William Grant Moggridge, RDI (25 June 1943 – 8 September 2012) was an English designer, author and educator who cofounded the design company

IDEO IDEO () is a design and consulting firm with offices in the U.S., England, Germany, Japan, and China. It was founded in Palo Alto, California, in 1991. The company's 700 staff uses a design thinking approach to design products, services, enviro ...

and was director of the

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile (New York City), Museum Mile. It is one of 19 museums that fall under the ...

in New York. He was a pioneer in adopting a human-centred approach in design, and championed

interaction design Interaction design, often abbreviated as IxD, is "the practice of designing interactive digital products, environments, systems, and services." Beyond the digital aspect, interaction design is also useful when creating physical (non-digital) produ ...

as a mainstream design discipline (he is given credit for coining the term). Among his achievements, he designed the first laptop computer, the GRiD Compass, was honoured for Lifetime Achievement from the National Design Awards, and given the

Prince Philip Designers Prize The Prince Philip Designers Prize is an annual design recognition given by the Chartered Society of Designers and originally awarded by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–2021). It is the longest running design award in the United Kingdom, h ...

. He was quoted as saying, "If there is a simple, easy principle that binds everything I have done together, it is my interest in people and their relationship to things."

Early life and education

William Grant Moggridge was born in London on June 25, 1943, to Helen (an artist) and Henry Weston Moggridge (a civil servant). Moggridge studied industrial design from 1962 to 1965 at the

Central School of Art and Design The Central School of Art and Design was a public school of fine and applied arts in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1896 by the London County Council as the Central School of Arts and Cr ...

, London, in 1965, he went to the US to find opportunities as a designer and landed his first job as a designer for the American Sterilizer Co. in

Erie, Pennsylvania Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 a ...

, designing hospital equipment. In 1969, Moggridge returned to London to study typography and communications.

Career

Moggridge Associates

In 1969 in London, Moggridge founded his first company, Moggridge Associates, in the top floor of his home. His first industrial design to reach the market was a toaster for Hoover UK in the year 1970. In 1972, he worked on his first computer project, a

minicomputer A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ...

for Computer Technology Ltd, UK, that was never produced. In 1973, another Hoover UK design, for a space heater, got on the cover of a UK design magazine.

ID Two and IDEO

Moggridge returned to the US in 1979 to open another office, called ID Two, first located in

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was estab ...

, California. An early client was GRiD Systems, for whom he designed what is widely regarded as the first laptop computer, the GRiD Compass. This was the first portable computer with a display that closed over the keyboard, a patented innovation that GRiD licensed for many years. It retailed at $8,150 (£5,097) and flew on board every

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...

mission from 1983 to 1997. In 1982, designer

Mike Nuttall Mike Nuttall is a British designer who established Matrix Product Design in 1983 in Palo Alto, California. In 1991, his company merged with two other established design firms, David Kelley Design (founded by David M. Kelley, David Kelley) and ID ...

joined ID Two from the London office and worked on another portable computer project, the WorkSlate, for

Convergent Technologies Convergent Technologies was an American computer company formed by a small group of people who left Intel Corporation and Xerox PARC in 1979. Among the founders were CEO Allen Michels, VP Engineering Bob Garrow, head of marketing Kal Hubler, and ...

. Because of the potential for conflict of interest, Nuttall left ID Two to form his own firm in Palo Alto, Matrix Product Design. In this period, Moggridge also began teaching in

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

's Product Design Program, where he met fellow teacher

David Kelley David Christopher Kelley (born June 23, 1949) is an American philosopher. He is a professed Objectivist, though his position that Objectivism can be revised and influenced by other schools of thought has prompted disagreements with other Objec ...

, who had his own engineering design firm, David Kelley Design. In 1991, Moggridge became a co-founder of IDEO, with David Kelley and Mike Nuttall, as all four firms merged into one. Moggridge stayed at IDEO until 2010, when he was named an IDEO Fellow.

Cooper-Hewitt

In March 2010, Moggridge left IDEO to become director of the

in New York City, the first person to do so without a museum background. The Cooper-Hewitt is the only museum in the US devoted exclusively to historic and contemporary design. Moggridge died of cancer in a hospice in San Francisco on 8 September 2012.

Academic roles

From 1983 to 2010, Moggridge was consulting associate professor in different departments at Stanford University, including the Product Design Program, the Center for Work, Technology, and Organization, and the d.school (officially the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design). Moggridge was Congress Chair for CONNECTING'07, the Icsid World Design Congress held in San Francisco, a role that began in 2000 as he led the effort to prepare a bid that was presented at the 2001 Icsid Congress in Seoul, Korea. In 2001, Moggridge became a steering committee member at

Interaction Design Institute Ivrea Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (also known as Interaction Ivrea or IDII) was a two-year graduate program in the field of Interaction Design operating in the town of Ivrea, in Northern Italy. It was based in the former Olivetti Study and Res ...

in Ivrea, Italy.

