Muriel Cooper’s work had an enormous impact on all known parameters of interface design. Although her computational discovery was not planned, she instinctively predicted our connection with interfaces and our need for them to be intuitive.

Before launching in the digital world, Cooper had a long and successful career in graphic design, since 1952. After completing her studies in Massachusetts, her home state, she started working at the MIT’s Office of Publications, where she later became head of the department and was responsible for the art direction and design of more than 500 publications.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) environment encouraged debates and discussions about architecture, design, cybernetics and artificial intelligence that subsequently shaped her way of thinking and designing.

Her work relied hugely on experimentation, and she defended that there was no right or wrong way to do anything. Cooper “demanded that her students challenge everything, exploring the intersection of typography, graphic design, hands-on-production and technology-led processes.” (Sellers, 2017)

She was not afraid of making mistakes, which, alongside the fact that she was the only female professor in her department, made her stand out throughout her career. “As Maeda admitted to the New York Times, ‘In Muriel’s era, men were tough, and she said, “I’ll be tougher”.’”

In 1985, motivated by a fascination with dimensionality, non-linear experiences and layering of information, she started focusing mainly on digital design, which offered her diverse capabilities, constraints and variables.

She created typographic landscapes and visual forms, revealing layers of connecting information that were impossible to convey on printed pages. Cooper’s futuristic universe became a source of influence to every industry that relies on digital data, such as finance, health, transport and education. Her work has, undoubtedly, improved the way digital design is currently presented to us.