This text presents the important contribution that visual communication design can make to society, beyond its usual commercial applications. It identifies successful socially orientated projects, demonstrating the human and economic benefits that can be achieved through good communication design. The book also discusses a user-centred approach to Design, Including Notions Of Social Marketing, Design Methods And different information-gathering techniques.; The book closes with a discussion of a new professional profile for the graphic designer which reflects the complex cultural, psychological and often political issues that in turn affect, construct and contextualize our daily communications.

Given the growing awareness of the negative effects of work-related stress, Many Businesses Are Focusing On Active Health Promotion To Enhance employee health, well-being and performance. This text aims to review the state of the art and offer ideas and suggestions for how stress-related employee health problems can be combated through the provision of effective fitness and exercise programmes.

The HCD Toolkit was designed specifically for NGOs and social enterprises that work with impoverished communities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

In an age of globalization and connectivity, the idea of "mainstream culture" has become quaint. Websites, magazines, books, and television have all honed in on ever-diversifying subcultures, hoping to carve out niche audiences that grow savvier and more narrowly sliced by the day. Consequently,the discipline of graphic design has undergone a sea change. Where visual communication was once informed by a designer's creative intuition, the proliferation of specialized audiences now calls for more research-based design processes. Designers who ignore research run the risk of becoming mere tools for communication rather than bold voices. Design Studies, a collection of 27 essays from an international cast of top design researchers, sets out to mend this schism between research and practice. The texts presented here make a strong argument for performing rigorous experimentation and analysis. Each author outlines methods in which research has aided their designwhether by investigating how senior citizensreact to design aesthetics, how hip hop culture can influence design, or how design for Third World nations is affected by cultural differences. Contributors also outline inspired ways in which design educators can teach research methods to their students. Finally, Design Studies is rounded out by five annotated bibliographies to further aid designers in their research. This comprehensive reader is the definitive reference for this new direction in graphic design, and an essential resource for both students and practitioners.

Service design is a rapidly growing area of interest in design and business management. There are a lot of books on how to get started, but this is the first book that describes what a "good" service is and how to design one. This book lays out the essential principles for building services that work well for users. Demystifying what we mean by a "good" and "bad" service and describing the common elements within all services that mean they either work for users or don't. A practical book for practitioners and non-practitioners alike interested in better service delivery, this book is the definitive new guide to designing services that work for users.

Foundations for Designing User-Centered Systems introduces the fundamental human capabilities and characteristics that influence how people use interactive technologies. Organized into four main areas—anthropometrics, behaviour, cognition and social factors—it covers basic research and considers the practical implications of that research on system design. Applying what you learn from this book will help you to design interactive systems that are more usable, more useful and more effective. The authors have deliberately developed Foundations for Designing User-Centered Systems to appeal to system designers and developers, as well as to students who are taking courses in system design and HCI. The book reflects the authors’ backgrounds in computer science, cognitive science, psychology and human factors. The material in the book is based on their collective experience which adds up to almost 90 years of working in academia and both with, and within, industry; covering domains that include aviation, consumer Internet, defense, eCommerce, enterprise system design, health care, and industrial process control.

"It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."-Steve Jobs There's a new race in business to embrace "design thinking." Yet most executives have no clue what to make of the recent buzz about design. It's rarely the subject of business retreats. It's not easily measurable. To many, design is simply a crapshoot. Drawing on interviews with top executives such as Virgin's Richard Branson and Nike's Mark Parker, Jay Greene illuminates the methods of companies that rely on design to stand out in their industries. From the experiences of those at companies from Porsche to REI to Lego, we learn that design isn't merely about style and form. The heart of design is rethinking the way products and services work for customers in real life. Greene explains how: -Porsche pit its designers against each other to create its bestselling Cayenne SUV -Clif listened intently to customers, resulting in the industry-changing Luna energy bar -OXO paid meticulous attention to the details, turned its LiquiSeal mug from an abysmal failure into one of its greatest successes -LEGO started saying no to its designers-saving its brick business in the process Greene shows how important it is to build a culture in which design is more than an after-the-fact concern-it's part of your company's DNA. Design matters at every stage of the process. It isn't easy, and it increases costs, but it also boosts profits, sometimes to a massive extent. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, design represents the best chance you have of transcending your competitors.