MDTL’s research on “Designing Technologies for Wellbeing” was featured on the Cornell Research.

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Designing Technologies for Wellbeing

Our daily use of smartphones and social media can engender pleasurable moments, but can these technologies contribute to genuine happiness?

With this CAREER award, Jay Yoon, Human Centered Design, is developing new approaches to technology design to support the creation of smartphone apps, home appliances, and other everyday technologies that improve wellbeing over the long term. This research draws on recent insights from positive psychology, which emphasizes people’s capacity to improve their mental health by enhancing and savoring experiences of joy, contentment, fascination, and other positive emotions. This project will specifically address technology use among adolescents and young adults, who are less likely than older adults to practice behaviors that enhance positive emotions. This population is also more inclined to seek immediate gratification and less likely to take advantage of traditional health interventions such as mental health counseling.

This project pursues a detailed understanding of the relationship between technology design, user-technology interactions, positive emotion, and wellbeing. Researchers will analyze the role of everyday technology in reinforcing and prolonging positive emotions. They will then develop new technology that facilitates increased positive experiences and evaluate their effects on wellbeing. Finally, through a series of co-creative workshops and seminars, researchers will draw on the perspectives of design professionals to translate the resulting insights into practical design tools and methods.

On August 15, 2022, MDTL gave a guest lecture at CuriousU, International Summer School in Europe, organized by Design Lab of University of Twente, the Netherlands.
The lecture was part of “Design the Future” and “Health & Happiness” tracks in which 30 students from design and psychology participated.

Abstract

With the emerging realization of the contribution of design-mediated positive emotions to well-being, evoking positive emotions became explicit design objectives. However, experiencing positive emotions does not necessarily lead to increased well-being effectively. Studies show that a few intense positive emotions can be ineffective in improving well-being. People quickly become accustomed to the pleasure, eventually finding it mundane. At worst, some positive emotions can engender deconstructive behaviors such as over-engagement on social media. Thus, a question emerges: how can products be designed to enhance and extend positivity in a well-being enhancing way? This CuriousU guest lecture addresses the design contribution to positive experiences, especially focusing on design-mediated Positive Emotion Regulation (PER). Students will learn theoretical and empirical aspects of PER and their relevance to design practice. Through a combination of lecture and hands-on exercise, the students will gain an overview of diverse ways of enabling users to up-regulate their positive emotions, and discuss how the overview can be used to identify design opportunities with users’ well-being in mind.

Jay Yoon, Director of Cornell’s Meta Design & Technology Lab received NSF CAREER award with the research “Using Positive Emotion Regulation to Design Everyday Technologies that Promote Well-being.”
NSF’s CAREER: The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program offers the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.

The grant will support the research from 2022 to 2027. The project abstract is as follows.

The project advances human-centered design research by integrating positive emotion regulation (PER) theory into the design of future technologies. Our daily use of smartphones, appliances, and social media can engender pleasurable moments, but they do not inherently lead to improved well-being. People adapt to the joys of using technologies, then find them mundane. Some positive emotions can cause deconstructive behaviors, such as over-engagement on social media. The project investigates designing technologies to support positive emotion regulation in young adults, a population whose mental health can be impacted by limited emotion regulation skills and challenges to accessing traditional health interventions. Practical design methods and tools for the development of such technologies are being generated by incorporating perspectives of design professionals through a series of co-creative workshops and seminars. A toolkit and methods reflecting insights into emotion regulation is being developed and disseminated to help designers create innovative and evidence-based emotion-managing technologies. The project promotes STEM education for underserved students through novel community-engagement programs that encourage students to think critically about how everyday technologies shape human emotion and behavior.

On July 29, 2021, Bethany Welgoss, MA successfully defended her master thesis entitled “It’s ugly. That’s why it works beautifully: An exploratory study using design strategies to violate aesthetic principles as means to influence usage behaviors”. The thesis was supervised by Dr. Jay Yoon of Design+Environmental Analysis and Dr. Manoj Thomas of SC Johnson College of Business.

Abstract
This thesis explores how aesthetic violation can be used to influence a user’s behavior when interacting with a product. Aesthetic violation occurs when the elements of a design purposely deviate from the aesthetic expectations of the user in order to encourage a behavioral response. This draws from the theory of processing fluency, which suggests that aesthetic perceptions are a function of a perceiver’s processing dynamics—the more fluently a perceiver can process an object, the higher the aesthetic response. In this instance, the desire for fluent processing may incite users to escape, minimize, or counteract the violation. A literature review and two workshops were conducted: (1) to generate design strategies and (2) to assess and refine them. The workshops provided insights into the benefits and relevance of aesthetic violation, strategy formation, and integration into the design process.

Sometimes user disorientation can be a good thing.
Science museums know this well – designing exhibits to challenge and confound visitors is a great way to promote deeper engagement and learning. But the way these experiences are designed often excludes blind and visually impaired visitors.
We’re working to identify tools and strategies to help designers create these rich, challenging experiences – without an over-reliance on visual content.

If you have experience designing for emotion, play, learning, or accessibility, and are interested in collaborating with other designers, we invite you to participate in our research. We’ll be hosting two (remote) workshops in May and June to explore and test design strategies for accessible, rich learning experiences in the museum.

Interested in participating, or learning more about the project?
Contact Michael Brigham at mab654@cornell.edu

Illustration by Valery Lemay

On February 17, Dr. Haian Xue will give a guest lecture on “Introspection & designer’s experiential connoisseurship” for the course DEA 3308 Positive Design Studio run by Dr. Jay Yoon.

