Category: Design and research projects

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Inner visions: Designing a behavioral intervention technology to assist young adults in the understanding and articulation of personal goals


Publication

  • Ozambela S., Ozambela J.P., Yang Q., & Yoon J. (2024) Inner visions: Designing a behavioral intervention technology to assist young adults in the understanding and articulation of personal goals (work-in-progress)

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.

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Connecting sustainable and well-being-enhancing behaviors: Reflections through daily practices of young adults

Publication

  • Kowalski, M. & Yoon, J. (2024). Connecting sustainable and well-being-enhancing behaviors: Reflections through daily practices of young adults. DRS: Design Research Society, Boston, MA. Download
  • Kowalski, M. & Yoon, J. (2024). Connecting Sustainable Behavior and Subjective Well-being: An Experiential Model for Design, Journal of Design Research (Under review)

An experience sampling study was conducted to further understand daily activities of young adults with implications for Environmentally Sustainable Behavior (SB) and Subjective Well-being (SWB) simultaneously. Studies on SB and SWB are pre- sent in established bodies of design research, though connection across these strands appears limited. Analysis of 209 survey responses from 27 participants showed that while many activities were reported with mutually positive outcomes for SB and SWB, when there was conflict, individuals were more likely to prioritize their own subjective well-being over environmental sustainability. Activities that included designed prod- ucts and environments that more readily supported SB and SWB without imposing an external conflict, and those that included social bonding and sharing of resources led to more mutually positive outcomes. The findings present avenues for design research- ers and practitioners in developing designs that can address individuals’ well-being and environmentally sustainable behavior in a more positive and complimentary manner.

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Bloom: Scaffolding multiple positive emotion regulation techniques to enhance casual conversations and promote the subjective well-being of emerging adults

Publication

  • Kozin, K., Mapara, S., Bao, J., Chao, H, & Yoon, J. (2024) Bloom: Scaffolding multiple positive emotion regulation techniques to enhance casual conversations and promote the subjective well-being of emerging adults (manuscript in preparation).

Bloom is an interactive artifact created to address the lack of meaningful in-person social interactions among emerging adults. Drawing upon emotion regulation theories, the development of Bloom explores whether incorporating multiple Positive Emotion Regulation (PER) techniques into a single artifact can effectively enhance users’ subjective well-being in their routines. The paper discusses the design methodology employed to develop a prototype that supports five PER techniques, along with the design components, and preliminary user testing of the prototype. The chosen PER techniques are: (1) Being immersed and absorbed, (2) Engaging in a collective, (3) Creating a savoring atmosphere, (4) Sharing the positive experience with others, and (5) Infusing ordinary events with positive meaning. The paper discusses the benefits of enabling users to utilize diverse PER techniques to enhance their well-being, and future research directions for assessing the efficacy of Bloom and refining its design.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Does practicing a diversity of savoring techniques help enhance happiness?

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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.

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Decision-making experiences of maximizers and satisficers in human-design interactions

Publication

  • Shin, Y., Ranjan, K., Kowalski, M., and Yoon, J. (2023). Investigating the Decision-making Experiences of Maximizers and Satisficers: The Case of Interactions with Conversational Music Recommender Systems. Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2023). ACM. (Under review)

This project investigates a human-centered perspective for creating a recommender system by focusing on users’ different decision-making styles and information processing modes. According to emerging research in behavioral science, people’s decision-making tendencies can be broadly classified into two styles: (1) maximizers, who strive to maximize the expected utility and, (2) satisficers, who want to reach their own sufficiency. When users exert a high level of cognitive elaboration in decision-making, they engage in analytical processing, while imagery processing takes place when cognitive elaboration is low. Utilizing these theoretical distinctions, we developed Arlo Assistant, a conversational user interface that differentiates ways of recommending music. Through an in-lab experiment, we tested the effects of using Arlo Assistant on both maximizers’ and satisficers’ decision-making experiences. The study provides initial evidence that a personalized recommender system tailored to users’ different decision-making styles can facilitate more positive experiences and discusses implications for developing recommender systems.

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Variapsody: Creating three interactive music listening experiences that use diversified positive emotion regulation strategies to promote subjective well-being

Publication

  • Ghanem, M. & Yoon, J. (2022). Variapsody: Creating three interactive music listening experiences that use diversified positive emotion regulation strategies to promote subjective well-being.  CHI’22 Late-Breaking Work on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI LBW 2022). ACM. New Orleans, LA, USA. Download

Over the past decade, initiatives to design for subjective well-being have gained increased attention and momentum in design research. These initiatives often draw from positive psychology to explore ways of making Positive Psychology Interventions (PPIs) more effective through technology. This paper explores how a mix of tangible and digital technology can realize activity-focused, diverse emotion regulation for its users. We propose that emotion regulation strategies can serve as a principle for designing technology that encourages users to savor, modify, reassess, or commemorate their experiences. By centering the design around music listening experiences, the paper demonstrates how users can be supported to overcome motivation hurdles that get in the way of frequent engagement with a PPI. Variapsody is a device that enriches music listening with three features, each deploying a different set of emotion regulation strategies that make the experience more enjoyable and meaningful. Variapsody’s regulatory diversity offers users the choice of how to approach music listening and expands their repertoire of ER strategies. The first feature, Reaction Tile, inscribes users’ reactions to music onto a tangible, domino-sized tile to encourage them to savor the music. The second is Monofilter, which purposefully muffles the salience of background music while working on a cognitively demanding task. Vibelist is the third feature that helps users capture and revisit the context of music listening experiences in a digital collage. The paper discusses the lessons learned and future research opportunities.

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Violating aesthetic principles as means to influence usage behaviors

Publication

  • Welgoss, B. & Yoon, J. (2021). 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. Designing Interactive Systems. ACM. Download.

This project 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. The project offers insights into the benefits and relevance of aesthetic violation, strategy formation, and integration into the design process.