This is the page about Ben

I am a user interface designer at ATG, a company that builds products based around personalization - tools that present content based on user's profile. This includes e-commerce, customer support, and other tools. You've probably used ATG software without knowing it, customers include Adobe, Best Buy, Cingular Wireless, Dell, Louis Vuitton, Mercedes-Benz, Neiman Marcus, OfficeMax, PayPal, Target, Walgreens and hundreds more. This website however is entirely independent from ATG, they don't pay me to write it or endorse anything on the site.

I recently completed my Master of Science in Library and Information Science at Simmons College. The program at Simmons has gave me an opportunity to study information architecture, systems analysis and design, and metadata applications.

From 2000-2006 I was the lead UI designer for Stellar, MIT's course management system. I was very involved in the Sakai Project especially in establishing UI guidelines for Sakai and in designing the Sakai gradebook.

In addition to my paid work I like to monkey around with PHP and JavaScript. I put together an open source tool for sharing links called Linkwalla which runs the link blog on this site.

Other bios

Here's a bio I used when presenting at the Small Tools/Big Ideas conference in New York, October 2005.

Ben Brophy is the User Interface Designer in the Academic Media Production Services group at MIT. He is the lead designer of Stellar Course Management System, MIT's platform for online teaching and learning. Ben also represents MIT in the Sakai Project, of which MIT is a founding member. Sakai is an open source software development effort to build a collaborative learning environment for higher education. As part of his work on Sakai, Ben recently completed a stint at UC Berkeley where he designed an online gradebook that integrates with tools in Sakai. Ben is an expert on user interface standards for the collaborative learning environment.

Here's a more big picture bio used when I won an Infinite Mile Award at MIT in 2006.

"Ben's studies in college focussed on the anthropology of religion, and on leaving college he and his future wife travelled around India and Nepal for an extended period of time. On returning in 1995, Ben took a job at MIT as an administrative assistant to pay the bills while dedicating himself to practicing meditation and establishing a meditation center. Working at MIT, Ben was able to take classes HTML. The thrill of publishing online in 1995 was enormous, and Ben started putting together websites for friends and for the departments where he worked. Ben enrolled in classes in graphic design at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, cut his hours at MIT, and began working as a freelance graphic designer.

Ben applied for a job as an administrative assistant at the Educational Media Creation Center (a precursor to AMPS) when it was created in 2000, and soon there after switched jobs to begin working full time as a web designer. Ben has been involved in many small and large web projects across the institute and beyond. Ben is currently adding depth to his knowledge of information architecture and user interface design by completing a Master of Science in Library and Information Science at Simmons College."