Friday Q&A: Jim Richardson of Electronic Ink, Philly’s “best kept secret”
Update: removed company names.
If you’ve ever kept a cheat sheet or post-it note by your desk to help you navigate your company’s bloated software, Electronic Ink wants to help.
“A lot of software is given to coders without any consideration of the end user and how they want to use the application,” says Jim Richardson VP of business development at Electronic Ink and a Temple grad.
Electronic Ink, located a stone’s throw from City Hall, is a design firm that helped IBM design OS/2 and helped Citibank create and design the first ATM machines.
“Think about it,” says Richardson of the design challenges posed by ATMS, “getting people to move from the bank lobby to the corner without any training [is remarkable].”
The company of roughly 100 employees specializes in helping businesses simplify applications and software, often through simple design tweaks to help end users stop from pulling their hair out and to help save companies money. The company has racked up hundreds of clients since its early days of ATM design.
We chatted with Richardson about making financial markets safer through design, saving one utility company millions and why his firm plans to no longer be Philadelphia’s best kept secret.
