Author: jy846
MDTL’s design workshop with Ithaca Youth Bureau
On July 18th, MDTL’s Jay Yoon and Jeremy Faulk held a workshop in collaboration with the Ithaca Youth Bureau for 22 middle school students. The goal of the workshop was to increase awareness of the positive and negative impact that everyday technologies have on our emotions, behaviors, and well-being. These students are part of the College Discovery Program (CDP), a long-term mentoring and academic support program aimed at reducing achievement gaps and increasing access to college education.
The article on the workshop is available online.
LEV: A behavioral intervention technology that supports young adults’ emotion management
Publication
- Yoon, J., Vira, A., Jung, D. & Kim, C. (2023) LEV: A behavioral intervention technology that supports young adults’ emotion management. (manuscript in preparation).
LEV is a behavioral intervention technology designed to support young adults’ well-being by helping them better manage their emotions (both positive and negative). LEV builds on an emotion-regulating strategy called reappraisal, which refers to changing how one thinks either about the situation itself or about one’s capacity to manage it. For example, people can uplift their positive emotions by increasing the perceived value of the situation (e.g., believing one’s items are irreplaceable), cherishing the little resource left (e.g., listing time left in college), and adopting a grateful outlook (e.g., counting blessings every day). LEV is a small robotic creature that inhabits a user’s home and is a part of their daily routine. LEV guides users through a storytelling activity in which they reflect on and explore events in their daily lives. During the interaction, users recall a recent emotional event and then engage in reappraisal to retell the event from a particular emotional perspective. LEV supports this activity by initiating user interactions, choosing an emotional perspective based on current and historical user input, and providing feedback in gesture-based communication. By providing day-to-day opportunities to consider events from different angles, LEV aims to help users reflect on their daily lives constructively and critically. With time and repetition of the interaction, users can improve their reappraisal ability and become more emotionally adaptive in a variety of positive and negative situations.
MDTL’s research introduced in the Popular Science
On February 2, 2023, the Popular Science introduced the MDTL’s work on the impact of product attachment on sustainability. The research was led by Michael Kowalski, and previously published in the International Journal of Design in December, 2022.
The article on the Popular Science is available online.
MDTS’s research on sustainable well-being introduced by Cornell Chronicle
On January 4, 2013, Cornell Chronicle published an article introducing the MDTL’s research on the relationship between product attachment and sustainable behavior, recently published in the International Journal of Design. The research looks into the factors influencing the increase of product attachment and how they differently affect how people retain, use, and discard their cherished products in the long run, discussing the implications for sustainability. The research is part of Micheal Kowalski’s work on designing for psychological well-being and environmental sustainability.
PLATE 2023
Roundtable discussion—International Meeting Challenges in Design Education
On November 8, 2022, MDTL’s Jay Yoon participated in the roundtable discussion of the International Forum on Challenges in Design Education, hosted by the School of Industrial Design of the Faculty of Architecture, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
The discussion was moderated by Prof. Juan Carlos Ortiz Nicolás. The topics were on:
- Current and future challenges in design education
- Pedagogy approaches for multi- and trans-disciplinary projects embedded in postgraduate and undergraduate programs.
Positive emodiversity in everyday human-technology interactions and users’ subjective well-being
Publication
- Yoon, J. and Kim, C. (2022) Emodiversity in human-product interactions and users’ subjective well-being, International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction.Download
This project investigates the effects of experiencing diverse positive emotions in technology use on users’ well-being, referred to as positive emodiversity. We examined technology’s role in facilitating positive emodiversity and well-being through a questionnaire study (N= 116; 580 example cases), in which three sources of emotions were considered: technology as an object, instrument, or enabler. Further, we evaluated how technology-supported hedonic and eudaimonic pursuits are associated with well-being. A regression analysis showed that increased positive emodiversity leads to increased well-being (p<.001). The effect was predicted by the three sources and both hedonic and eudaimonic pursuits. When engaged in positive activities enabled by technology, users experienced more diverse positive emotions, increasing their well-being. The study offers new understandings of the relationships between technologies, emodiversity, and well-being, and provides evidence that designing for a wide diversity of positive emotions, as opposed to generalized pleasure-displeasure distinction, can enrich users’ experiences, enhancing their well-being.
Research scheme: Positive emodiversity facilitated by technology and its influence on well-being.
Factors of product attachment and their effects on sustainable product usage behaviors
Publication
- Kowalski, M., & Yoon, J. (2022). I love it, I’ll never use it: Exploring factors of product attachment and their effects on sustainable product usage behaviors, International Journal of Design. 16(3), 37-57. Download
- Cornell Chronicle (2023). Meaningful but unused products hinder sustainability. Link.
Research on product attachment has shown that users tend to retain emotionally meaningful products longer, and delay their disposal. This has been suggested to be more environmentally sustainable, though little empirical evidence of the actual long-term use of these products is available. Two studies sought to understand the factors of product attachment and their role in sustainable product usage behavior. Study 1 involved qualitative semi-structured interviews to understand users’ relationships with meaningful product possessions and how this connected to their long-term product use. Through an online questionnaire, Study 2 quantitatively investigated the relative roles of factors of product attachment in product usage behaviors. The results from both studies showed differing patterns of product use. While at times products of attachment are used actively for their practical utilitarian purpose, at other times they are set aside for more passive psychological reasons. In this passive use pathway, evidence was found of increased redundant product consumption to satisfy practical needs, contrary to expectations expressed in previous literature. Perceived irreplaceability of a product, while being most influential in stimulating higher levels of attachment, was associated with more passive use and redundant product consumption.
Click the below images to enlarge them.
Does practicing a diversity of savoring techniques help enhance happiness?
Click the image to enlarge.
Interaction scenarios for Revealing Moments in which two individuals self-select different positive activities in response to the same ambiguous prompt (i.e., “Bring light”).
Publication
- Faulk, J., & Yoon, J. (2023). Does practicing a diversity of savoring techniques help enhance happiness? A randomized-controlled trial of design-mediated well-being, Journal of Design Research. (In press – Downloadable upon request)
- Faulk, J.D., Oluwadairo, O., & Yoon, J. (2022). Secret dance and bring light: Enhancing user autonomy through directional ambiguity in designing positive emotion regulation interventions. Design Research Society (DRS), Bilbao, ES. Download
When we look forward to enjoyable events or share positive experiences with others we can prolong and amplify our positive emotions. These and other savoring techniques can increase our subjective well-being. Yet, it remains unknown whether practicing a variety of savoring techniques adds its own happiness-enhancing effect. In this 1X3 randomized-controlled trial, 71 participants used a novel, interactive poster to facilitate high vs. low savoring diversity over eight days, or they journaled in the control condition. Unlike other positive psychology interventions, the poster was designed to inspire users to self-select their own happiness-enhancing activities. Regression analyses showed that while cognitive well-being increased in the high diversity condition, emotional well-being did not. These results suggested that assigning savoring diversity may have modestly contributed to users’ cognitive well-being. Written responses further pointed to the poster’s potential effectiveness in promoting positive experiences. Implications for design practice and directions for future research are discussed.
A diagram that depicts how practicing diverse savoring techniques may increase participants’ well-being.