1,117 research outputs found
Design for Happiness Deck
No full textTo design for happiness sounds like a grand undertaking. Some might even say an overly ambitious one – but we disagree. We believe that explicitly focusing on customer happiness is an indispensable part of user-centred design and, ultimately, a reliable predictor of a design’s success.As design researchers at the Delft Institute of Positive Design (TU Delft), we seek to advance our understanding of the ways products and services can be designed to foster human happiness. We develop tools that designers and organisations can use to tap into the vast potential of lasting wellbeing.This Design for Happiness Deck is one example of our work. Use it to break down the seemingly overwhelming phenomenon of happiness into manageable components that offer you a direct doorway to ideation and analyses of your design project.Made by The Delft Institute of Positive DesignDesign Aesthetic
Positive design: An introduction to design for subjective well-being
No full textThis paper addresses the question of how design can contribute to the happiness of individuals–to their subjective well-being. A framework for positive design is introduced that includes three main components of subjective well-being: pleasure, personal significance and virtue. Each component represents an ingredient of design for happiness, and we propose that design that expressly includes all three ingredients is design that promotes human flourishing. People who flourish are developing as individuals, live their lives to their fullest potential, and act in the best interests of society. The intention to support human flourishing is the explicit, central design objective of positive design. Five characteristics of positive design are proposed, all of which are of relevance to organizing design processes that intend to result in designs that stimulate human flourishing. In addition, some contemporary design approaches are discussed that focus on quality of life, including nudge, capability approach, and experience design. Four important research challenges are outlined to indicate directions for a research agenda. Together with the framework, these research directions are intended to offer inspiration for designers and design researchers to join forces in their endeavours to design for subjective well-being.Industrial DesignIndustrial Design Engineerin
SECURITY OF SUPPLY DURING THE ENERGY TRANSITION:THE ROLE OF CAPACITY MECHANISMS
No full textThe push for clean energy has caused a rapid growth of renewables in the electricity supply mix of the EU. Although one would assume that the impact of these technologies is entirely positive, recent research and experience indicate that there is reason for concern namely regarding the security of supply. In this context, the concern is how renewable energy sources (RES) affect the business case of conventional power generation. In response to this concern, capacity mechanisms are being considered or have already been implemented by various member states of the EU. However, in a highly interconnected electricity system, such as the one in Europe, there appears to be a risk that the uncoordinated implementation of capacity mechanisms may cause unintended cross-border effects. This research explored the performance of various capacity mechanisms in an electricity system with a strong growth in the portfolio share of variable renewable energy sources (RES). The cross-border effects of implementing various capacity mechanisms in an interconnected power system were also analyzed. In this research, two capacity mechanisms, namely a strategic reserve and a capacity market, were modeled as extensions to the EMLab-Generation agent-based model. Furthermore, two variations of a capacity market were analyzed. The first was a yearly capacity market design and the second was a forward capacity market with long term contracts. A survey of experts on the US capacity markets supplemented the modeling work with practical insights.QC 20161006The Doctoral Degrees issued upon completion of the programme are issued by Comillas Pontifical University, Delft University of Technology and KTH Royal Institute of Technology. The invested degrees are official in Spain, the Netherlands and Sweden, respectively.copyright (c) 2016 P. C. Bhagwat</p
Design for Happiness Deck
No full textThe Design for Happiness Deck is a card-set that you can use to tap into the vast potential of lasting well-being. Based on the Positive Design framework developed by Pieter Desmet and Anna Pohlmeyer (2013, 2017), the three card sets explore three essential aspects of designing for happiness:
Pleasure – happiness that comes from enjoying the moment
Personal Significance – happiness derived from having a sense of progressing towards a future goal and from the awareness of past achievements
Virtue – happiness that is the result of morally valued behaviour
For each aspect, a fine-grained overview of 24 potential manifestations is provided – 24 shades of pleasure, 24 human goals and 24 virtuous character strengths, combining to a total set of 72 cards.
References:
> Desmet, P.M.A., & Pohlmeyer, A.E. (2013). Positive design: An introduction to design for subjective well-being. International Journal of Design, 7(3), 5-19.
