Lupton - Beautiful Users: Designing for People

Additional funding is provided by Amita and Purnendu Chatterjee, the August Heckscher Exhibition Fund, the Ehrenkranz Fund, the Bill Moggridge Memorial Fund, The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, Deborah Buck, May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc., and IDEO.

Published by
Princeton Architectural Press
37 East Seventh Street
New York, New York 10003
Visit our website at www.papress.com.

In association with
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
2 East Ninety-First Street
New York, New York 10128
www.cooperhewitt.org

Published on the occasion of the exhibition
Beautiful Users, organized by
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
December 2014Spring 2015

2014 Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
All rights reserved

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher, except in the context of reviews.

Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify owners of copyright. Errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions.

Museum Editor: Pamela Horn
Editor: Megan Carey
Designer: Ellen Lupton

Typefaces: Galaxie Polaris and Galaxie Copernicus, designed by Chester Jenkins, 200413

Special thanks to: Meredith Baber, Sara Bader, Nicola Bednarek Brower, Janet Behning, Carina Cha, Andrea Chlad, Barbara Darko, Benjamin English, Russell Fernandez, Will Foster, Jan Haux, Mia Johnson, Diane Levinson, Jennifer Lippert, Katharine Myers, Jaime Nelson, Jay Sacher, Rob Shaeffer, Sara Stemen, Marielle Suba, Kaymar Thomas, Paul Wagner, Joseph Weston, and Janet Wong of Princeton Architectural Press
Kevin C. Lippert, publisher

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lupton, Ellen, author.
Beautiful users : designing for people / Ellen Lupton with contributions by Thomas Carpentier and Tiffany Lambert. First edition.
pages cm
Includes index.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition Beautiful Users, organized by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
ISBN 978-1-61689-291-3 (alk. paper)
ISBN 987-1-61689-384-2 (epub, mobi)
1. DesignHuman factorsExhibitions. I. Cooper-Hewitt Museum. II. Title.
NK1520.L865 2014
745.209040747471dc23
2014017045

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum explores the world of useful things. From textiles and wall coverings to architectural drawings and digital devices, nearly every object housed in our astonishing collections was created with a functionand a userin mind. In the mid-twentieth century, designers began applying human factors (also called ergonomics) to products, services, and interfaces in order to address the needs of human users.

Beautiful Users explores the ethos of designing for people, a phrase devised by pioneering industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss after World War II. Home to the Dreyfuss Archive, Cooper Hewitt organized the first monographic exhibition of his career in 1997. Beautiful Users presents a selection of Dreyfusss projects within the broader evolution of user-centered design, a field that now encompasses such frameworks as universal design, experience design, interaction design, and open-source design.

Cooper Hewitt seeks to understand the diverse processes involved in planning and making useful things. Design thinking is a methodology that begins with an open-ended exploration of users needs and continues through an iterative process of ideation, sketching, and modeling. To illuminate the richness of the design process, this book represents drawings and prototypes as well as finished products, including historic and contemporary material from the museums collections.

Beautiful Users is the first in a series of exhibitions taking place in our first-floor Design Process Galleries. These exhibitions aim to introduce the public to the people and methods that define design as an essential human activity. The galleries offer visitors a range of experiences, from narrative displays about historical and contemporary design to hands-on making, doing, and learning activities. Beautiful Users is made possible by major support from the Adobe Foundation. Additional funding is provided by Amita and Purnendu Chatterjee, the August Heckscher Exhibition Fund, the Ehrenkranz Fund, the Bill Moggridge Memorial Fund, the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, Deborah Buck, May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc., and IDEO.

Caroline Baumann, Director
COOPER HEWITT
SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM

Beautiful Users is dedicated to Bill Moggridge (19432012), a pioneer of human-centered design. As director of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 201012, Moggridge inspired us to reinvent our own design processes. We will always remember this friend and thinker for his warmth, humanity, and inventive intellect.

Cooper Hewitts new director, Caroline Baumann, has galvanized the museums staff and board around a reinvigorated, audience-centered vision in our renovated facilities. Cara McCarty, Cooper Hewitts curatorial director and an early advocate for universal design, has been a guiding light for Beautiful Users, supporting the idea from its earliest inception. Dozens of professionals at Cooper Hewitt, including curators, conservators, editors, digital media producers, educators, registrars, development staff, and more, made this book and exhibition possible. Special thanks to Cooper Hewitt staff, including Julie Barnes, Laurie Bohlk, Helynsia Brown, Seb Chan, Michelle Cheng, Kimberly Cisneros, Sarah Coffin, Lucy Commoner, Caitlin Condell, Aaron Straup Cope, Gail Davidson, Deborah Fitzgerald, Sarah Freeman, Vasso Giannopoulos, Jocelyn Groom, Annie Hall, Kimberly Hawkins, Kevin Hervas, Pamela Horn, Halima Johnson, Steve Langehough, Antonia Moser, Kelly Mullaney, Jennifer Northrop, Jessica Nunez, Matthew OConnor, Caroline Payson, James Reyes, David Rios, Wendy Rogers, Katie Shelly, Larry Silver, Cindy Trope, Micah Walter, Mathew Weaver, and Paula Zamora.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro designed the exhibition; special thanks to Ricardo Scofidio, Andreas Buettner, Imani Day, and Tyler Polich. Eddie Oparas team at Pentagram designed the exhibition graphics; Kimberly Walker offered guidance on the typographic format of this book. Local Projects designed and produced innovative digital experiences for our visitors. We are grateful to our colleagues at Princeton Architectural Press for their careful attention to the craft of publishing; special thanks to Megan Carey, Paul Wagner, and Kevin Lippert. Tiffany Lambert, a rising voice in design studies, contributed vital content and endless managerial energy to this project.