Despite an uncertain economy, the market for green building is exploding. The US green building market has expanded dramatically since 2008 and is projected to double in size by 2015 (from $42 billion in construction starts to $135 billion). But green-building pioneer Sim Van der Ryn says, “greening” our buildings is not enough. He advocates for “empathic design”, in which a designer not only works in concert with nature, but with an understanding of and empathy for the end user and for ones self. It is not just one of these connections, but all three that are necessary to design for a future that is more humane, equitable, and resilient. Sim’s lifelong focus has been in shifting the paradigm in architecture and design. Instead of thinking about design primarily in relation to the infrastructure we live in and with—everything from buildings to wireless routing—he advocates for a focus on the people who use and are affected by this infrastructure. Basic design must include a real understanding of human ecology or end-user preferences. Understanding ones motivations and spirituality, Sim believes, is critical to designing with empathy for natural and human communities. In Design for an Empathic World Van der Ryn shares his thoughts and experience about the design of our world today. With a focus on the strengths and weaknesses in our approach to the design of our communities, regions, and buildings he looks at promising trends and projects that demonstrate how we can help create a better world for others and ourselves. Architects, urban designers, and students of architecture will all enjoy this beautifully illustrated book drawing on a rich and revered career of a noted leader in their field. The journey described in Design for an Empathic World will help to inspire change and foster the collaboration and thoughtfulness necessary to achieve a more empathic future.

The way we experience the world is largely through the design of the places, products, communications, services and systems we encounter every day. Design determines how difficult or easy it is to achieve certain things - whether boarding a plane, taking a bath, cooking a meal, crossing the street or making a call, we all want a world that works ......

A bold new look at how technology can become a force multiplier to deliver more empathy and integrate deeper, more personalized human connections into everyday business interactions at scale. While the world has never needed more empathy than today, too often technology is used by businesses as a substitute and a barrier to real human connection. We've all experienced dumb chatbots, automated scripts and poor employee interactions that dehumanizes customer interactions. That's because brands have focused on company centric business strategies, processes and technology. However, simply put: No customers, no business. What if, by transforming the old company-centric way of doing business and putting customers and employees front and center, businesses could succeed faster than ever before and not at the expense of their most important assets--the very people who make it possible to be in business? Empathy is a powerful construct for a better world and a better business. It's not a synonym for nice. Empathy is about respect and treating people in the context of their unique situation in a highly personalized way. In this groundbreaking new book, longtime technology leader and current CEO of Genesys, Tony Bates teams up with researcher and customer experience evangelist, Dr. Natalie Petouhoff to define a new path forward to put empathy into action. By using strategies and technologies as the flywheel to orchestrate systems of listening, understanding and predicting, as well as, taking action and learning from those interactions at scale, businesses can easily put the customer and employee first, not only meet the ever-changing customer and employee expectations, but also leapfrog their competition. They predict empathy is the next frontier in technology. This book is aimed at sparking an industry-wide conversation about how exponential technologies like, AI and cloud can enable a more empathetic world.

Professional Empathic Design: User Experience in Product DesignBased on several years of research, this book introduces design concepts and methods for the fuzzy front end. The contributors are both academic researchers and practicing designers who have been working with companies.

The book reveals a new understanding of the ways that design shapes our lives and gives professionals and interested citizens the tools to seek out and demand designs that dignify.

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.