Buxton has a degree in music from Queen's University, studied Sonology at the State University of Utrecht, Holland, and holds an MSc in Computer Science from the University of Toronto. In 1982 he became a research scientist at the Computer Systems Research Institute at the University of Toronto. From 1987-1989 he was a visiting scientist at Rank Xerox's new Cambridge EuroPARC research facility, where he was chief architect of the lab's multimedia infrastructure. His time is currently split between Xerox Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC), where he is a consulting research scientist, and the University of Toronto where he is Scientific Director of the Ontario Telepresence Project and an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science.

Buxton is co-author/editor of Readings in Human-Computer Interaction: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach (Morgan-Kaufmann) and is nearing the completion of two new books for Cambridge University Press (CUP): Haptic Input to Computer Systems, a discussion of input techniques and technologies, and with Sara Bly and Bill Gaver, The Use of Non Speech Audio Displays in Human Computer Interaction.

Buxton is a past member of the editorial board of the journal Human Computer Interaction, a member of the editorial board of the CUP book series on Human-Computer Interaction, and is past chairman of the editorial board of the Computer Music Journal. He has also held positions on the advisory board of ACM/SIGCHI and Frontier College, and for the past four years has been a member of the international jury of the Prix Ars Electronica, in Linz, Austria.

Bill Buxton is active in research into input technologies and techniques, the use of non-speech audio displays, and the integration of communications and multimedia technologies to support human-computer interaction and collaborative work.