Steve Fadden

Steve Fadden is a Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley School of Information. He holds a Ph.D. in Engineering Psychology and an A.M. in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, along with a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. As a mixed-method researcher with over 20 years of industry experience, Fadden's expertise encompasses user experience (UX), human-computer interaction (HCI), attention, and decision-making. His current research explores how people learn, utilize, make decisions with, and accomplish work using technology, particularly in areas such as cloud computing, software development, and analytics. Previous investigations have included consumer and business technologies, education and professional development systems, and decision-support tools in domains like aviation, security, defense, and intelligence analysis.

Fadden's distinguished career includes industry roles at Google, Salesforce, Dell, Intel, PeopleSoft, and Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems; academic appointments at Landmark College, Marlboro College Graduate Center, and George Mason University; and consulting work with Booz Allen Hamilton. He has led business and research strategy development, managed diverse consulting teams with budgetary responsibilities across departments, and directed a nonprofit consulting group supported by grants and clients. Since Spring 2015, Fadden has taught INFO 214: User Experience Research and INFO 114: User Experience Research at Berkeley in multiple semesters, including 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2020, and others. The courses cover user needs identification, design evaluation, usability assessment, qualitative data collection via observation, interviews, surveys, and focus groups, research management, and results communication, with applications in enterprise, consulting, agile environments, and mobile contexts. He has mentored MIMS capstone projects and spoken on UX design challenges at events like UXINDIA 2019.