Stephen B. Wilcox

Stephen Wilcox, Ph.D., FIDSA is a Principal and the founder of Design Science (Philadelphia), a 30+ person firm that specializes in optimizing the usability of products for clients including many major multinational corporations. He holds a BS in Psychology and Anthropology from Tulane University, a PhD in Experimental Psychology from Penn State, and a Certificate in Business Administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has been working in product development for over 30 years, a period during which he has developed several of the methodologies that are now in widespread use for fitting products to people.

Steve was one of the first professionals to apply cultural anthropology as an effective product-development tool and to employ PhD cultural anthropologists as researchers in product development. He chaired the Human Factors Professional Interest Section of the Industrial Designers’ Society of America for several years and serves on the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) Human Factors Engineering Committee as well as IEC/ISO “Joint Working Group 4,” the author of IEC/ISO 62366.

He has also taught human factors and research methods in the Design Departments of the University of the Arts and Carnegie Mellon University, has authored over 70 articles in professional journals, and is the co-author (with Michael Wiklund) of Designing Usability into Medical Products (CRC/Taylor & Francis). Steve is the Chair of the Include 2015 Conference Committee for Include 2015, a biennial conference at the Royal College of Art in London that explores the challenges and impact of inclusive design.