> Pohlmeyer, A.E. & Desmet, P.M.A. (2017). From good to the greater good. In J. Chapman (Ed.) The Routledge handbook of sustainable product design (pp. 469-486). London: Routledge.Find more information here:
https://diopd.org/design-for-happiness-deck
Design with Symbolic Meaning: Introducing well-being related symbolic meaning in design
No full textThis doctoral thesis focuses on the positive design strategy of designing with symbolic meaning as a way to support people’s well-being. It investigates the concept of wellbeing related symbolic meaning, and proposes design directions to inspire and inform designers to introduce it in the design process. This concept of well-being related symbolic meaning is defined as the intangible quality products have that links to and affects people’s psychological well-being (their mental fortitude, their sense of self-worth and belonging, their sense of purposefulness, etc.) and, in turn, affects their subjective well-being (their perception of how happy they are). It originates in representations of personally significant things (memories, people, places, ideals, achievements, goals, etc.) and in meaningful interactions (rituals, mediation of relationships, etc.) and subsequent representation of these interactions, linked to determinants of well-being – purpose in life, personal growth, self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, and environmental mastery. This meaning implies a process of cultivation and can evoke different types of emotions, often complex.Positive design aims to develop design that is pleasurable, virtuous, and personally significant, having explored different strategic paths to achieve that: design as a direct source of well-being, as a facilitator of experiences and activities that are well-being conducive, as an indirect cue or nudge towards well-being, focusing on experiences, focusing on emotions, etc. Our approach contributes to that goal by investigating design as a symbol of well-being. Consequently, design with well-being related symbolic meaning – i.e., design with the deliberate intention to represent, anticipate, preserve, or revisit significant aspects of life linked to people’s well-being – can be a strategy to develop products that support people’s well-being, and that are potentially relevant and emotionally durable, have continued value and appreciation, and that stimulate deeper and longer-lasting person-product relationships.This research fulfils three goals: to understand, to translate, and to communicate. The first goal refers to understanding the phenomenon of well-being related symbolic meaning in material possessions. We addressed it by investigating ‘lived’ products with personal meaning, in people’s homes. The second goal concerns the translation of knowledge about well-being related symbolic meaning into actionable design directions that are understandable and usable by designers. The third goal is about communicating the design directions in an engaging and usable format for designers.Chapter 1 explains the concept of well-being and describes its link to products and to design, specifying our approach within the field of positive design. Chapter 2 reviews literature to present types of product meaning, and to characterize and differentiate symbolic product meaning. Chapter 3 reports a study that looks at determinants of psychological well-being in cherished material possessions, resulting in six well-being related symbolic meanings that can be designed for. Chapter 4 reports a study that resulted in sixteen design direction from the six symbolic meanings, as a way to design for well-being. Chapter 5 explores a means to communicate the developed design directions through an iterative process and proposes a toolkit for designers (i.e., the SIM toolkit). Chapter 6 reports the application of the developed toolkit in workshops and in industry cases, and results in insights about its use, format, and impact. Chapter 7 summarizes the main insights and respective implications of this thesis, discussing them and presents limitations and possible future avenues for research.Mafalda Casais was born on November 25th, 1984, in Lisbon, Portugal. She did a three-year illustration course, followed by an undergraduate degree in Design, from the Lisbon School of Architecture. During the undergraduate degree, Mafalda spent one year in Italy, at the University of Genoa, within the European exchange programme Erasmus. She then was awarded a Master degree in Product Design, by the Lisbon School of Architecture, University of Lisbon. In her Master thesis, Mafalda investigated the green kitchen as a central part of an emerging type of consumer. This work laid the foundation for what it meant to conduct user research and design things that are relevant for longer – a seed of meaningful relations between products and people, which then inspired the PhD project. In 2011, Mafalda received a doctoral grant awarded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), a public agency part of the Portuguese Ministry for Science, Technology and Higher Education, to conduct a PhD project. This project was developed at the Delft Institute of Positive Design, at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, TU Delft. The research focused on well-being related symbolic meaning in products.Design Aesthetic
How designers and marketers can work together to support consumers' happiness
