David Kelley is the co-founder of Hovey-Kelley (now IDEO), the product design company that did the critical work on the Apple mouse. Like other members of Hovey-Kelley (and others involved in Apple design projects, like Jerry Manock and Bill Dresselhaus), Kelley graduated from the Stanford University Product Design Program. He co-founded Hovey-Kelley in 1978 with Dean Hovey; the company was renamed David Kelley Design after Dean Hovey left to found Trace Systems, and changed its name to IDEO in 1990 after merging with an industrial design firm.
In addition to serving as CEO of IDEO, Kelley is also a professor in the Product Design Program.
In this interview, David Kelley talks about his introduction to the field of product design and the Stanford program; describes how product design compares to the more traditional and well-established field of industrial design; how Hovey-Kelley came to work for Apple; the ergonomic issues his group confronted when designed the Apple mouse; and the influence the mouse project had on Hovey-Kelley Design.
The interview was conducted by Alex Pang on 24 July 2000, in Kelley's office at IDEO, in Palo Alto. The interview was transcribed and edited by Alex Pang, and reviewed by David Kelley's staff. A final version of the transcript was generated on 12 September 2000.
The original recording (a cassette tape) has been deposited with Stanford University Library's Department of Special Collections.
The transcript has been broken up into several pages, each of which deals with a particular subject. A full transcript is also available that contains the same content, but presents it on a single page.