Most of the modern wireless communication systems as WiMAX, DVB-NGH, WiFi, HSPA+ and 4G have adopted the use of multiple antennas at the transmitter and the receiver, called multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO). Space time coding for MIMO systems is a promising technology to increase the data rate and enhance the reliability of wireless communications. Space-time block codes (STBCs) are commonly designed according to the rank-determinant criteria suitable at high signal to noise ratios (SNRs). In contrast, wireless communication standards employ MIMO technology with capacity-approaching forward-error correcting (FEC) codes like turbo codes and low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, ensuring low error rates even at low SNRs. In this thesis, we investigate the design of STBCs for MIMO systems with capacity-approaching FEC codes. We start by proposing a non-asymptotic STBC design criterion based on the bitwise mutual information (BMI) maximization between transmitted and soft estimated bits at a specific target SNR. According to the BMI criterion, we optimize several conventional STBCs. Their design parameters are shown to be SNR-dependent leading to the proposal of adaptive STBCs. Proposed adaptive STBCs offer identical or better performance than standard WiMAX profiles for all coding rates, without increasing the detection complexity. Among them, the proposed adaptive trace-orthonormal STBC can pass continuously from spatial multiplexing, suitable at low SNRs and therefore at low coding rates, to the Golden code, optimal at high SNRs. Uncorrelated, correlated channels and transmit antenna selection are considered. We design adaptive STBCs for these cases offering identical or better performance than conventional non-adaptive STBCs. In addition, conventional STBCs are designed in a way achieving the asymptotic DMT frontier. Recently, the finite-SNR DMT has been proposed to characterize the DMT at finite SNRs. Our last contribution consists of the derivation of the exact finite-SNR DMT for MIMO channels with dual antennas at the transmitter and/or the receiver. Both uncorrelated and correlated Rayleigh fading channels are considered. It is shown that at realistic SNRs, achievable diversity gains are significantly lower than asymptotic values. This finite-SNR could provide new insights on the design of STBCs at operational SNRs.