No full textA product’s value proposition rests on the notion that it brings value to its customers. Typically, such value is created by having novel product functionality, superior technology, or new customer benefits, but value can also be created by adhering to what is fundamentally important to customers in their lives. Focusing on customers’ happiness is a value proposition of the latter kind. Yet, implementing such an approach requires that designers and marketers have a common understanding of the product’s value proposition, and work together to create authentic value propositions about happiness that will also be compelling in the marketplace. In this article, we draw upon the positive psychology literature and present three propositions of design for happiness that designers and marketers can use to communicate and create value together. Design for happiness means designing business concepts with the aim of building and supporting long-term consumer happiness. The three propositions that we bring forward are: 1) design for fostering social relationships and belongingness, 2) design for meaning in life, and 3) design for making consumers active participants rather than passive observers. These propositions create a shared understanding of what “design for happiness” can contribute to customers, and how it can contribute to profits and sales.Product Innovation ManagementIndustrial Design Engineerin
Walkmen: A mobility tool that allows the visually impaired to experience a feeling of autonomy
No full textThis thesis is the final result of the graduation project of the master programme Design for Interaction at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at the TU Delft (Delft, The Netherlands). The project is done for the Delft Institute of Positive Design in collaboration with Marten van Doorn from Bartimeus. When glasses or contact lenses are not sufficient enough to correct someone’s vision, visually impairment is diagnosed. The Netherlands counts 345.000 people who are visually impaired or blind. On estimate, 2020 will count 380.000 visually impaired people (Keunen, 2011). This is an increase of 20% since 2009, due to aging and diabetes (Bartimeus, 2017). Especially when it comes to mobility, visually impaired people (VIPs) are continuously challenged. They use a cane to detect passing obstacles and recognition points. However, the cane does not lead the route to these recognitions points which make the visually impaired in need for other assisting solutions. Dependency and autonomy seem to clash with each other: Assistive technologies provide additional certainty within the field of mobility but often taking away a piece of autonomy. Autonomy is defined as “freedom from external control or influence; independence” (Stevenson & Lindberg, 2010). Being autonomous is a psychological need for well-being (Ryff & Keyes, 1995), which will be the primary focus of this project. This result into the following assignment: Assignment Design a mobility tool for visually impaired people that lets them experience a feeling of autonomy. New developments seem to fail because of their distance from real-world settings (Loomis, Klatzky & Giudice, 2012; Maidenbaum, 2014). Besides, Loomis et al. states that many assistive technologies are a result of a solution to a practical problem and that the outcome is based on the type of engineering that is available. This approach to new product development is known as the engineering trap. Therefor the primary approach is to stay as close as possible to the real-world setting by designing for autonomy with empathy with the main goal to contribute to the well-being of visually impaired people in the field of mobility. This is done by looking the context from different angels: : the own experience lens, the VIP experience lens ant the expert lens- This is done by doing research and design explorations. These explorations create insights of VIP’s daily life -including benefits and struggles- required theoretical research, own experiences (as being visually impaired), observations and interviews. This resulted in a list of VIP superpowers, mobility mindsets, main mobility concerns, four dimensions of autonomy a list for characteristics for autonomous assistive tools. These insights are translated into an opportunity to design. In the current situation, being in control is an important aspect for VIPs to be able to know the route, walk smoothly and prevent mistakes, although the definition of autonomy is about freedom from external factors. There seems to be an opportunity to design for impulsivity within the mobility context. Therefore, the following question will serve as the leading question for the next explorations: Opportunity Is there room for impulsivity while being in control? To be able to understand the meaning of impulsivity in the VIP mobility context, four cycles of design explorations are done. Every iteration loop starts with a different definition of impulsivity based on the previous iteration. Next, ideas are generated and evaluated on autonomy. These iterations resulted in the final impulsivity definition, the three design characteristics and the design goal. The definition of impulsivity states that; Impulsivity definition Make a small mental detour. In the current situation, VIPs have a number of fixed routes in their mind. They do need help in this route if they got lost in orientation due to