A Fast Company “Most Important Books for Designers to Read Right Now”
Discover how the principles of human-centered design can be applied to real-world health challenges in dozens of illustrated examples—from drug packaging and cancer detection devices to post-COVID-19 innovations.
Written by pioneers in the field—Bon Ku, a physician leader in innovative health design, and Ellen Lupton, an award-winning graphic designer—this book outlines the fundamentals of design thinking and highlights important products, prototypes, and research in health design. This revised and expanded edition describes innovations developed in response to the COVID-19 crisis, including an intensive care unit in a shipping container, a rolling cart with intubation equipment, and a mask brace that gives a surgical mask a tighter seal. Graphics by Lupton bring these ideas to life.
The authors also explore the special overlap of health care and the creative process, describing the development of such products and services as a credit card–sized device that allows patients to generate their own electrocardiograms; a mask designed to be worn with a hijab; improved emergency room signage; and a map of racial disparities and COVID-19. Health Design Thinking is an essential volume for health care providers, educators, patients, and designers who seek to create better experiences and improved health outcomes for individuals and communities.
Included in Fast Company's "14 most important books for designers to read right now."
"Presented in practical, approachable prose, it offers context, methods, and case studies sourced from the medical community, such as a hand-held device for detecting breast cancer or a clothing line with functional openings that people with chronic illnesses can wear during medical procedures. Graphics by Lupton’s longtime collaborator Jennifer Tobias bring the ideas to life."
—Architectural Digest
"Ku’s medical perspectives and Lupton’s sensitivities to the history and future of design take the reader on an entertaining journey that is not only fun, with one-liners inserted with surgical precision, but, with an abundance of case studies to illustrate their message, it is also very educational."
—Health Environments Research and Design Journal
"The healthcare system is ripe with challenges and opportunities for innovation. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted this issue more than ever. If you’re a designer working in healthcare, or interested in understanding how design is being used in a healthcare context, this book is for you. The book is filled with real-world projects and examples of applying design to health."
—Thinking Design