Dr. Haian Xue is Assistant Professor of Department of Human-Centered Design at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. His research focuses on the mechanisms that underlie mood experiences in human-design interaction. This lecture:

1. uncovers the epistemological and methodological limitations of the mainstream ‘trouble-free’ (seemingly objective) experience design research methods,
2. introduces the first-person/introspective methods for experience design,
3. points out the inseparability of the researcher/designer (the introspector) and introspection, and finally
4. elaborates the concept of experiential connoisseurship as an acquirable faculty that plays a crucial role in the successful practice of introspective methods.

By guiding the students to go through a structured process of introspection on a lived emotional experience, the following Experience Design Introspection (XDI) workshop introduces a pathway to cultivate and continuous advance their experiential connoisseurship.

The lecture will be online and open to all Cornell students who are interested in the topic.

• Time: Feb 17, 2021 at 08:00 am
• Zoom link: https://bit.ly/2NVWhGl (Passcode: 588552 / Participants will be admitted to the meeting individually).

Related reading material

• Xue, H., & Desmet, P. M. A. (2019). Researcher introspection for experience- driven design research. Design Studies, 63, 37–64. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2019.03.001. Download (via Cornell Library)

On November 18, 2020, Jeremy Faulk, MS successfully defended his master thesis entitled “Does the Diversity of Savoring Strategies Increase Happiness? An Experimental Study of Design-Mediated Well-Being.” The thesis was supervised by Dr. Jay Yoon of Design+Environmental Analysis and Dr. Michael Goldstein of Psychology.

Abstract
When we look forward to enjoyable events or share positive experiences with others, we can prolong and amplify positive emotions. These and other savoring strategies can increase our well-being. Yet, it remains unclear whether practicing a diversity of savoring strategies adds its own happiness-boosting effect. In this 1 x 3 randomized controlled study, N = 71 participants either received an 8-day, original interactive scratch-off poster to facilitate high- or low savoring diversity, or they journaled in the control condition. Multiple linear regression models give varied results for well- being outcomes while qualitative data provide insights into the intervention’s effectiveness at promoting positive experiences.

DEA 3510/6510 Human Factors and Inclusive Design run by Jay Yoon and Michael Kowalski teamed up with the Downtown Ithaca Alliance (DIA) for the fall semester, 2021. The DIA is a not-for-profit organization charged with the revitalization, development, promotion, and management of downtown Ithaca. The course’s project will address current human factors and inclusivity challenges in using public products in the downtown, especially taking into account the current effects of COVID-19 on public product usage. Two key areas of interaction will be examined: (1) on-street parking pay-stations and (2) outdoor public seating. The students will create design solutions that address a wide range of human variety and abilities (physical and psychosocial) and environmental conditions. The project is generously supported by the DIA and Engaged Cornell.

On August 7, 2020, Michael Kowalski, MA successfully defended his master thesis entitled “I love it, I’ll never use it: Exploring factors of product attachment and their effects on sustainable product consumption behaviors.” The thesis was supervised by Dr. Jay Yoon of Design+Environmental Analysis and Dr. Mark Milstein of the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management.

Abstract
Research on the concept of Product Attachment has shown an increased tendency for product retention and delay in disposal. This has been implied to be more environmentally sustainable, though little empirical evidence of actual use and consumption patterns related to attached products is available. This study seeks to further understanding on the mechanisms of attachment to material possessions that can have implications for sustainable product consumption.
Methods – Two studies have been conducted in sequence. The first involved qualitative semi-structured in-home interviews regarding individuals’ assessment of their relationships with material possessions, and evidence of resultant consumption behavior. The second study involved a quantitative online questionnaire with self-report measures of attachment to material possessions and related component factors, and evidence of resultant behavioral outcomes. The results from the two studies showed both active use and passive use of objects of attachment, with evidence of increased redundant consumption associated with objects exhibiting more passive forms of use. Irreplaceability and its component subfactors suggested a reduction in active use of an attached object, as well as an increased likelihood of redundant consumption of similar objects.

On June 5, 2020, Jialin Ke, BS successfully defended her honors thesis entitled “Design for breathtaking experiences: An exploration of design strategies to evoke awe in human-product interactions.” The thesis was supervised by Dr. Jay Yoon of Design+Environmental Analysis and Dr. Michael Goldstein of Psychology.

Abstract
From looking up at a tall skyscraper, to the vast depths of the Grand Canyon, or even learning about the extensive network, you may have experienced awe in one way or another. Awe is experienced when one encounters something that is greater or more powerful than her/himself and is known to be associated with prosocial behavior through a diminishment of self-importance. In design research, most of the studies on awe have been conducted in lab conditions, by using technologies such as Virtual Reality because of its efficiency to simulate typical awe-stimulating conditions (e.g., nature scenes). While useful in inducing awe and assessing its effects on users, they gave very little guidance as to how the experiences of awe can be deliberately evoked through design. Most attempts tend to focus on the response of awe instead of its underlying eliciting conditions (i.e., mechanism), which is illustrated by the fact that many studies on awe utilized nature imagery. With a proposition that it can be advantageous for designers to understand when and how awe can be facilitated in human-product interactions, this thesis explores design strategies to evoke awe through an exploratory top-down-bottom-up approach. Based on appraisal theory, a theoretical overview of the underlying conditions of awe was formulated (i.e., top-down), based on which its relevance to designing for awe was investigated. The conditions that underlie awe in the domain of design were empirically explored by means of a survey in which participants reported over 150 awe examples and experiences (i.e., bottom-up). These examples were analyzed, resulting in six design strategies to evoke awe. The thesis describes these design strategies with design examples and discusses their implications for the design practice.