Yoga is a practice, Design is a practice.
Yoga is a journey, Design thinking is a process.

This book is both a tool that enables and reflects how the practice of mindfulness and yoga can influence creative design thinking in students. This was done through user-centered research and active participation in the practice: interviews, yoga workshops, testings and feedback.

MINDFULNESS & EMPATHY IN DESIGN

Mindfulness affects the consciousness by filtering out the mental processes during creative tasks. It is a practice that has “potential in facilitating the creative responses needed for solving insight problems.” (Ostafin and Kassman, 2012) This study demonstrated a direct relation between mindfulness and the creative process.

“Empathy is the foundation of a human-centered design process.” 
– Stanford d.school 

Irene Au, former head of UX design at Google, believes that yoga and meditation can make people better designers. As creative problem solvers, designers need to gain empathy for end users, focus on critical areas of projects, and use lateral thinking during ideation and concepting. This book was designed with that intention: to cultivate empathy, focus and creativity through an awareness of the mind-body connection.