The Design Of Life

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • At last, a book that shows you how to build—design—a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage • “Life has questions. They have answers.” —The New York Times Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home—at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in. Everything in our lives was designed by someone. And every design starts with a problem that a designer or team of designers seeks to solve. In this book, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise.

"In this historical account, author Evelyn Barker tells the story of the Texas Centennial and the woman who, with the support of her extraordinary family, rose above early hardships to become one of Texas' finest photographers and the first to compile a comprehensive picture of the state."--Jacket.

An interactive journal that serves as a joyful, inspirational guide to building the life you've always dreamed of, using the principles and creative process of an award-winning product designer. Life, just like a design problem, is full of constraints -- time, money, age, location, and circumstances. You can’t have everything, so you have to be creative to make what you want and what you need co-exist. Design the Life You Love is a joyful, inspirational guide to building the life you’ve always wanted, using the principles and creative process of an award-winning product designer. Through four steps that reveal hidden skills and wisdom, anyone can design a life they love!

A collection of fourteen essays which provide an overview of the argument for intelligent design, with diagrams, explanations, and relevant quotations.

Emergencies—landing a malfunctioning plane, resuscitating a heart attack victim, or avoiding a head-on car crash—all require split-second decisions that can mean life or death. Fortunately, designers of life-saving products have leveraged research and brain science to help users reduce panic and harness their best instincts. Life and Death Design brings these techniques to everyday designers who want to help their users think clearly and act safely.

Stuart Walker’s design work has been described as life-changing, inspiring, disturbing and ferocious. Drawing on an extraordinarily diverse range of sources and informed by creative practice, Design for Life penetrates to the heart of modern culture and the malaise that underlies today’s moral and environmental crises. The author argues that this malaise is deep-seated and fundamental to the modern outlook. He shows how our preoccupation with technological progress, growth and the future has produced a constricted view of life – one that is both destructive and self-reinforcing. Based on over twenty-five years of scholarship and creative practice, he demonstrates the vital importance of solitude, contemplation, inner growth and the present moment in developing a different course – one that looks squarely at our current, precarious situation while offering a positive, hopeful way forward – a way that is compassionate, context-based, human scale, ethically motivated and critically creative. Design for Life is an intensely original contribution that will be essential reading for design practitioners and students. Written in a clear, accessible style, it will also appeal to a broader readership, especially anyone who is concerned with contemporary society’s rising inequalities and environmental failings and is looking for a more constructive, balanced and thoughtful direction.

"I know what I should do...I just don't know why I don't do it." This phrase captures a universal human experience--we can't always get ourselves to do what we know is best for us. In Well Designed Life, you will learn that the solution to this stumbling block resides in coupling two disciplines: brain science and design thinking. Brain and behavior sciences have exploded in recent years. This catalyzes new insights into why we do what we do--and how we can change. Meanwhile, major advances in consumer technology, service industries, and public health are rapidly changing how we live. This boom of innovation has been fueled by a creative approach to solving problems called design thinking. We are living in the age of design--and designers are the new rock stars. Dr. Kyra Bobinet brings together over 25 years of successfully designing interventions, products, and experiences that change lives--to empower you as the designer of your life. Dr. Bobinet has gathered ten key concepts from psychology, behavior and neuroscience and applies each of them to changing your health, relationships, and well-being. Bobinet insists that the success or failure of changing our lives hinges on both understanding what's going on inside our head and applying the flexible mindset of a designer. She writes, "Adopting the mindset of a designer puts you in the driver's seat of making life work. Grounding yourself in the science of how we see the world and how our brain responds helps you design behaviors that work--in real life. This is about you acting on what you always wished you would do. It's about stepping out of any areas of helplessness and into creative self-direction. You have a choice: design your life or let it design you!" Infused with relatable narratives that are at once witty and gripping, professional and personal, Bobinet takes you on a journey through the origins of your self-image, motivations, decisions, and unconscious behaviors--leaving you with the keys to free yourself from your conditioning and lead a well-designed life.

Contextual Design: Design for Life, Second Edition, describes the core techniques needed to deliberately produce a compelling user experience. Contextual design was first invented in 1988 to drive a deep understanding of the user into the design process. It has been used in a wide variety of industries and taught in universities all over the world. Until now, the basic CD approach has needed little revision, but with the wide adoption of handheld devices, especially smartphones, the way technology is integrated into people’s lives has fundamentally changed. Contextual Design V2.0 introduces both the classic CD techniques and the new techniques needed to "design for life", fulfilling core human motives while supporting activities. This completely updated and revised edition is written in a clear, informal style without excessive jargon, and is the must-have book for any UX Design library. Users will find coverage of mobile devices and consumer and business products, all illustrated with new examples, case studies, and discussions on how to use CD with the agile development and other project requirements methods. Provides tactics on how to gather detailed data on how people live, work, and use products Helps develop a coherent picture of a whole user population Presents tactics on how to use the seven "Cool Concepts" to support core human motives and generate new product concepts guided by user data, ideation techniques, and principles key to producing a compelling user experience Explains how to structure the system and user interface to best support the user across place, time, and platform