and is a coauthor of the books “The Art of Rapid Prototyping,” “Designing for the User with OVID: Bridging User Interface Design and Software Engineering,” “Information Appliances and Beyond,” “Constructing Superior Software,” and “User-Centered Design: An Integrated Approach.”

Isensee has been a certified professional ergonomist since 1994. He has been involved with the Boy Scouts, Habitat for Humanity, local car clubs and the Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA). He also presents at conferences and for college classes at the University of Texas, Austin.

Scott is married to Dawn Isensee. He lives in Austin, Texas.