Thank You

Hello reader, thanks for picking up Design Empathy and Contextual Awareness. In this day and age of ever quicker, digital experiences, I appreciate the investment (both in time and finances) that you’ve made to purchase or borrow this book. Thanks for the commitment you’re making. I invite your participation and welcome you to this discovery of design tools.

What is this book’s purpose?

This book introduces the topics of design behaviors, which can be practiced and refined. Each behavior tends to use particular mindsets (both cognitive and emotional) to help move your work forward. Design is neither a “trade” skill nor a personal “visionary” lightning strike event, but rather a way of living. By practicing a way of working and engaging with the world, you can improve on your ability to create social impact. This practice involves exploring, engaging, creating, and evaluating your ideas as a way to arrive at something meaningful for not only yourself, but also for an audience as well. Each chapter in this book has tools you can use to practice the design behaviors and mindsets. The Tool sections are easily identified by a texture pattern along the edge of the page and labeled, Tool: Name (e.g. Tool: Method Acting).

Now Let’s Practice!

While this text was conceived as a reference for design students and creative professionals, it is also meant to be a collaborative dialogue and interactive experience, building a community of design practitioners around design behaviors. We invite you to practice the tools listed throughout the book and post a photo or video of how you use them. This could be something as simple as filling out the template and posting it, to a video of you using the method and your experiences with it.

QR Codes: There are two codes. One QR code is a resource to download the tool templates for your use and easy reproduction. The other QR code is for uploading, where we’d invite you to post your practice of the tools in this book and contribute to the community of readers here. We hope that you would start a dialogue with other designers and creatives who have picked up this book and are learning along with you. Our community is on Instagram at designblocgt. Please post on Instagram with @designblocgt and a #toolname e.g., #methodacting. We’d love to see how the tools are helping you shape your design process.