Beautiful Users: Designing for People

In the mid-twentieth century, Henry Dreyfuss—widely considered the father of industrial design—pioneered a user-centered approach to design that focuses on studying people's behaviors and attitudes as a key first step in developing successful products. In the intervening years, user-centered design has expanded to undertake the needs of differently abled users and global populations as well as the design of complex systems and services. Beautiful Users explores the changing relationship between designers and users and considers a range of design methodologies and practices, from user research to hacking, open source, and the maker culture.

Ellen Lupton is the author, coauthor, or editor of 13 books with PAPress, including Design Culture Now; Skin: Surface, Substance + Design; Inside Design Now; Thinking with Type; D.I.Y.: Design It Yourself; and D.I.Y. Kids. She is Curator of Contemporary Design, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, New York and Director, Graphic Design MFA Program, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore. she is hte recipient of numerous awards including I.D. Forty, 1992; Chrysler Design Award, 1996; and AIGA Gold Medal, 2007.