Design for Wellbeing

The IDEA Research Lab aims to enhance interdisciplinary collaboration and exploration in the Interior Design field in Saudi Arabia. The identified themes of the IDEA Research Group are directly related to the Saudi Vision 2030 (A vibrant society… with fulfilling lives). For instance, the group will focus on people and their behaviours, their national identity and ancient cultural heritage, their environment and landscape, protecting families and empowering their social and health system. One of the main topics connected to the Saudi context will be the role of women in architecture and design: as stated also in Saudi Vision 2030 in the goal (Providing equal opportunities), the IDEA research group will focus on the Saudi women's work within architecture, industrial and interior design professions of cultural and social relevance for contemporaneity. The research themes are opened to a wide range of different fields of studies that support the interior design discipline, like humanities, technologies, engineering, and social science. Lab Vision The vision of the IDEA Research Group (Interior Design Environment and Arts) is to promote and develop research and training, placing people and the community at the center. Mission Enhance the quality of life within the interior environment and promote an interdisciplinary research to be innovative and competitive in the Interior field in Saudi Arabia and at an international level. Lab Objectives The key objective is to constantly pursue innovation in design with regard to spaces, objects, methods and means of communication and enhancing and promoting the enjoyment of cultural and environmental heritage; and fostering innovation in social relations.

Dr. Rehab Aburas, Dr. Göze Bayram, Dr. Samaher Fallatah, Dr. Irene Pasina, Ms. Renad Al-Sekait, Ms. Noura Al-Fowzan

Abstract: Internal logic of technologically led consumerist society will function to bring everyone under its world view by using terminologies of democracy and choice in political realm and help and concern in social realm. Definitions of 'wellbeing' and 'sustainability' would be redefined  accordingly.
Sustainability is  the way of Nature. It can't be practiced as an afterthought. Sustainable system is one in which harmony of all aspects of production- man, material, method have a symbiotic relationship. In the act of engaging with the world man is awakened to the cyclic nature of life. This defines the process and the way material- re source-able, renew-able, re generate-able and recycle-able- is used.
The linear, exponential 'growth' of modernity and sustainable, re-cyclic change in tradition are after all formed by respective cognitive conditions. An objective enquiry is called for to understand how the respective world views- one of alienation and other reintegration- are formed.

Concerns over the impact of technologies on psychological health have led to a growing interest in ‘digital wellbeing’ and related research within HCI. In order for technologies to better respect psychological needs, designers will need to incorporate wellbeing-supportive design knowledge and methods into their practice in ways that are practical and scalable. To this end, we developed and evaluated a workshop and resources intended to equip technology-makers with the research-based knowledge and skills necessary to design in ways that better support psychological wellbeing. We report on findings from two iterations of the workshop conducted with HCI and technology professionals. Results from surveys of 56 participants demonstrate that the final workshop was considered valuable, well-structured, and successful in improving knowledge of wellbeing psychology in ways transferrable to practice. We also share lessons learned in the process that might generalise to workshop development in HCI more broadly.

Many of the Design for Development outcomes which are unsuited to the users and their environment are based on poorly defined needs and preferences. Product designers are trained to take the user perspective into account, but they are not specifically trained to conduct ethnographic research. Thereby, they have limited time and resources to explore the user context. A systemic approach that efficiently guides designers to develop a social needs inventory would therefore be valuable. An approach that urges designers to move beyond the investigation of product-user interaction and to look comprehensively towards their potential users’ context and their valued beings and doings.

This book is about the development of such an approach. The Capability Driven Design approach guides product designers to conduct rapid, rigorous and comprehensive user context research, specifically in Design for Development projects. By using this approach, designers are guided to make informed design decisions and to improve the accessibility, applicability, acceptance and adoption of their designs. To develop this approach, analytic guidance was derived from Sen’s ‘Capability Approach’, and practical guidance was derived from the
domains of Human-Centred Design, Design for Development and Rapid Ethnography. The Capability Driven Design approach aims to support designers in designing products and / or services that improve the well-being of their users by enabling them to choose the lives that they value.