In 1993, he was a visiting professor in interaction design at

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

in London and he was a trustee at the

Design Museum The Design Museum in Kensington, London exhibits product, industrial, graphic, fashion, and architectural design. In 2018, the museum won the European Museum of the Year Award. The museum operates as a registered charity, and all funds generat ...

in London 1992–1995. He had been an advisor to the British government on design education in 1974, and a board member at the

Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design The Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID) is a postgraduate school and consultancy based in Copenhagen, Denmark and San Jose, Costa Rica, which focuses on the domain of interaction design. History The Copenhagen Institute of Interac ...

Awards and honours

In 2014, Moggridge was posthumously awarded an

AIGA Medal Following is a list of AIGA medalists who have been awarded the American Institute of Graphic Arts medal. On its website, AIGA says "The medal of the AIGA, the most distinguished in the field, is awarded to individuals in recognition of their ex ...

. Moggridge was given an honorary doctorate from CCA (California College of the Arts) in San Francisco in 2012. In

FastCompany ''Fast Company'' is a monthly American business magazine published in print and online that focuses on technology, business, and design. It publishes six print issues per year. History ''Fast Company'' was launched in November 1995 by Alan We ...

's October 2011 issue, Moggridge was profiled as a Master of Design, and named one of the 50 Most Influential Designers in America. In 2010, he was given the

. Moggridge was given a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009 at the National Design Awards, in a ceremony at the White House, presided over by First Lady

Michelle Obama Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is an American attorney and author who served as first lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. She was the first African-American woman to serve in this position. She is married t ...

The

Industrial Designers Society of America The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) is a membership-based not-for-profit organization that promotes the practice and education of industrial design. The organization was formally established in 1965 by the collaborative merger of t ...

(IDSA) named Moggridge a Fellow in 2006. In 1988 Moggridge was named a Royal Designer for Industry by the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce).

Books

In October 2006, Moggridge published ''Designing Interactions'' (

The MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publish ...

, ), a 764-page introduction to and history of interaction design comprising 40-plus interviews with designers and entrepreneurs, from

Douglas Engelbart Douglas Carl Engelbart (January 30, 1925 – July 2, 2013) was an American engineer and inventor, and an early computer and Internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on founding the field of human–computer interaction, particularly ...

to Will Wright to

Larry Page Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist and internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin. Page was the chief executive officer of Google from 1997 unt ...

and

Sergey Brin Sergey Mikhailovich Brin (russian: link=no, Сергей Михайлович Брин; born August 21, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist, and internet entrepreneur, who co-founded Google with Larry Page. Brin was the ...

. Moggridge conducted the interviews, recorded and edited the videos (included with the book on a DVD), and designed the book and the book's website. ''

BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

'' named it one of the Best Innovation and Design Books in 2006, and design commentator

Don Norman Donald Arthur Norman (born December 25, 1935) is an American researcher, professor, and author. Norman is the director of The Design Lab at University of California, San Diego. He is best known for his books on design, especially ''The Design ...

wrote, "This will be the book—the book that summarizes how the technology of interaction came into being and prescribes how it will advance in the future." Moggridge followed this in October 2010 with ''Designing Media'' (The MIT Press, ), another compilation of more than 35 interviews with experts in various media, new and old, including

Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born ) is an American business magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding the social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.), o ...

Chad Hurley Chad Meredith Hurley (born January 24, 1977) is an American webmaster and businessman who serves as the advisor and former chief executive officer (CEO) of YouTube. He also co-founded MixBit. In June 2006, he was voted 28th on Business 2.0's "5 ...

, Tim Westergren,

Ira Glass Ira Jeffrey Glass (; born March 3, 1959) is an American public radio personality. He is the host and producer of the radio and television series ''This American Life'' and has participated in other NPR programs, including ''Morning Edition'', ...

Craig Newmark Craig Alexander Newmark (born December 6, 1952) is an American internet entrepreneur and philanthropist best known as the founder of the classifieds website Craigslist. Prior to founding Craigslist, he worked as a computer programmer for companie ...

Hans Rosling Hans Rosling (; 27 July 1948 – 7 February 2017) was a Swedish physician, academic and public speaker. He was a professor of international health at Karolinska Institute and was the co-founder and chairman of the Gapminder Foundation, which deve ...

, and

DJ Spooky Paul Dennis Miller (born September 6, 1970), known professionally as DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is an American electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntabli ...

. Again, Moggridge conducted the interviews, wrote the text, and designed the book and the book's website.

Film and video

Moggridge is a central figure in

Gary Hustwit Gary Hustwit is an American independent filmmaker and photographer. He is best known for his design documentaries, which examine the impact of trends in graphic design, typography, industrial design, architecture, and urban planning. He told '' ...

's 2009 documentary on design, ''

Objectified ''Objectified'' is a feature-length documentary film examining the role of everyday non-living objects, and the people who design them, in our daily lives. The film is directed by Gary Hustwit. ''Objectified'' premiered at the South By Southwest ...

''. In 2009, Moggridge directed and produced a short film, , about Doug Wilde, a Stanford Professor Emeritus who began picking up trash on his daily bike rides up a steep mountain highway.