International and Taiwanese research has suggested that education for sustainable development (ESD) requires interdisciplinary research and teaching. There is a lack of sustainable art and design courses in the field of humanities. We have learned that design students have neither a concern for the surrounding environment nor the ability to resolve social issues when teaching design. This study is intended to integrate sustainable development issues into design courses and apply design to resolve issues so that students can develop the ability to think creatively and solve environmental sustainability issues. This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of integrating sustainable development issues into “Game Design Theory and Practice” design course and to construct a model of “design course on environmental sustainability.” This study applied the action research method and incorporated the PBL (problem-based learning) and ADDIE (analysis, design, development, implementation, evaluation) modes. Ultimately, based on the results of course planning and implementation, we proposed the model of “design course on environmental sustainability,” with priorities given to: (1) The introduction of environmental sustainability issues; (2) the introduction of design methods by teachers; (3) the promotion of students’ participation in design thinking and discussion; (4) students’ adjustments to the design according to players’ feedback; and (5) interaction and communication between different characters. The results demonstrated that the integration of sustainable development issues into the planning and implementation of the “Game Design Theory and Practice” design course had positive effects. Game design could be used as a method and tool to encourage students and players to assume sustainable citizenship and to generate a concern for sustainable development in interesting game contexts. These findings can contribute to the future development of design education at colleges and universities.

Gamification is not simply a temporary trend but would result in huge changes in life, education and marketing. Under the trend, design researchers should focus on the importance of gamification and apply gamification in the improvement of effective communication. This study aims to apply gamification to website design for facilitating effective communication. Two experimental websites, including a gamification incorporated website and a no-gamification incorporated website, are constructed. Users are recruited to use individual websites. After the website experience, task questions, system usability scale, online questionnaire and retrospective thinking aloud are applied to collect user feedback. The data analyses reveal that ‘gamification incorporated website’ could not promote the usability of websites, while learnability, pleasure, engagement and satisfaction are enhanced. Overall speaking, applying gamification to websites could actually enhance communication efficiency. The gamification design guidelines are eventually proposed to assist future designers in constructing meaningful gamification design with communication efficiency.

Due to the mainstream emphasis on university social responsibility (USR) in global and Taiwanese higher education, there is a growing need for universities to apply design to solve community problems. This study aims to explore the practical effectiveness of integrating USR into a design curriculum, thereby constructing a new model for USR fulfillment. Action research was applied in this study. The positive outcomes of integrating USR into the planning and implementation of a course titled ‘Culture and Design Communication’ were found to align with UNESCO’s lifelong learning goals. The resulting model of USR fulfillment through design education will benefit the future sustainable development of university design education.

The world is facing rapid global aging. Global countries are concerned about the development of aging societies and related topics ranging from successful, healthy, and active aging in the past to the current creative aging (CA) perspective. However, in-depth research on applying esthetics to promote community CA in Taiwan is lacking. To address this deficiency, the Hushan community in Douliu City, Yunlin County was selected as the research area, and the CA perspective was adopted to promote community CA through multi-stage intergenerational esthetic co-creation (IEC) workshops. A model for applying IEC workshops to promote CA was constructed. Using the action research approach, community CA enabled the elderly to identify with their inherent values, opening new possibilities for the provision of elderly social care. This study explored the psychological impacts of implementing IEC workshops on the elderly, analyzed their interactions with peers and youth, helped the elderly review their lives, analyzed relevant data to construct a practical model for applying IEC workshops to promote CA, and provided the data collected during the multi-stage applications of CA and an IEC model for promoting CA as a reference for future researchers, thereby opening new possibilities for sustainable care in aging societies.