2 minutes with: Averie Dow
Remember those posters that were all over campus in early spring, warning you to upgrade to the new campus Wi-Fi network? Averie Dow (InfoSci’26) helped design them. Her inspiration? Those wet floor signs custodians put out when they’re mopping up. “We needed a visual that was boring—yet so jarring that you couldn’t not see it,” she said. We caught up with Averie about her interests in design and technology.
This conversation edited for length and clarity.
If you didn’t experience an interruption in your Wi-Fi coverage when CU’s new network went online, you can thank Averie Dow’s standout poster design. Photo by Zoë Dauksch.
ĚýĚýIt’s an honor to get to speak with the person who helped inspire those intense posters.
(Laughs) You have no idea how many people said to me, “Averie, do you know how irritating it is to have to look at that poster?” And I was like, yes, yes I do.
ĚýĚýWell, I guess you get the last laugh. I don’t know anyone who wasn’t aware of the new Wi-Fi network. Walk me through your process.
I was involved because I work for OIT, the CU Office of Information Technology. The user experience team was concerned that people would just think the Wi-Fi was down, instead of realizing they needed to take action. As a student, I see so, so many posters on campus. So, I suggested the wet floor sign design, which is why it’s that memorable shade of yellow. Believe me, we know how it looks!
I didn’t end up designing the final poster. But in my graphic design class the next day, we had to redesign a poster we saw on campus. And everyone and their mom wanted to do the Wi-Fi sign—and I had to pretend like I didn’t have anything to do with it.
ĚýĚýA graphic designer and a technologist. You must be right at home in information science.Ěý
What I love about the info major is how it keeps updating. People will tell you about a class you took a year ago, and it’s changed so much as a result of everything that’s going on.
ĚýĚýWhere does your interest in tech come from?Ěý
Well, in high school, I was a Kode with Klossy scholar…
ĚýĚýCode with who?
Kode with Klossy. It’s my favorite thing. There is a very well-known supermodel, Karlie Kloss, and her backup plan, if modeling didn’t work out, was programming. As a young girl, you love to see that, right? You can be a supermodel, and you can be a computer scientist. That’s where I learned to do web and app development.
ĚýĚýSounds like a cool program. Tell me more about the future, since you’re graduating a year early. What are you interested in doing next?Ěý
I would love to be on a user experience team, doing design and testing, especially from the lens of accessibility. A big part of my work with OIT is making the internet accessible for people who need a screen reader, or can’t use a mouse. I want to make a world that is accessible to people who weren’t considered when the internet was made—if everyone is online all the time, then everyone deserves to participate.
ĚýĚýWow. That might be the most information science career path I’ve heard.
It is! It’s humbling to design something, and then find people’s expectations to be way off when you do interviews around usability. It’s almost like a game where you have to get someone to do something without telling them what it is. And in redirecting them, you get better ideas of how to make your design more intuitive and accessible.
Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.