For over 30 years, Dr. Amy Schwartz has used her training as a cognitive psychologist to humanize technology and has applied her expertise in human-centred design across a wide range of challenges. She spent 20 years at the design innovation consultancy IDEO, where she founded the design research group in the Chicago studio, served as the global design research lead for the IDEO health practice, and led the design research for some of IDEO’s most innovative and successful designs including the award-winning Lifeport Kidney Transporter (which won the IDSA Design of the Decade award and is in the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art), Medtronic Stealth Station surgical navigation system, Bayer Contour glucose meters, and Sherwin Williams’ Color Snap in-store colour selection system. She has worked with a wide variety of clients from start-ups, to industry giants like Baxter, Eli Lilly, and American Express as well as clients in the governmental and public sectors. Amy excels in helping clients and design teams frame problems in new ways to inspire innovative design solutions. She is an expert practitioner of Design Thinking and a frequent speaker and coach for this human-centered approach to innovation.
Amy is an Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University’s Segal Design Institute, where she teaches design research and serves as a faculty advisor in the MMM program and the Engineering, Design, and Innovation program. She is the Design Researcher in Residence at MATTER, the Chicago health-tech incubator where she advises and mentors teams on design research and rich and centred design. She is part of the Chicago Innovation Mentor Network, based at MATTER. Amy consults as a Principal at Empathic Innovation, LLC.
Research Interests:
- Design Thinking
- Human Centric Design
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Psychology, Yale University, USA
- Bachelors of Arts in Psychology, Columbia University, New York, USA
- Amy O'Keefe, Sarah Rottenberg, Ann Giese, Amy Schwartz, Julia Benini, Joseph Hageman, Sally Hageman , Monica Joseph-Griffin; (2014) “Designing for a Child’s Experience of Clinical Rounds: A Participatory Design Challenge”: Touchpoint, Vol 6. No. 2.
- Devorah E. Klein, Gretchen Wustrack, Amy Schwartz; (2006) “Medication Adherence: Many Conditions, a Common Problem” Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, Volume: 50 issue: 10, page(s): 1088-1092, Issue published.
- Amy L. Schwartz, Lynne Thomson, Colleen M. Seifert, Michael G. Shafto; (1996) “Can a Usable Product Flash 12:00? Perceived Usability is a Function of Usefulness”: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, Volume: 40 issue: 5, page(s): 313-317, Issue published.
- Amy Schwartz: (2017) “Beyond Usability: What it means to humanize a medical device”: Med Device Online, Guest Column.