On November 6th, 2024, Michael Kowalski of MDTL delivered a presentation at a seminar hosted by DRS SIGWELL (Special Interest Group in Design for Well-being, Happiness, and Health). Kowalski’s talk, titled “Connecting Sustainable and Well-being-enhancing Behaviors: Reflections Through Daily Practices of Young Adults,” was one of three presentations showcasing novel approaches to enhancing personal and environmental well-being through design. The seminar, which expanded on research originally presented at the DRS conference in Boston, offered attendees the opportunity to engage with researchers and explore the positive influence of design on subjective well-being.

On October 17, Jay Yoon delivered a virtual guest lecture for Sensory Aspects of Design at Carleton University, CA. The lecture explored how food-related activities—from grocery shopping to cooking and eating—can be enhanced to promote individual and community well-being, focusing on creating opportunities for positive emotional experiences.

On July 15, 2024, Sofia Ozambela, MS successfully defended her master thesis entitled “Inner visions: Designing a behavioral intervention technology to assist young adults in the understanding and articulation of personal goals.” The thesis was supervised by Dr. Jay Yoon of Design+Environmental Analysis and Dr. Qian Yang of Information Science.

Abstract
This study explores how technology can help users understand and articulate their personal goals, using vision boards as a case study. Vision boards were selected as a research tool, as they are popular with young adults and they enable individualized goal-setting. First, we conducted focus groups with young adults who were familiar with vision boards to learn about their experiences. From the insights gained in focus groups and co-design sessions with a National Board Certified Health and Wellness coach, we developed an Artificial Intelligence-based goal-setting tool to help users reflect on and refine goals. The web-based tool, entitled “Inner Visions,” guides users through a variety of exercises related to their enjoyments, life roles, strengths, contributions, and psychological needs, and generates a customized mind map composed of nuanced self-reflection questions. From their responses to the questions posed by the mind map, users may construct meaningful goals, or use the mind map as a starting point for other goal oriented practices like vision boards. In the primary study, we then tested the effectiveness of this tool through user interviews and surveys with both young adults and health/wellness professionals. The findings indicate the tool provided a positive experience, sparked introspection, and facilitated the development of individuals’ goals. Users also shared insights on how to improve this technology to better assist users with goal-setting and self-reflection, thereby enhancing wellbeing.

On April 30, Dr. Jimenez gave an inspiring lecture, “PERSONAL INFORMATICS: Sensing and Feedback for Guiding Everyday Human Behavior,” for DEA 4700 Applied Ergonomics Methods. Dr. Jimenez is an Assistant Professor of Industrial Design at Carlton University, Canada. The lecture highlighted the intersection of human-computer interaction, user empowerment design, and the integration of qualitative and quantitative data, particularly in healthcare and well-being scenarios.

The lecture covered:

1. Enhancing understanding of ethnographically informed design in technological systems
2. Illustrating the application of human-centered and personal informatics design in real-world contexts
3. Fostering insights into designing socio-technical systems that meet diverse stakeholders’ needs

Dr. Jimenez’s lecture provided a rare opportunity for students to gain insights from his work on personal informatics systems, emphasizing user empowerment and healthcare technology accessibility. The session involved analyzing real-life scenarios where Dr. Jimenez’s methodologies had been applied, promoting a hands-on approach to learning.

On March 28, Lucas Wozniak delivered a lecture titled “Positive Design for Extended Reality Experiences” for DEA 3308 Positive Design Studio. Mr. Wozniak develops accessible mental health technologies, combining his expertise in interactive telecommunications with Extended Reality (XR) digital therapeutics. In his lecture, Mr. Wozniak explained the methods behind the development of the Audio Labyrinth, an innovative AR smartphone app that guides users through an immersive, audio-driven landscape while encouraging behaviors that enhance their well-being. He demonstrated the technology using a prototype “episode” that guided users through somatic mindfulness practices, such as breath-work with an audio-immersive walking meditation. After the lecture, Mr. Wozniak led a workshop where students chose from a list of evidence-based Positive Emotion Regulation (PER) techniques (e.g., self-congratulating, gratitude) as the central experiential goal of their own Audio Labyrinth “episodes.” The presentations of the students’ speculative designs sparked in-class discussions about applying Positive Design principles in experience-driven contexts.

On October 30, 2023, Youngsoo Shin successfully defended his doctoral thesis entitled “Supporting users’ behavioral decision-making experiences through personalized human-technology interactions.” The thesis was advised by Dr. Jay Yoon of Human Centered Design, Dr. Wendy Ju of Cornell Tech, and Dr. Geoffrey Fisher of SC Johnson College of Business.

Dr. Youngsoo Shin recently accepted and started an assistant professorship atPace University, NY. Congratulations, Dr. Shin!

Summary
Influencing user behavior has been increasingly stated as an explicit design objective in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and design research. However, designers often face difficulties in their practices resulting from users’ different preferences about how they are guided to certain behaviors to perform when using computing systems (e.g., managing tasks and schedules through a calendar app and choosing movies to watch on a streaming service). In terms of people’s decision-making styles, some users—maximizers—desire to have an array of options to get the very best out of the decision, but in the same situation, other users—satisficers—tend to be pleased to settle for a good enough option. It is conceivable that this individual difference should manifest when interacting with computing systems, strongly influencing users’ experiences. However, there has been little empirical research available about if and how different decision-making styles affect users’ behavioral decision-making experiences in this technology use. To fill this gap, this doctoral dissertation aims to advance our understanding of how users’ decision-making styles affect their experiences in technology use and their implications for design. This dissertation explores how users’ behavioral decision-making experiences can be supported through computing systems, especially focusing on the concept of personalized interactions. Using Research through Design (RtD) as an overarching approach, this research develops an understanding of how users’ different decision-making styles affect their experiences in technology use and the implications of these tendencies for design (Thread 1). This research also explores how users’ behavioral decision-making experiences can be supported through design, especially at the intersection of user experience (UX) design and behavioral intervention technology (Thread 2). Further, this research develops a new approach to supporting users’ daily decision-making in technology use by conducting a series of deployment studies (Thread 3).