Tools for Thought
The Tools for Thought (T4T) team aims to put human cognition at the heart of our systems. Our goal is to help researchers and systems builders to focus…
Richard Banks
Principal Design Manager
Project Alexandria
The aim of Project Alexandria is to help organizations extract useful knowledge from across the company so that it can then surfaced, shared and used by their employees…
The Future of Looking Back
While we tend to think of most digital things as only having a shelf life of a few years, the reality is that we’re now taking digital photos,…
Things We've Learnt About...
“Things We’ve Learnt About..” is a publication from the Human Experience & Design team that summarises our work around a specific theme in a way that we hope…
About
Richard is Principal Design Manager for Microsoft Research (opens in new tab) in their lab in Cambridge (opens in new tab), UK. He co-leads the Tools for Thought (opens in new tab) project, which focuses on understanding the relationship between AI systems and human cognition. He works in partnership with social and computer science, looking broadly at The Future of Work. (opens in new tab) Much of Richard’s current focus is on new issues and opportunities raised by artificial intelligence for both people, as well as the design profession more specifically. This is part of a broader interest in exploring the boundaries of technology, creativity and society through a human-centered lens.
Richard is author of “The Future of Looking Back (opens in new tab)”, a book which focuses on new digital legacies and their potential impact on memory and reminiscing. He is honorary Professor of Design for the University of Dundee (opens in new tab) and Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow (opens in new tab) at City University, as part of their Centre for Human Computer Interaction Design (HCID). He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science from City in 2024, and is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He holds 44 patents in a broad range of technology areas. Richard joined Microsoft Research in early 2006, and before that spent ten years working as a design manager on many of Microsoft’s major products, including Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows.
In addition to his day job Richard likes to paint people (opens in new tab).