Design synthesis is a way of thinking about complicated, multifaceted problems of a large scale with a repeatable degree of success. Design synthesis methods can be applied in business, with the goal of producing new and compelling products and services, and they can be applied in government, with the goal of changing culture and bettering society. In both contexts, however, there is a need for speed and for aggressive action. This text is immediately relevant, and is more relevant than ever, as we acknowledge and continually reference a feeling of an impending and massive change. Simply, this text is intended to act as a practitioner's guide to exposing the magic of design.

Thoughts on Interaction Design, Second Edition, contemplates and contributes to the theory of Interaction Design by exploring the semantic connections that live between technology and form that are brought to life when someone uses a product. It defines Interaction Design in a way that emphasizes the intellectual and cultural facets of the discipline. This edition explores how changes in the economic climate, increased connectivity, and international adoption of technology affect designing for behavior and the nature of design itself. Ultimately, the text exists to provide a definition that encompasses the intellectual facets of the field, the conceptual underpinnings of interaction design as a legitimate human-centered field, and the particular methods used by practitioners in their day-to-day experiences. This text is recommended for practicing designers: interaction designers, industrial designers, UX practitioners, graphic designers, interface designers, and managers. - Provides new and fresh insights on designing for behavior in a world of increased connectivity and mobility and how design education has evolved over the decades - Maintains the informal-yet-informative voice that made the first edition so popular

From Design Thinking to Design Doing Innovators today are told to run loose and think lean in order to fail fast and succeed sooner. But in a world obsessed with the new, where cool added features often trump actual customer needs, it’s the consumer who suffers. In our quest to be more agile, we end up creating products that underwhelm. So how does a company like Nest, creator of the mundane thermostat, earn accolades like “beautiful” and “revolutionary” and a $3.2 billion Google buyout? What did Nest do differently to create a household product that people speak of with love? Nest, and companies like it, understand that emotional connection is critical to product development. And they use a clear, repeatable design process that focuses squarely on consumer engagement rather than piling on features for features’ sake. In this refreshingly jargon-free and practical book, product design expert Jon Kolko maps out this process, demonstrating how it will help you and your team conceive and build successful, emotionally resonant products again and again. The key, says Kolko, is empathy. You need to deeply understand customer needs and feelings, and this understanding must be reflected in the product. In successive chapters of the book, we see how leading companies use a design process of storytelling and iteration that evokes positive emotions, changes behavior, and creates deep engagement. Here are the four key steps: 1. Determine a product-market fit by seeking signals from communities of users. 2. Identify behavioral insights by conducting ethnographic research. 3. Sketch a product strategy by synthesizing complex research data into simple insights. 4. Polish the product details using visual representations to simplify complex ideas. Kolko walks the reader through each step, sharing eye-opening insights from his fifteen-year career in product design along the way. Whether you’re a designer, a product developer, or a marketer thinking about your company’s next offering, this book will forever change the way you think about—and create—successful products.

Despite the proliferation of video games in the twenty-first century, the theory of game design is largely underdeveloped, leaving designers on their own to understand what games really are. Helping you produce better games, Game Design Theory: A New Philosophy for Understanding Games presents a bold new path for analyzing and designing games.

It feels like our world is spinning out of control. We see poverty, disease, and destruction all around us, and as we search for ways to make sense of the chaos, we're turning to new disciplines for answers and solutions. New, creative innovations are needed, and these new approaches demand different methods and different theories. This book is presented as a handbook for teaching and learning how to design for impact. In it, you'll learn how to apply the process of design to large, wicked problems, and how to gain control over complexity by acting as a social entrepreneur. You'll learn an argument for why design is a powerful agent of change, and you'll read practical methods for engaging with large-scale social problems. You can read this entire book online for free at http://www.wickedproblems.com/

Discusses the essential elements in creating a successful game, how playing games and learning are connected, and what makes a game boring or fun.

Ecological Interface Design delivers the techniques and examples that provide you with a foundation to succeed in designing advanced display graphics. The opening chapters introduce the "art" of interface design by exposing the analytical methods behind designs, the most common graphical forms, and how these methods and forms are pulled together to create a complete design. The book then incorporates case studies that further emphasize techniques and results. Each example exemplifies a solution to a certain part of the EID puzzle. Some of the examples demonstrate the analysis phase, while others apply more scrutiny to graphical design. Each is unique, allowing allowing you to use them in the development of your own designs. The volume concludes with an analysis that connects ecological interface design with other common interface design methods, enabling you to better understand how to combine approaches in the creation of design solutions.