Meet Your Service Unit Member: Christine Olson

January 25, 2023   |   By WCER Communications

Christine Olson works in Tech Services doing web design, web accessibility evaluations, and quality assurance testing.

Christine graduated from UW–Madison in 2001, and previously worked on campus for the former Center on Education and Work, where her job included user interface design for the center’s CareerLocker, a career information system. Read more about Christine in her own words below:

Q: Where are you from?

A: “I was born in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and I moved to the Northwoods when I was six. I grew up in a small town near Ashland called Glidden. It’s tiny.” (Current population: 423. AKA Black Bear Capital of Wisconsin.)

Q: What made you choose UW–Madison for college?

A: “I would go to Madison for school events like competitions, so I had been on campus. I was 100% sure what I wanted to do—I wanted to go to UW–Madison and I wanted to go for art. I didn’t have any career in mind. I just knew that was how I wanted to spend my time. I loved college. I started out doing fine art, painting, and drawing. Then I got interested in videography and media art and computer art. I ended up doing a double major in art plus InterArts and Technology (IATECH), which isn’t around anymore.”

Q: How would you describe your work in Tech Services?

A: “Web design is my main thing. I help the researchers build and maintain websites for projects. There are also different things I do with testing the accessibility of a website or web application. The goal is that you’re building it for everybody. It doesn’t matter if somebody’s not using a mouse or if they have color blindness, they should still be able to use the websites you build. I also do quality assurance for the web app team. I have to test things (made by the team). A simple way to put it is I try to break it—like what happens if I push a button more than once—and I can usually find bugs like that. I like to find things and explore, and I’m very curious and thorough, so I think that makes me a good quality assurance tester.”

Q: What parts of your job do you like the most?

A: “I like that I can be creative and that I can also be technical. There are always different things to do. I also work with really great people, like my co-workers. And there are always new, interesting research projects coming in, so that means there will be a new website we get to build and that’s always exciting. I like helping people, too.”

Q: What sorts of things do you like doing outside of work?

A: “I definitely love to travel and explore and get outside and be adventurous. I like hiking and snowshoeing and going to art shows and checking out art galleries. I like photography, and I take photos and have a lot of photos of the places I’ve been. I like to bike in to work, too. That’s a big thing. I’m a bicycle commuter, though not in the winter.”