Who is Ries Murphy?
More About Me
Whenever my students ask me how I got to the field of User Experience, I tell them the same thing: I always knew I wanted to tell stories.
After six years of studying, anticipating, and reporting on human behavior as an analyst for the Department of Defense during my enlistment as a United States Marine (and later again as a defense contractor), I decided to pursue a graduate degree in Human-Computer Interaction and Design.
Since then, I have worked as a UX Researcher in a variety of settings, from Fortune 100 "big iron", to nationally-funded academic research efforts, and industry-leading CRM UX teams.
Today, I employ a wide range of UX, IA, and ethnographic methods to elicit and convey the truth of complex matters as a Lead User Experience Researcher at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, as part of the Experience Studio.
All of which is just a fancy way of saying: I tell stories for a living.
“Hire him and hope he stays with your organization for years. I met Ries while working with the IU HCI/d masters program on a course project sponsored by Salesforce. It was quickly apparent that Ries has a unique intellect and a skill for deep thought that made him an obvious leader in his cohort. After seeing his skill we asked him to join our UX Extern program at Salesforce. There we saw the extension of his skill as someone well balanced between theory and execution. Ries is a proponent of generating insight, wonderfully curious, and is excellent at creating meaning from chaos that acts as the empathetic foundation every design decision should be based upon. He developed an excellent presentation to wrap up his experience with Salesforce that our team will remember for a long time. On any team Ries joins, he will become a foundation on top of which amazing things will be built. ”
FIND THE STORY. TELL THE STORY. BE THE STORY.
Musician
In high school, I was a competitive musician, winning the 2005 Bands of America Grand National Championship with the Carmel High School Marching Greyhounds, and performing at the 2005 Midwest Clinic in Chicago with the Carmel High School Wind Symphony I. While I don’t play music anymore, it’s in my DNA - and in how I make sense of the world around me.
WRITER
In college, I filled my years with writing fiction, traveling the world, and serving as an editor for two publications: Cauldron Magazine, and The Cinematic Katzenjammer. In the fall of 2009, I interned at BOMB Magazine in New York City, where I worked to transcribe interviews with actors, writers, and musicians from around the city. It was during this time I discovered his love of visual language, which I explored through charcoal drawing and canvas painting.
Marine
After receiving my BA in English from DePauw University in 2011, I served for five years as a United States Marine, where I worked in support of the Department of Defense as a Signals Analyst and Cyber Security Intelligence Analyst (CSIA). Over the course of my enlistment, I deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Following my enlistment, I worked for a couple of years as a defense contractor, doing technical writing, developing Army cybersecurity class curriculums, and designing presentations on behalf of cybersecurity teams at firms VOR Technology and Scientific Research Corporation.
TECHNOLOGIST
Since returning to Indiana University’s Human-Computer Interaction & Design program in 2018, I have worked as UX Writer at the Center for Network Science at Indiana University, a UX Research Intern for Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and a UX Research extern for the Salesforce Marketing Cloud UX team in Indianapolis. While a student at IU, I also worked on a team in support of two National Science Foundation grants, culminating in our publication Alternatives to Agrilogistics: Designing for Ecological Thinking which you can view here. Today, I work as a Lead User Experience Researcher at Hewlett Packard Enterprise in the Experience Studio, where I recommend, plan, conduct, and deliver research for multiple business units as well as oversee and support the work of my fellow researchers.
“[Ries] has the ability to take abstract ideas and distill them into a funny, easy-to-understand way that resonates with people.”