Jay Yoon gave a keynote presentation at International Conference on Design for Experience and Well-being in Xi’an, China. The keynote title was “Why bother designing for positive emotions?”
Abstract: Despite great advances in scientific understanding of emotional processes and effects in product use, research into emotions has been constrained by a strong bias towards mitigating negative affective states, rather than purposefully facilitating positive emotions. For instance, traditionally, attention has been paid to emotions particularly when design causes unpleasant experiences, which led the focus of design to be directed at avoiding negative emotions. There is now an increasing emphasis on the unique functions of positive emotions in design research. There are considerable evidences that positive emotions play the critical roles in perception, thought, behavior and, by extension, improved well-being, which supports the view that designing for positive emotions is valuable to further explore. In this talk, Jay Yoon will present how diverse and nuanced positive emotions that people experience in day-to-day product use contribute to well-being, and how such experiences can be deliberately created and sustained through design.