Esta pesquisa aborda a leitura em voz alta entre adultos com foco no entretenimento. O projeto foi inspirado na percepção de como os livros infantis se tornam um mediador da interação entre o adulto e a criança. Nesta proposta, intenta-se replicar entre adultos essa conexão percebida; agora não mais por uma necessidade de auxílio, mas sim, por uma vontade de estar com o outro em um momento de entretenimento. Logo, o objetivo geral é contribuir através do design editorial com a promoção de relações positivas entre adultos por meio da leitura em voz alta. No processo investigativo a metodologia escolhida foi a Teoria Fundamentada em Dados e, junto com esta, utilizaram-se protótipos experimentais. A abordagem da pesquisa se alinhou ao Design Positivo. Dessa forma, buscou-se encontrar possibilidades de projeto que melhorassem o bem-estar subjetivo dos usuários, focando-se principalmente no aspecto social do livro. Nos primeiros estudos exploratórios foi observada a dinâmica da leitura oral que acontecia naturalmente em pares e em grupo. Com base nesses resultados, os protótipos realizados passaram a ter diretrizes mais delimitadas para o usuário, as quais envolviam leitura, desenho e pintura, assim como abrangiam tanto pessoas que já se conheciam previamente como desconhecidos. Foram desenvolvidos dois protótipos físicos: The Listener’s Book e O Alienista – para ser lido a dois. O primeiro consistia em um livro específico para os ouvintes utilizarem quando estivessem ouvindo a leitura. Em suas páginas, ao invés de conter texto, foram oferecidos espaços para desenhar que acompanhavam o ritmo de leitura do "livro do autor". O segundo apresentava a proposta do modelo editorial Leitura Distribuída. Nessa edição o conteúdo foi dividido de forma alternada em dois volumes para ser lido em voz alta por duas pessoas juntas: um volume continha os capítulos pares e, o outro, os ímpares; naqueles em que o texto estava ausente foram disponibilizadas ilustrações para serem coloridas pelo ouvinte. Os protótipos se mostraram satisfatórios dentro do objetivo proposto e propiciaram aos leitores momentos de interação, relaxamento e aproximação. Através de seus resultados foi possível estabelecer diretrizes a serem seguidos em outras propostas de design com o foco na leitura compartilhada.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This research is about the development of a design framework intended for adults who read out loud to other adults as a prosocial activity. Although it addresses both reading and listening, the focus of the design activity is on adult listeners. The project was inspired by children’s books, in how they serve as a mediator for the interaction between the adult and child. The idea is to replicate the same experience between adults, not anymore for a necessity of help to read, but now for a willingness to be together during a moment of leisure. Therefore, the general goal of this project is to promote, through Editorial Design the strengthening of affective bond among adults through reading out loud practices. The methodology is based on Project-grounded research, with the resources of experimental prototypes addressed to thinking how could design enhance the out-loud reading experience for an adult listener. The study follows the Positive Design’s approach, searching design possibilities to enhance the subjective well-being of the users, focusing especially on the social aspects of the book that used to be present at least until the beginning of the 19th, century. First, the experimental prototypes were made to better comprehend the oral reading dynamic that happened naturally between pairs and small groups. Based on these results, the following ones were more concentrated at practice possibilities, including reading, drawing, and painting, and involving people who already knew each other, as well as people who did not know each other before the reading experience. Two physical prototypes were developed: The Listener’s Book and O Alienista – para ser lido a dois. The first one consists of a booklet with blank and illustrated pages, with numbered pages that would directly relate to the page spreads of the book that would be read. The idea is to maintain a relationship between the "author’s book" and the "Listener’s Book". The second was an edition of the model Distributed Reading. It uses two books. One contains the odd-numbered chapters, with visual and text prompts replacing the even-numbered chapters. The companion book reverses the pattern, with the original content in its even-numbered chapters, and prompts replacing odd-numbered chapters. Both prototypes proved to be satisfactory in promoting among the readers moments of relaxation, interaction, and closeness. Through the achieved results it was possible to establish guidelines to be followed in future projects involving shared reading experiences that strengthens affective bonds.