distractions caused by noisy traffic, obstacle or noisy weather conditions. Mostly they ask for confirmation when they ask for help, to retake their control on their current orientation. It is established that one of the design characteristics describes that feeling autonomous is not about receiving less help, but it is about the type of help. So how can the design support VIPs in their mobility activity, instead of helping them? If VIPs feel supported, it will open the possibility that there is no need for 100% focus. So they will walk their route as good as possible and have the possibility to make a small mental detour by paying attention to the unpractical elements of the route. Therefore, the following design brief is formulated: Design brief Design a supporting device that illustrates the current position within a preprogrammed known route on demand, that opens the opportunity for a small mental detour by paying attention to the unpractical elements of the environment. The design translates this design goal into the concept design: Walkmen. The design Walkmen is a support tool which is a GPS connected voice recorder on your smart-phone. With Walkmen, you can track routes and create your mobility tool, which can be used as support tool. The design is tested from different perspectives: my own experience, VIP’s experience and experts’ discussion. The perspectives are the same as those used in explorations done at the beginning of the project. Overall, the tests made me realize that the need for concept design is urgent. People are intrigued by freedom that the device provides, so they are able to make their own personal reference tool which is easily accessible. As an additional deliverable, a booklet is made with principles for designers, who want to design for autonomy for people who are in need for assistance. To conclude, daily life is not designed for VIPs, but designed by and for sighted people. Unfortunately, many tools for VIPs are nowadays designed by sighted people to provide assistance to fill the gap of the missing visual senses. Within this project it is found that the mobility tool for VIPs should be a support tool instead of an assistive tool in order to evoke a feeling of autonomy. Walkmen is a result of the approach taken which includes the autonomous design characteristics and, according to the validation, evokes a feeling of autonomy.Design for Interactio
Beyond surprise: A longitudinal study on the experience of visual-tactual incongruities in products
No full textWhen people encounter products with visual-tactual incongruities, they are likely to be surprised because the product feels different than expected. In this paper, we investigate (1) the relationship between surprise and the overall liking of the products, (2) the emotions associated with surprise, and (3) the long-term effects of surprise. We created products that were similar in visual appearance but that differed in their tactual characteristics. Participants evaluated the same products at three different points in time. Surprise was often followed by the emotions interest, fascination, amusement, confusion, indignation and irritation. We suggest that the liking for surprising products may be the composite effect of a decreased liking due to unfamiliar characteristics and increased liking due to positive emotions following surprise. Although the effect of surprise diminishes over time, it persists and can be demonstrated at multiple occasions.Industrial Design Engineerin
Graph filter design using sum-of-squares representation
No full textGraph filters are an essential part of signal processing on graphs enabling one to modify the spectral content of the graph signals. This paper proposes a graph filter optimization method with an exact control of the ripple on the passband and the stopband of the filter. The proposed filter design method is based on the sum-of-squares representation of positive polynomials. The optimization of both FIR and ARMA graph filters is convex with the proposed method.Peer reviewe
Mood Regulation as a Design Topic: Interview with Pieter Desmet
No full textPieter Desmet is the founding co-director of the Delft Institute of Positive Design, chair of the TU Delft Department of Human Centered Design, and Director of the Delft Design Labs. After introducing cognitive emotion theory to the field of design research, he established the Design and Emotion Society. Full professor of Design for Experience at TU Delft, Desmet is also co-editor of Design and Emotion Moves (Cambridge Scholars, 2008) and co-author of Positive Design: An Introduction to Design for Subjective Well-Being (IJDesign, 2013). Pieter Desmet, who holds a PhD in the domain of Emotion Psychology, has been recently awarded a five-year personal grant to research about the nuances of human mood in human-product interactions. Besides his academic activities, he also contributes to local community projects, such as a recently developed sensory wellness neighborhood park, and a cultural ‘House of Happiness’ located in Rotterdam. In this interview, Desmet discusses the background to positive design, as well as the practical and ethical challenges that arise from using such an approach. He also refers to his latest research initiative: Design for Mood Regulation. Finally, Desmet explains how he transfers the knowledge he develops to companies
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