Richards was born as the second daughter to Tim Marshall – head of the Division of Soils at Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) – and Ann Nicholls, who lectured at the Geography Department at the University of Adelaide.
[1] Richards was appointed to the faculty at La Trobe University, where she worked on family sociology.
[2][3] She identified that as families aspired to suburban living, they spent less times in the homes they worked so hard to finance.
[5][6] She left La Trobe University and launched QSR International, a software development company.
[5][7] At QSR International, Richards created the software packages NUD*IST and NVivo.