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WITI Museum | Women in Science & Technology Month | 1999 | June 4
 Robin Jeffries
Distinguished Engineer
Sun Microsystems
Fields: User Interface Design
Specialty: User Interface Evangelist
Nominated by: Emily Greene
Excerpt from nomination: "Robin Jeffries is one of the few female Distinguished Engineers at Sun Microsystems, Inc. She is in charge of user interface issues, the programming environments and web authoring tools business issues at Sun. Her goals for Sun are to design and implement user models for new software applications and to improve the organization's process for developing usable products. She is most interested in understanding human behavior within the context of using computers and how people learn complex skills like programming.
Jeffries is also interested in inspiring young women to get involved in the computer sciences and in getting companies like Sun to understand the more feminine side of technology, to make technology less intimidating to women."
What was your first job and what did you learn from it?
My very first job was working as a clerk in a dime store. I learned
that I didn't want a life/job like that, and that I needed an
education to do better.
My first job after college was programming for a defense contractor,
and I learned about the complexities of date and time computations,
and (in retrospect) why we have a Y2K problem (the module I wrote
will blow up in 2100, so we are safe for a few more years).
Who is your hero, mentor or person you most admire? Why?
It would be very hard to pick a single individual whom I admire most
- there are so many. There are several women who have had an impact
on me in a particular area - women who helped me learn how to balance
a real passion about my career with the needs of my family (and my own
guilt). There have been many of them, so I don't want to single out
some and miss others. Many times when I became discouraged that it
wasn't possible to do the things I wanted and successfully raise a
family, they showed me how to do more, or (even more importantly) how
to be happy with less.
What is your favorite book?
While I'm an avid reader, I'm not one who comes back to the same books
over and over. My favorite book is either the one I just finished
(which this week happens to be Deathmarch by Edward Yourdon - if
you've ever worked on an underfunded software project, it's worth
reading) or the one I'm going to read next (which will probably be The
Inmates are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper - about how software
design is done and why it shouldn't be done that way). I just happen
to be on a business book streak. For lighter reading, I go for
mysteries. Laurie King is my current favorite author.
What advances in your field do you envision over the next 10 years?
My field is user interface design, and it's very hard to predict
technical advances. Either user interfaces will be radically different
in 10 years, or they will be more of the same. However, I'm confident
that the role of the user interface designer and/or usability advocate
will change significantly in that time span. As we move more into
information appliances, consumers will demand a much higher level of
usability. I've already learned of several startups where the first
or second technical employee hired is a user interface designer,
because the company knows that skill is critical to their success. I
expect a much larger group of companies to operate this way in ten
years.
What do you see as the single most interesting element of your work?
I have a strong need to combine work that is technically fun and
stimulating with things that have an impact on people. My job gives me
equal amounts of both. I especially like knowing that what I do makes
a difference for people who use the product.
What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment?
I hope that it's something I haven't done yet. I certainly aspire to
bigger and better accomplishments. When I think of the many things
I've done, I'm struck by the ways I could do more or do it better.
And, of course, very few of them are purely my accomplishment - they
were achieved in collaboration with other talented people. The closest
I can come to a "project" where I'm really happy with the results is
raising my two sons (and here too, I need to acknowledge my primary
collaborator - my husband).
What was your greatest challenge and what did you learn from it?
It's one I didn't succeed at. At a previous company, I ran part of a
research group working in human-computer interaction. We were never
able to successfully make the research or business case for the work
we were doing. I spent a year of my life trying to convince people who
had no idea what I did, why the work of my group was crucial to the
success of the company (apparently it wasn't, at least in the short
term - they are doing just fine. But I'm not the only person who
thinks their lack of understanding will hurt them eventually). In the
end, we were all laid off.
It took me a long time to get enough distance from this situation to
understand the many factors that caused it. I am now much more
effective at making the business case for my work. And I'm more
astute at recognizing company culture and when it's a good idea to
crusade for something you believe in and when it's a lost cause.
But probably the most important thing I learned is that it's very easy
to blame external factors for something that doesn't work -- even
easier when they are at least partly to blame. But I was only able to
put the lessons of this experience to use when I paid attention to the
way my actions contributed to the situation. In this case it was
really painful, but it's made me much more effective.
What advice would you give to young women who want to enter your field?
I think the field of Human-Computer Interaction is the perfect field
for women who find that engineering seems too esoteric or distant from
real life. It's my job to think about the people who will use this
product, what it will do for them, and how to make that experience
much better. Yet what I do is also highly technical. I was trained
as a mathematician, and I find what I do now to be as intellectually
challenging as any math course I ever took.
If you are interested in this field, find a school program that gives
you a lot of hands-on experience (class projects, internships, etc.).
It will make a huge difference in your first job experience.
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