Abstract
This chapter studies how and to what extent it is possible to design for well-being. Well-being is rarely considered in the design literature and is rarely linked to technology and design in philosophy and the social sciences. A few approaches to design for well-being have recently materialized, however, including Emotional Design, capability approaches, positive psychology approaches, and Life-Based Design. In this chapter, the notion of well-being will first be clarified and contemporary theories of and approaches to well-being will be reviewed. Next, theoretical and methodological issues in design for well-being will be discussed that must be accounted for in any successful approach. This will be followed by a review of the abovementioned four approaches to design for well-being. The chapter will conclude by considering open issues and future work in the development of design approaches for well-being.
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Notes
- 1.
Desmet and Pohlmeyer (2013) develop a similar approach within positive psychology which they call positive design. Positive design aims to design for pleasure (personal affect), personal significance (pursuing personal goals), and virtue (being a morally good person). All three should be strived for in each design. Such designs are then held to enhance overall well-being.
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Brey, P. (2015). Design for the Value of Human Well-Being . In: van den Hoven, J., Vermaas, P., van de Poel, I. (eds) Handbook of Ethics, Values, and Technological Design. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6970-0_14
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