Bill Moggridge, a British industrial designer who came up with an early portable computer with the flip-open model that is common today, has died aged 69.
The Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum said Moggridge, its director since 2010, died on Saturday from cancer.
Moggridge is credited with the design of the Grid Compass, a "computer in a briefcase" which had a keyboard and a yellow-on-black display set built into its flip-up lid, which sold for $8,150 (£5,091) when it was released in 1982. Encased in magnesium, it was used by the US military and made its way into outer space aboard the shuttle Discovery in 1985.
Although there were many portable computers being developed at the time, Grid Systems Corp won the patent for the clamshell design with a foldable screen hinged toward the back of the machine, said Alex Bochannek, a curator at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.
Moggridge pushed for this foldable design when he realised the flat-panel screen, keyboard and circuitry could fit snugly together.
"In terms of the industrial design of the enclosure, Moggridge was instrumental in proposing that," Bochannek said. "He came up with that particular form factor."
Until that point, portable computers resembled sewing machines that weighed more than 9kg and had a big handle.
It was after using the machine that Moggridge's ideas about design began to change, Bochannek said. His work began to focus more on how people interacted with devices.
The laptop computer has since then become the dominant form in the world PC market, where more than two-thirds of PCs sold every year are laptops, and the proportion is increasing.
Moggridge wrote the books Designing Interactions, which was published in 2006, and Designing Media, published in 2010. "Few people think about it or are aware of it. But there is nothing made by human beings that does not involve a design decision somewhere," he once remarked.
In 2010, he was awarded the 2010 Prince Philip designers award which "recognises an outstanding contribution to UK business and society through design" for the Grid and for his work as co-founder in the 1990s of the famed innovation and design firm IDEO.
"As one of the most pioneering designers of the 20th century, Bill Moggridge has been central to how design makes technology make sense to the people who use it," said the Design Council in making the award.
Caroline Baumann, the associate director of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, said in a statement: "Beloved by the museum staff and the design community at large, Bill touched the lives of so many through his wise council, boundary-pushing ideas and cheerful camaraderie."
Moggridge is survived by his wife of 47 years, Karin, and sons Alex and Erik.