Marty is a Professor Emeritus of Informatics, Cognitive Science, and Education (Instructional Systems Technology). Beginning in 2001, he served in many administrative positions, including the founding Director of the Human-Computer Interaction Design (HCI/d) Master's Program, the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Research, the Executive Associate Dean of the School, the Director of Graduate Studies in Informatics, and the first Chair of the Informatics Department.
From 1991-1999, he was the Director of Research and Development at the IU Center for Excellence in Education. In this context, he founded Indiana University's first start-up company, WisdomTools (founded in 1999). The company focused on developing "next-generation" learning tools to create deep, insightful learning. Marty is an early pioneer in online education, beginning with his work in the 1970s and 1980s on the PLATO system (see Brian Dear's book, The Friendly Orange Glow).
From 1973, he was a professor in the Educational Psychology Department and the Graduate School for Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois. Additionally, Marty was the Computer-based Education Research Laboratory (CERL) Assistant Director and Head of the Curriculum and Applications Group. In 1988, he was Microsoft's first Faculty Fellow.
Before coming to Indiana University in 1991, Marty served as Director of Professional Services at Authorware (which became Macromedia and is now a part of Adobe). At Indiana University, Marty's research focused on designing digital learning environments, slow change interaction design, and design pedagogy. He co-directed a National Science Foundation grant on design methods with Erik Stolterman. Throughout his career, Marty was the Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-PI of numerous grants and contracts.
In May 2020, Marty retired from IU. He is writing a book, The Game: How Business, Engineering, and Design Come Together to Build Great Products. He continues consulting for companies, higher education institutions, and governments on issues related to UX design.
In the Fall of 2024, Marty returned to the classroom to teach his popular Interaction Design Practice course to IU undergraduates from the Luddy School and the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture Design.