Patricia A. Moore

Patricia Moore, FIDSA | MooreDesign Associates LLP

Inducted into the Academy of Fellows:
IDSA Western District Vice President: 2000

Patricia Moore is an internationally renowned gerontologist and designer, and a leading authority on consumer lifespan behaviors. For three years (1979-1982), Moore traveled throughout the United States and Canada disguised as an elderly woman, with her body altered to simulate the normal sensory changes associated with aging. I.D. magazine included Moore as one of the world's 40 most socially conscious designers. In 2000, a consortium of news editors and organizations listed Moore as one of the 100 most important women in America. ABC World News featured her as one of 50 Americans defining the new millennium.

Read more about Pattie Moore and her work in this Core77 article as well as the Smartplanet.com interview with this leading lady of Universal Design. The design profession is more enlightened and more sensitive because of the work of Pattie Moore. Perhaps we have Pattie to thank for the present day focus on responsibility in the design process.

Here is the introduction of the Smartplanet article:

"Internationally known gerontologist and designer Pattie Moore says good design is like pornography: “You can’t really define it, but you know it when you see it.”

But one thing she knows for sure is that if someone can’t use a product—whether it’s a wounded soldier opening a door or your grandmother peeling a carrot—that’s a design problem. Universal design, which is an approach to the design of products and environments that makes them usable by people with the widest possible range of abilities, addresses this."