Biography:

Wiliam (Bill) Buxton, O.C., is a relentless advocate for innovation, design, and - especially - the appropriate consideration of human values, capacity, and culture in the conception, implementation, and use of new products and technologies.  This is reflected in his research, teaching, talks and writing - including his past columns on design and innovation for BusinessWeek.com, his book, Sketching User Experiences. (2007), and as co-author of Auditory Interfaces (2022).

He is currently focussed on the documentation/curation of his collection of over 800 interactive devices, The Buxton Collection, with the aim of illustrating his view of the nature of innovation and design, and its teachability.

His last formal employment was as a Partner Researcher at Microsoft Research (2005-2022) - not the most predictable landing place, since he began his career as a composer and performer, having done a Bachelor of Music degree at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario (1973). From there he relocated to The Netherlands, where he spent two years working and teaching at the Institute of Sonology, Utrecht, at the time, one of the top electro-acoustic music studios in the world.

From that experience emerged a concept for a new kind of digital musical instrument - one suitable for both composition and live performance.  The pursuit of this idea led him to the University of Toronto's Dynamic Graphics Project (DGP). He arrived in 1975 as an artist in residence, and emerged in  in 1978 with an MSc in Computer Science - and a working digital musical instrument. It is this and his time as a faculty member of the Department of Computer Science which provided the foundation for his technical area of specialty: human-computer interaction.

In 1987, he moved to Cambridge England to help establish Rank Xerox EuroPARC, a satellite of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).  Following this, he split the years 1989-94 between serving as Scientific Director of the Ontario Telepresence Project at the University of Toronto, and as a consulting researcher at PARC.

From 1994 until December 2002, he was Chief Scientist of Alias|Wavefront, (now part of Autodesk) and concurrently from 1995, its parent company SGI Inc.  In the fall of 2004, he became a part-time instructor in the Department of Industrial Design at the Ontario College of Art and Design.  This was followed, in 2005, by his assuming his aforementioned (and final formal) employment with Microsoft Research

Buxton's work has been widely recognized. In 1995 he became the third recipient of the Canadian Human-Computer Communications Society Award for contributions to research in computer graphics and human-computer interaction.  In 2000 he was given the New Media Visionary of the Year Award at the Canadian New Media Awards.  In 2001, The Hollywood Reporter named him one of the 10 most influential innovators in Hollywood.  In 2002, Time Magazine named him one of the top 5 designers in Canada.  Also in 2002, he was elected to the CHI Academy.  In October, 2005, he and Gordon Kurtenbach received the "Lasting Impact Award", from ACM UIST 2005, for their 1991 paper, Issues in Combining Marking and Direct Manipulation Techniques.  In 2008 he became the 10th recipient of the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Award, "for fundamental contributions to the field of Computer Human Interaction."  In 2008 he was elected Fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), for his contributions to the field of human-computer interaction, and in 2011 he became the first recipient of the annual Grand Canadian Digital Media Pioneer Award.

Buxton has been awarded four doctorates Honoris Causa: Doctor of Design from the Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto, Ontario (June, 2007), Doctor of Laws from his alma mater, Queen's University, Kingston Ontario (June, 2009), Doctor of Industrial Design, from the Technical University of Eindhoven, The Netherlands (April, 2010) - where in Oct. 2010 he was also appointed Distinguished Professor - and Doctor of Science from his alma mater, The University of Toronto (June, 2013), where he serves as an adjunct professor. Finally, in 2023 he was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada.

In terms of service, Buxton served on the board of the Canadian Film Centre (1998-2004) and in 1998-99 chaired a panel at the request of the Premier of Ontario, to author a policy document on how to develop a culture of innovation within the province of Ontario. He is on the advisory board of the Department of Industrial Design of the Technical University in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, has served on the President's Advisory Board of the Ontario College of Art and Design, the Advisory Council of The Mountaineer's Legends and Lore book series, and (in 2018) the National Council of the Canadian Canoe Museum, where he also served a term as a member of the Collections Committee.

