Tag Archive for: design

 

 

Products, technologies, and workplaces change so quickly today that everyone is continually learning. Many of us are also teaching, even when it's not in our job descriptions. Whether it's giving a presentation, writing documentation, or creating a website or blog, we need and want to share our knowledge with other people. But if you've ever fallen asleep over a boring textbook, or fast-forwarded through a tedious e-learning exercise, you know that creating a great learning experience is harder than it seems.

In Design For How People Learn, you'll discover how to use the key principles behind learning, memory, and attention to create materials that enable your audience to both gain and retain the knowledge and skills you're sharing. Using accessible visual metaphors and concrete methods and examples, Design For How People Learn will teach you how to leverage the fundamental concepts of instructional design both to improve your own learning and to engage your audience.

 

Julie Dirksen is an independent consultant and instructional designer who has more than 15 years' experience creating highly interactive e-Learning experiences for clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to innovative technology startups to major grant-funded research initiatives. Her focus has been on utilizing the disciplines of educational psychology, neuroscience, change management and persuasive technology to promote and support the improvement of peoples' lives through sustainable long-term learning and behavioral change. Ms. Dirksen holds an M.S. degree in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University. She has also been an adjunct faculty member at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, where she taught courses in Project Management, Instructional Design and Cognitive Psychology. She gets ridiculously excited about everything from learning applications of behavioral economics to the way glucose is regulated in the brain. She's happiest whenever she gets to learn something new and you can find her online at www.usablelearning.com

Designer Emily Pilloton moved to rural Bertie County, in North Carolina, to engage in a bold experiment of design-led community transformation. She’s teaching a design-build class called Studio H that engages high schoolers’ minds and bodies while bringing smart design and new opportunities to the poorest county in the state.

Emily Pilloton wrote Design Revolution, a book about 100-plus objects and systems designed to make people’s lives better. In 2010, her design non-profit began an immersive residency in Bertie County, North Carolina, the poorest and most rural county in the state.

 

 

 

At last, a book that shows you how to build -- design -- a life you can thrive in,

at any age or stage

Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking.

designing_life

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.

"Designing Your Life walks readers through the process of building a satisfying, meaningful life by approaching the challenge the way a designer would. Experimentation. Wayfinding. Prototyping. Constant iteration. You should read the book. Everyone else will."
Daniel Pink, bestselling author of Drive

This [is] the career book of the next decade and . . . the go-to book that is read as a rite of passage whenever someone is ready to create a life they love. David Kelley, Founder of IDEO

An empowering book based on their popular class of the same name at Stanford University . . . Perhaps the book's most important lesson is that the only failure is settling for a life that makes one unhappy. With useful fact-finding exercises, an empathetic tone, and sensible advice, this book will easily earn a place among career-finding classics.
Publishers Weekly"

About the Author
About Bill Burnett: BILL BURNETT is the executive director of the Design Program at Stanford. He is available for select readings and lectures. To inquire about a possible appearance, please contact Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau at speakers@penguinrandomhouse.com or visit www.prhspeakers.com.
About Dave Evans: DAVE EVANS is an adjunct lecturer in the Product Design Program at Stanford, a management consultant, and a co-founder of Electronic Arts www.designingyour.life.  He is available for select readings and lectures. To inquire about a possible appearance, please contact Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau at speakers@penguinrandomhouse.com or visit www.prhspeakers.com.

open_book

 

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universal_principles

We all want our PowerPoint slides to be the best they can be, not detracting from an excellent presentation. And yet not all public speakers are trained in design.

Here is the answer.

It isn't a public speaking book.

It isn't a PowerPoint book.

It presents the principles of design.

There is little surprise then, that it is beautifully designed.

It pairs clear explanations of every design concept with visual examples of the concepts applied in practice. The left side is dedicated to theory, the right to visual examples of how this theory can be used.

From the "80/20" rule to chunking, from baby-face bias to Occam's razor, and from self-similarity to storytelling, every major design concept is defined and illustrated.

Every theory is pared down to these two concise pages.

And within the theory page are two more elements - some incredibly useful references to other resources for further exploration and reading and to other theories as well - research on motivators and perception, psychology and biology, and so many more.

As a reader, we are being encouraged to make connections - to other ideas about the principle and to other principles that intercept with it.

And making connections is certainly necessary - it is a great mindset by which to use the book, to apply the principles to one's own discipline - in our case, public speaking and PowerPoint.

The connections are not made within the book, and several reviewers have complained about that, and the lack of full information about each principle. I like making connections, exploring further, and the discipline of making creative use of rules. It is a stimulation of creativity that is necessary among the rather linear thinking involved in creating a storyboard, and a logical development of ideas.

And the concise treatment of the material makes the book an easy reference to use, and book that can be picked and read in small chunks.

About the Author

William Lidwell writes, speaks, and consults on topics of design and engineering. He is the Director of Design at Stuff Creators Design in Houston, Texas. He is author of the best-selling design book, Universal Principles of Design, which has been translated into 12+ languages; Deconstructing Product Design, a social deconstruction of 100 classic products; and lecturer of two video series on design: "How Colors Affect You: What Science Reveals" available from The Great Courses, and "The Science of Logo Design" available from Lynda.com.
He lives in Houston, TX.

You can buy the book from Amazon , The Book Depository , Fishpond.com.au

visual_languageVisual Language for Designers: Principles for Creating Graphics That People Understand
By Connie Malamed

This is a great read for those of us who are harnessing the power of visuals to highlight our content.

Within every picture is a hidden language that conveys a message, whether it is intended or not. This language is based on the ways people perceive and process visual information.

By understanding visual language as the interface between a graphic and a viewer, designers and illustrators can learn to inform with accuracy and power.

In a time of unprecedented competition for audience attention and with an increasing demand for complex graphics, "Visual Language for Designers" explains how to achieve quick and effective communications.

New in paperback, this book presents ways to design for the strengths of our innate mental capacities and to compensate for our cognitive limitations.

"Visual Language for Designers" includes:
--How to organize graphics for quick perception
--How to direct the eyes to essential information
--How to use visual shorthand for efficient communication
--How to make abstract ideas concrete
--How to best express visual complexity
--How to charge a graphic with energy and emotion

About the author: Connie Malamed has a background in art and cognitive psychology, with a B.S. in Art Education and an M.A. in Instructional Design and Technology. She is a consultant based in the Washington, D.C. area in the fields of e-learning, visual communication, media design, and information design. http://www.malamedconsulting.com

The book is available from Book Depository, Fishpond, The Nile and Amazon

A designer knows he has achieved perfection, not when there is nothing left to add,
but when there is nothing left to take away.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Can you whittle your speech or presentation down to that level of perfection?

A designer knows he has achieved perfection, not when there is nothing left to add,
but when there is nothing left to take away.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Curious about what it takes to design a cool eye-catching book cover? Try six hours and some serious Photoshop skills. Lauren Panepinto of Orbit Books condensed all her hard work on a Victorian/Steampunk novel cover into a fascinating two-minute clip.

We need all the help we can get to keep our goals in the forefront of our minds, to continue creating and refining actin plans. An Inspiration Board is a great tool to achieve just that.

A design board, inspriration board, color board, concept board – call it what you want. A design board is a wonderful way to put all of your design ideas, concepts and colors for a project down in one place. Design professionals, such as kitchen designers, interior decorators and the lot use them to make presentations to clients, but you can do the same to help you consolidate your plans. How to make your own design board and more examples after the jump!

and the instructions are here ...http://bit.ly/4Tsgb9