Four years ago, Peter Morville rolled out the user experience honeycomb, with its seven facets of UX. Since then, there's been something of a cottage industry of suggesting new facets (all of which, unfortunately, throw off the geometry of Peter's elegant hexagon).

Perhaps it's time to consider adding yet another facet: sustainability. What and how we design has implications, especially when our designs are ultimately fabricated, transported, and physically consumed. In this time of post-peak oil and environmental worries, designers have an even greater responsibility to consider how our work impacts our planet.

That's why Rosenfeld Media will be publishing Nathan Shedroff's newest book, "Design is the Problem: The Future of Design Must be Sustainable". It's a bit of a departure for us—this is not a practical UX "method" book—but if it helps all of us to bake sustainability into our design processes, it might be the most practical topic we could ever cover.

It's also an opportunity to work with Nathan, who continues to make amazing contributions to the field. His energy is boundless, and his passion for sustainability is humbling. We can't wait for his book to arrive!

Want to find out when the book is available (and receive a discount to boot)? Sign up for a publication notification. You can engage with Nathan and learn more about the topic at his book-in-progress site, and keep up with the book's progress by subscribing to the site's RSS feed.

Many in the user experience world are become quite familiar with Kevin Cheng's wit and perspective through OK/Cancel, the brilliant comic strip he co-creates with Tom Chi (more about Kevin here.) Now we'll get to delve further into Kevin's creative mind: he's agreed to write See What I Mean: How to Use Comics to Communicate Ideas for Rosenfeld Media. Kevin and I have been bouncing around this book idea for years, and I'm thrilled that we'll have an opportunity to work together.

Many recognize that comics are a powerful design tool, but assume they need to be artists to create comics. Through his workshops Kevin has been disproving that assumption for years, and now his book will do the same for a wider audience. See What I Mean will teach anyone, regardless of drawing ability, how to use comics to communicate design concepts effectively.

Like all Rosenfeld Media books, Kevin's begins with a book-in-progress site where he'll share his ideas as they develop, and where we hope you'll do the same. We invite you to engage in Kevin's writing process; this is your opportunity to shape what we believe will be a mainstay on every designer's bookshelf for years to come. You can also keep up with the book's progress by subscribing to its RSS feed.