Outside of work, Buxton loves the outdoors. He is especially passionate about mountains, including skiing, climbing, and touring. This interest extends to the written word. He has contributed to the literature on mountain history and exploration, is an avid bibliophile, and was on the jury of the 2005 Banff Mountain Book Festival.  He is an accomplished equestrian, having been named Veteran Rider of the Year in 1996 by the Ontario Horse Trials Association, and in 2000, a member of the Talent Squad of the National Eventing Team.  He is an avid cyclist and active paddler - kayaks and canoes.  Finally, he has a life-long fascination with both art and his wife, the artist Elizabeth Russ, owner and operator of Toronto-based Studio 888, a  gallery whose mission is the promotion of emerging local artists.  They have three children, and six grandchildren.

Papers, Videos, CV, ...

• Selected Papers/Articles (sorted by topic)
• Selected Research Videos and Demonstrations
• My YouTube Channel
• Curriculum Vitae: includes complete listing of papers, etc.
• Patents & Invention Disclosures
• A Directory of Sources for Input Devices and Technologies
• Multi-Touch Systems that I Have Known and Loved. An overview of multi-point touch systems and their history.
• Some Milestones in Computer Input Devices: An Informal Timeline:  A timeline and overview of key innovations in input technologies, such as mice, pens, touch, gesture, etc.
• Technology Briefs (Studies of various technologies that I have assembled)
• Design Narratives: A set of informal narratives describing some of my work.
• The Active Desk:  A brief history of an electronic drafting table developed at the University of Toronto in 1992.
• Books on Design.  This material documents the books on aspects of design, such as sketching, design thinking, creativity, etc. that are in my library.
• Corporate & Technical Advisory Boards / Committees

Personal Pages

• Books on History, Exploration and Mountaineering, with a focus on Central Asia and the Himalaya. This is material, including bibliography, essays, etc. pertaining to my books on Central Asia and mountaineering.
• Books on the early History of Canada, First Nations, the Fur Trade, and the Canoe.  This is material documenting this part of my library.
• Photos A mixture of personal photos. Some high res for PR purposes, some of historical interest, and some are just for fun.
• Birch Bark/ Birchbark Canoe Project.
• Gallery 888: This is a Toronto art gallery devoted to the work of emerging artists that was owned and curated by my wife, the artist Liz Russ.
• Horse Stuff : This just reflects a past obsession. No excuses.
• Cambridge 2005:  A brief photo diary of our time in Cambridge, UK, Jan-April 2005.

MIT Lincoln Lab History Project

I am interested in the contribution made to interactive computing and computer graphics by the researchers at MIT's Lincoln Lab in the 1950's and 60's. Consequently, I organized a panel including some of the key protagonists at the 2005 SIGCHI Conference in Portland Oregon, and I have started a web page which is intended to be a clearing house for some of the material on and by the researchers of the group, which was mainly centred around the TX-2 computer. The page now includes a video of the panel session, including the examples. See the following work in progress:

Resource Page on Early HCI Research of the Lincoln Lab TX-2 Group

NRC of Canada History Project in Computer Music & Animation

The work in computer music and animation in the early 1970's at the National Research Council of Canada was extremely important in the field of human-computer interaction - not just music and animation.  This is where I first saw and used a computer, and that experience had a huge impact on shaping my career.  The music work, in particular, is not well known.  The following a book chapter contains a summary of the system, my personal experience using it, as well as my comments on its importance.  Through the cooperation of the NRC and especially my friend and mentor Marceli Wein, I was able to get some historic 16mm film footage of these systems digitized.  These can be viewed on my YouTube channel as follows:

• Key Frame Animation (1971)
• The Music Machine (1971)

Related Links:

• Microsoft Research
• Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK
• Computer-Mediated Living Group, Microsoft Research Cambridge.
• Dynamic Graphics Project: The Computer Graphics and User Interface Group at the University of Toronto
• Department of Industrial Design, Technical University of Eindhoven
• Dept. of Computer Science , University of Toronto.
• Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI), University of Toronto