Digital technologies have now become a means of facilitating and empowering information and communication, having on touch-screen devices a reality that, although still recent, already has a considerable impact in today's society. Children are among their main supporters and users, and therefore also at the center of the debate about their use. However, if much of this discussion has been limited to problems related to its excessive (and even addictive) use, the truth is that these supports are especially effective as communication interfaces for children with some kind of difficulty. Focusing research on children with special educational needs, the early identification of a shortage of solutions for deaf children denoted a reality that extends to the context of the classroom, where the great majority of materials used are developed by educators, who, despite their best, present natural gaps in specific training in design or visual communication, thus underutilizing a unique opportunity to make the learning process faster, more effective and more rewarding. In the absence of the sense of hearing, the pedagogy of the project, which supports the teaching-learning process of these children, appeals to other senses - above all vision and touch - stimulating the "experivience" for the acquisition of concepts. This was the favorable context that promoted this research work, which, based on the bibliography consulted and observation sessions on the ground, considered digital technologies as an opportunity of enormous potential in the education of deaf or low-hearing children. Based on research on a cross-sectional basis, this document seeks to affirm the fundamental role design plays in designing these products - in a holistic approach that addresses the various needs, agents and constraints, and which, given the idiosyncrasies of these children, may result in clear benefits increasing their literacy.

Design has turned towards positive psychology, noticing its potential beyond overcoming problems and tracing possibilities to enhance quality of life. As a newly blossoming domain, design for well-being faces with challenges like correct translation of well-being concept and advancing a shared language. Calls are made for empirical research to test, discuss and expand on already introduced materials. This paper exemplifies a use case of an existing framework, the Design Well-Being Matrix, and builds on it by demonstrating alternate use opportunities considering designers’ needs from user research deliverables. The case involves the utilisation of the framework as an analysis, synthesis, and communication tool in a research on characteristics of digital health technologies that aim at enhancing the well-being of pregnant women.

Abstract This paper presents recommendations for designing activity trackers that can support long-term tracking behaviour. These recommendations are based on a six-month field study exploring activity trackers’ impact on physical activity (PA) performance and the aspects leading to abandonment. Twenty-six individuals, who were assigned to the activity tracker condition (i.e. Fitbit One) or the control condition, took part in the study. Semi-structured interviews, Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ), and activity data derived from the tracker were used to understand participants’ expectations, experiences, and insights about tracking PA. Proposed recommendations are: (1) consider the diversity in users’ expectations when designing activity trackers; (2) allow users to experiment with different trackers; (3) design half-way products that can be customized based on users’ lifestyles; (4) prioritize reflection over quantification; and (5) design for successful abandonment.

Happiness is one of the major influences in what makes people use products, and what makes those products an important part of daily life. What drives these aspects, some arisen from personal appraisement and some directly related to the product qualities, are important for designers, as the experiences designers form tend to affect these aspects heavily. Driven from this idea, in this paper, an exploration on the evolution of positive user experience with technological products was conducted. We asked users to think about the technological products they enjoy the most, how their experiences changed over time, and what makes them still use the product. Different qualities regarding their experience were found, some human-related, some product-related, and the relations between these qualities were looked upon further in depth. The result presented itself as a theoretical model to achieve sustained usage of technological products.

This paper presents recommendations for designing activity trackers that can support long-term tracking behaviour. These recommendations are based on a six-month field study exploring activity trackers’ impact on physical activity (PA) performance and the aspects leading to abandonment. Twenty-six individuals, who were assigned to the activity tracker condition (i.e. Fitbit One) or the control condition, took part in the study. Semi-structured interviews, Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ), and activity data derived from the tracker were used to understand participants’ expectations, experiences, and insights about tracking PA. Proposed recommendations are: (1) consider the diversity in users’ expectations when designing activity trackers; (2) allow users to experiment with different trackers; (3) design half-way products that can be customized based on users’ lifestyles; (4) prioritize reflection over quantification; and (5) design for successful abandonment.