Bill Moggridge has been named director of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York, US with effect from March 2010.

Smithsonian secretary Wayne Clough said: "The Smithsonian and Cooper-Hewitt are poised on the edge of a new era and having Bill Moggridge as director of our national design museum offers exciting prospects for the future. I look forward to working with him."

Moggridge said: "This is an enormous honour and opportunity for me. It is deeply satisfying that design is being embraced today as a way to tackle many of the complex challenges facing business and society."

Moggridge began his career by designing high-tech products, which included - in 1980 - the Grid Compass, the first laptop computer . He moved on from that by co-founding IDEO, a well-known innovation and design company, in 1991. Since 2000 he has been a spokesperson for the value of design in everyday life, writing books, producing videos, giving presentations and teaching.

He was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at Cooper-Hewitt's National Design Awards at the White House in 2009. The award is given in recognition of an individual who has made a profound, long-term contribution to contemporary design practice.

At Cooper-Hewitt, Moggridge will oversee the only museum in the United States devoted exclusively to historic and contemporary design. In the role, he will work to establish the museum as the pre-eminent national design resource, enhance its profile as one of the world's leading authorities on the role of design in everyday life and develop and present exhibitions, both real and virtual.

Moggridge succeeds Paul Thompson, who was Cooper-Hewitt's director for eight years until July 2009 when he left to become the rector of the Royal College of Art in London.