1.7 Reading This Book

Within the context of global energy issues, industrial design engineering can play an important role in the transitions from our existing carbonaceous energy systems to innovative and sustainable energy solutions that can be used in people's livelihoods. To support this process, The Power of Design is divided into four main sections about (1) innovation in design processes, (2) energy technologies, (3) user aspects, and (4) cases.

Depending on your experience, professional background, and interest, you could read each section independently. If you have knowledge of sustainable energy technologies and would like to become better acquainted with innovation in industrial design engineering, we recommend to start reading about innovation methods. However, if you don't have much experience with energy, you might like to start with the section on sustainable energy technologies. If you would like to get insight regarding specific product designs or considerations made during product development, you are advised to read through the section with cases. In general, the theories provided by this book will be illustrated by cases of design projects and concepts in practice. These examples will be shown in between the chapters on innovation methods and in a separate chapter that presents cases on products, design processes, and evaluation of products from the perspective of sustainability and energy efficiency.

It is our intention that the extended cases shown in this book and supplementary cases will become available through a website affiliated with The Power of Design, see www.wiley.com/go/reinders_design. In this digital surrounding, information and experiences with design projects in the field of sustainable energy technologies can be shared. Therefore, it would be useful to regularly visit this website and become a member of a new community of industrial design engineers, researchers, students, professional consultants, and colleagues, because changing energy use in our society isn't an issue of individuals – it matters to all of us, and we can reach results only if we learn from each other and share experiences. To quote Chris Ryan of University of Melbourne, who wrote the foreword of this book: it is a much-needed contribution to redistributing the future – whilst we still have time.