Tributes

A collection of eulogies honoring and celebrating Bill's life.

A British-born resident of Silicon Valley, with the intellectual curiosity of Nikola Tesla and the affability of Father Christmas, he had investigated the modes through which people manipulate machines, and used this research to pioneer a field known as interaction design.  The New York Times

 

At IDEO, Mr. Moggridge focused less on specific projects and more on building a process for design that had teams of not just engineers and designers but also anthropologists and psychologists. To encourage employees to brainstorm without fear, he would often break out in song. 

“He wanted to build empathy for the consumer into the product,” Professor Kelley said. “At the time he started, it was very innovative, but now it is the dead center of the profession.” The New York Times

 

The GRiD Compass, Time magazine declared in a recent account of the machine’s creation, was “one of the most clever pieces of engineering in computing history.” 

It was the embodiment of Mr. Moggridge’s belief that design, rather than an aesthetic question, was a means of “solving problems.”  The Washington Post

 

"I don't think Bill ever found a technology he was not fascinated with, but it was not the fascination of a techie," Tim Brown, president and chief executive of IDEO, the Palo Alto-based international innovation and design firm co-founded in 1991 by Moggridge, said Monday. "He approached every technology with a lovely naivete.… He was never interested in technology for technology's sake but only in what it could do to help people have more interesting lives." Los Angeles Times

 

He changed the professional design completely from thinking of it as we're going to design these objects, we're going to make these things beautiful, to we're going to design the way these things fit into people's lives, we're going to care about people. I think he was the first one to really get that message. NPR

 

At Fast Company, we were honored to work with Bill and the Cooper-Hewitt as partners on a number of projects. As Fast Company editor Robert Safian recalls, “What always struck me was Bill’s broad respect for different ways of approaching challenges, his embrace of wide-open thinking and his authentic human warmth. He brought a new energy to Cooper-Hewitt, an encouragement of possibilities that opened everyone’s eyes to new opportunities.  Fast Company

 

Bill was a great enthusiast of Core77, and we are grateful for his support and constant encouragement. His kindness and wit, his cheerleading, his warmth, and above all his unyielding passion for the power of design have been a constant inspiration to us all, and he will continue to be a beacon of creativity for generations to come.  Core77

 

I had the great opportunity to interview Moggridge in early 2011 for Smithsonian magazine, after he had received the 2010 Prince Philip Designers Prize—Britain’s most prestigious design award—for his contributions to the field. Design, he said in the interview—”It’s all about solving problems.” What I remember most though was Moggridge’s adoration for the simplest of designs, and his eloquence when it came to describing them. Smithsonian

 

Bill's impact on the profession is so profound that it's hard to truly articulate. He was a visionary designer whose life and work impacted and inspired everyone in IDSA and beyond. Our profession is better for his presence. IDSA is better for his involvement. Our members are better for his friendship and his mentorship. He was one of a kind and we will miss him and his warm smile dearly. The Industrial Designers Society of America

 

Broad public appeal was what Bill Moggridge did for a living, never compromising his own aesthetic integrity, his intelligence, or his natural curiosity about the greater good. Design Observer

 

Dwell mourns the passing of a good friend, an excellent thinker and leader, and a man who through his many accomplishments championed a better world through good design. Dwell

 

In fact, what's most noticeable about the legions of tributes that have poured forth since the announcement of his death, on Saturday evening, is that pretty much anyone who ever met him thought of him as a friend. Bill Moggridge was a powerhouse of grace, kindness and generosity. TED Blog

 

When one of IDEO's co-founders, Bill Moggridge, was named director of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in 2010, he brought HMW [How Might We] questioning with him. Soon after he started at the museum, Moggridge posed for a group photo with museum staff members--and everyone wore T-shirts bearing the words "How Might We..." Harvard Business Review Blog

 

For computing, something that initially did not appeal to the masses, Moggridge's people-first thinking is what gave us regulars access. For him, design meant connecting humans in beautiful ways with science--a word that often turns off so many of us. The Atlantic Wire

 

Moggridge blazed trails in industries that have become core engines of 21st-century culture--computers, product design, interaction design, and human-centered innovation. Smithsonian

 

The next time you hinge open that notebook PC and smile at a feature that makes it easier to use, give a thought to Bill Moggridge, who passed away Saturday from cancer at the age of 69. Engadget

 

Thirty years later, and laptop computers still use the same basic clamshell design originally proposed by Moggridge. That alone is testimony of his design genius—and a life worth celebrating. Gizmodo

 

Described as tenacious, open, and empathetic by those who knew him, Bill Moggridge will long be remembered as a trailblazing designer and the father of the modern laptop. PC World

 

If it beeps, buzzes, or lights up, Moggridge’s influence is probably somewhere close by. His work and influence is nearly unmatched in modern hardware design and we are poorer for this loss. Tech Crunch

 

Design Council chief design officer and former partner of IDEO Mat Hunter says, ‘Bill Moggridge probably had more effect on my career in design than anyone else. 

‘Bringing the social sciences into design, pioneering the field of interaction design and being an empowering, non-hierarchical leader, transformed perceptions of the role, methods and experience of world class design practice. It was a privilege to know and work with him for 20 years.’ Design Week

 

A key figure in technology design over the decades, Moggridge championed the idea of interconnecting disciplines in the industrial design of gadgetry, calling in the advice of psychologists in order to ensure his designs would appeal directly to humans, and the way we interact with objects. Tech Digest

 

The Brit, who is celebrated in a charming video eulogy, was funny and empathetic and brilliant, and one hell of an industrial designer. The Inquirer

 

Bill Moggridge was one of the kindest, most generous people I’ve ever met, and it saddens me greatly to mourn his loss. Thought You Should See this

 

Moggridge will be remembered as a pioneer of interaction design and “human factors” who championed the broad application of design processes as well as the end-products—iconic chairs, innovative textiles, life-enhancing gizmos—they can create. Media Bistro's UnBeige

 

Bill’s clarity of focus, combined with his capacity to make people feel good about their work, made him an inspired choice as the Cooper-Hewitt’s Director.  Doors of Perception

 

One of Moggridge's design philosophies was to ask people what they wanted in an object, and then design something that fit those desires, rather than the other way around. Stanford News