foreword by Richard Saul Wurman

"A wonderful resource compendium on the diverse landscape of information design. From theory to practice, the book is truly an effort in the `design of understanding.'" — Clement Mok, Chief Creative Officer, Sapient

Information design is the newest of the design disciplines. As a sign of our times, when the crafting of messages and meaning is so central to our lives, information design is not only important—it is essential. Contemporary information designers seek to edify more than to persuade, to exchange more than to foist upon. With ever more powerful technologies of communication, we have learned that the issuer of designed information is as likely as the intended recipient to be changed by it, for better or worse.

The contributors to this book are both cautionary and hopeful as they offer visions of how information design can be practiced diligently and ethically, for the benefit of information consumers as well as producers. They present various methods that seem to work, such as sense-making and way-finding. They make recommendations and serve as guides to a still young but extraordinarily pervasive—and persuasive—field.

Contributors: Elizabeth Andersen, Judy Anderson, Simon Birrell, Mike Cooley, Brenda Dervin, Jim Gasperini, Yvonne M. Hansen, Steve Holtzman, Robert E. Horn, Robert Jacobson, John Krygier, Sheryl Macy, Romedi Passini, Jef Raskin, Chandler Screven, Nathan Shedroff, Hal Thwaites, Roger Whitehouse.

This volume provides the opening work in Christopher Alexander's seminal trilogy on architecture (continued in A Pattern Language and The Oregon Experiment). Here he provides a fascinating introduction to the ideas behind the succeeding two books.

Basics Design: Design Thinking is an introduction to the process of generating creative ideas and concepts. It indentifies methods and thought processes used by designers in order to start the process that eventually leads to a finished piece of work. This focus on ideas and methods eschews an abstract, academic approach in favor of a useable approach to design as a problem-solving activity.

What if doorbells used smell instead of sound? What if watches told time more slowly on weekends? Designers at the ground-breaking firm IDEO the most innovative design company in the world push themselves to ask seemingly outrageous questions like these daily as they work to construct the products that shape our lives. Following 12 design experiments conceived by designers at IDEO, I Miss My Pencil takes a voyeuristic look at what designers do daily, might get to do once, and sometimes only hope to do. Each experiment is made real through collaboration, sketching, prototyping, fabrication, and photographing to go beyond the conceptual to the curiously concrete.

A fundamental book on deliberate creative thinking from a world-renowned expert in the field and the inventor of the systematic process of lateral thinking. Used correctly, creating thinking can save companies millions of dollars as the best and cheapest way to get added value out of existing resources and assets. Line drawings.

Most discussion about Web design seems to focus on the creative process, yet turning concept into reality requires a strong set of deliverables—the documentation (concept model, site maps, usability reports, and more) that serves as the primary communication tool between designers and customers. Here at last is a guide devoted to just that topic. Combining quick tips for improving deliverables with in-depth discussions of presentation and risk mitigation techniques, author Dan Brown shows you how to make the documentation you're required to provide into the most efficient communications tool possible. He begins with an introductory section about deliverables and their place in the overall process, and then delves into to the different types of deliverables. From usability reports to project plans, content maps, flow charts, wireframes, site maps, and more, each chapter includes a contents checklist, presentation strategy, maintenance strategy, a description of the development process and the deliverable's impact on the project, and more.

The myth of innovation is that brilliant ideas leap fully formed from the minds of geniuses. The reality is that most innovations come from a process of rigorous examination through which great ideas are identified and developed before being realized as new offerings and capabilities.

This book introduces the idea of design thinking‚ the collaborative process by which the designer′s sensibilities and methods are employed to match people′s needs not only with what is technically feasible and a viable business strategy. In short‚ design thinking converts need into demand. It′s a human−centered approach to problem solving that helps people and organizations become more innovative and more creative.

Design thinking is not just applicable to so−called creative industries or people who work in the design field. It′s a methodology that has been used by organizations such as Kaiser Permanente to icnrease the quality of patient care by re−examining the ways that their nurses manage shift change‚ or Kraft to rethink supply chain management. This is not a book by designers for designers; this is a book for creative leaders seeking to infuse design thinking into every level of an organization‚ product‚ or service to drive new alternatives for business and society.

“Definitely, a game changer! Design experience is the power shift to our era what mass marketing was to the last century.”

John Sculley  former CEO, Pepsi and Apple

 

“Great design is about creating a deep relationship with your customers. If you don’t, you’re roadkill. This book shows you how and much, much more. Be prepared to have your mind blown.”

Bill Burnett  Executive Director, Design Program, Stanford University

 

“Design is the last great differentiator, and yet so few really understand it. Do You Matter? offers a marvelous series of direct, in-your-face observations and drives home the means to an absolutely integrated design strategy.”

Ray Riley  Design GM, Entertainment and Devices, Microsoft

 

“This book will challenge you to ask and answer what arguably are the most important questions an executive can ponder today. So open up.” 

Noah Kerner  CEO, Noise and coauthor, Chasing Cool

 

More and more companies are coming to understand the competitive advantage offered by outstanding design. With this, you can create products, services, and experiences that truly matter to your customers' lives and thereby drive powerful, sustainable improvements in business performance. But delivering great designs is not easy. Many companies accomplish it once, or twice; few do it consistently. The secret: building a truly design-driven business, in which design is central to everything you do. Do You Matter? shows how to do precisely that. Legendary industrial designer Robert Brunner (who laid the groundwork for Apple's brilliant design language) and Stewart Emery (Success Built to Last) begin by making an incontrovertible case for the power of design in making emotional connections, deepening relationships, and strengthening brands. You'll learn what it really means to be "design-driven" and how that translates into action at Nike, Apple, BMW and IKEA. You'll learn design-driven techniques for managing your entire experience chain; define effective design strategies and languages; and learn how to manage design from the top, encouraging "risky" design innovations that lead to entirely new markets. The authors show how (and how not) to use research; how to extend design values into marketing, manufacturing, and beyond; and how to keep building on your progress, truly "baking" design into all your processes and culture.

Discovering Design reflects the growing recognition that the design of the everyday world deserves attention not only as a professional practice but as a subject of social, cultural, and philosophic investigation. Victor Margolin, cofounder and an editor of the journal Design Issues, and Richard Buchanan, also an editor of the journal, bring together eleven essays by scholars in fields ranging from psychology, sociology, and political theory to technology studies, rhetoric, and philosophy. The essayists share the editors' concern, first made clear in Margolin's Design Discourse: History, Theory, Criticism, with the the development of design studies as a field of interdisciplinary research.

The contributors (Gianfranco Zaccai, Albert Borgmann, Richard Buchanan, Augusto Morello, Tufan Orel, Nigel Cross, Victor Margolin, Langdon Winner, Carl Mitcham, Tony Fry, and Ezio Manzini) focus on three broad themes that form a sequence of fundamental issues: how to shape design as a subject matter, how to distinguish the activity of designing in the complex world of action, and how to address the basic questions of value and responsibility that persistently arise in the discussion and practice of design. The editors' introduction provides a useful overview of these questions and offers a multidisciplinary framework for design studies. The essays discuss such topics as the relation of aesthetics to technology, the place of design in social action, the role of the consumer in design decisions, and the need for ethical practice in contemporary design. Manzini's concluding essay shows how the issue of ethics should connect responsible behavior to decisions made every day in the manufacture of objects.