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.

Nathaniel Oscar Rosenfeld was born Wednesday, June 18, at the extremely hospitable hour of 2:54 p.m. He was a strapping 8 pounds 6 ounces, and within minutes of emerging had figured out where the snack bar was, so we expect that number to stay impressive. After the world's longest pregnancy (27 years), everything went about perfectly with the labor and birth. That kid was so overripe he fell right off the tree.

Iris is crazy about having a little bother brother. When Lou called her after the birth, I could hear her scream with excitement, through his phone, from six feet away. She suggested we use her middle name, Rachel, as his too, but we decided that a little individuality would be a good thing for both of them.

Check them both out here.

We're trying to remember how to do this infant thing again, but have already been reminded how impossibly cute newborns are, and how much fun.

We're excited to announce that Luke Wroblewski's long-awaited book, "Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks," is now available! And with hundreds of sales since our soft launch earlier today, apparently we're not the only ones!

When you buy directly from Rosenfeld Media, you'll pay US$36 for the paperback and digital editions, US$19 for digital only. (Compare with US$36 for paperback only at Amazon.)

The paperback is 244 pages with high quality paper stock, a sewn binding, and a full color interior. At 6"x9", it'll be easy to stuff in your carry-on bag for reading during the flight to your next client meeting. And of course, the digital edition (373 pages) is pretty easy to take along too; in fact, it's been designed, tested, and optimized for on-screen use. Both editions are graced with 216 illustrations, which we've made available for you via Flickr to peruse, download, and use in your own presentations.

We're quite thrilled with Luke's work—from his original research to the volume of practical advice he's managed to cram into this book. We hope you'll enjoy it as much as we have.

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