Design for Happiness and Subjective Well-Being Portfolio Kevin Shahbazi

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design for happiness and well-being selected works by Kevin Shahbazi

DESIGNER

K. Shahbazi (4273451)

DATE

08-04-2014, TU Delft

COURSE

ID5563 - Design for Happiness

RECIPIENTS

Dr.ir. A.E. Pohlmeyer (Anna), Delft Institute of Positive Design, TU Delft Prof.dr.ir. P.M.A. Desmet (Pieter), Delft Institute of Positive Design, TU Delft

Contents nc e

Ple • as ure

Pe rso na • • lS ign ifia

Human Flourishing

V • irtue • •

Foreward 5 Design for Pleasure 7 Dunes 8 Massage Booth 10 Design for Personal Significance 13 Hammoclock 14 xHale 16 Design for Virtue 19 Peering 20 Life is Short 22

All designs presented in this portoflio aim to hit the “sweet spot” of human flourishing by achieving harmony between the three pillars of subjective wellbeing.

Desmet & Pohlmeyer (2013)

Foreward In designing for subjective well-being, the approach I took was to take the three pillars of human flourishing

by Desmet & Pohlmeyer (2013) as starting points.

This portfolio presents six chair concepts that balance pleasure, personal significance and virtue.

Why design a chair? How can a chair be related to happiness? We sit in chairs multiple times in the day without even noticing. We sit to reflect, work and rest. This small item we’ve accustomed ourselves to supports us throughout our lives.

I see chairs more broadly than four legs and a seat.

A chair is anything you rest upon. Well-designed chairs take us away from our standing lives and return us back invigorated and with a new outlook. Thus, I see chairs as an opportunity to influence the state of mind of the user; such is my design goal.

Consuming pleasure: you’ll soon become hungrier for more

Design

In an engaging environment, pleasure is derived through osmosis For users who are more eudaimonic than hedonistic, instead of trying to create the source of pleasure, create a locus (space) for pleasure allowing them to visit and consciously introduce pleasure in their lives.

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for Pleasure W

hen designing for pleasure, it can be difficult to make a long-term impact on the user.

Coming from North America, where bigger is often confused with better, my main goal was to try and avoid falling into the hedonic treadmill trap.

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y target group, informal caregivers, often put others’ needs before their own, meaning that they were tough to sell pleasure to.

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believe the trick that helped me find success in creating pleasurable experiences was to focus on delivering places for pleasurable experiences. I found it to be helpful to create an incentive or alibi for the

user to visit these spaces. As such, the chairs I designed focused on creating a locus for quality connections: connecting with yourself (and nature) and connecting with family and friends.

B

y allowing a design to integrate with the inherent variation in peoples’ lives (friends they spend time with, moods they’re in), a chair can reinvent the experience it delivers over and over again.

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8 Design for Pleasure

Dunes Informal caregivers voluntarily dedicate themselves to take care for an ill family member, on top of their jobs and house chores.

I wanted to design a chair that could pull these people out of the house and let them seek refuge in nature.

Dune is designed for dunegrass, which shoots upwards to create a natural shelter. As you take care of the dunegrass, its naturally long roots grow deeper. Dune’s design exposes the roots over time, symbolizing the power of your care.

Inspired by the power that an alibi like “going out for a smoke” has in allowing people to take a quiet moment of tranquility, I designed a chair fused into a garden, inviting caregivers to take a moment’s rest after taking care of the plants and loved ones.

Early sketches. Inspiration was saught from the hilly beaches with private dune areas.

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“I should go water the plants.”

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Watering the plants

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Watering the back side of Dunes

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As you water the side of Dunes, you can watch the water drip down to the roots.

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Taking a moment to yourself in your hidden shelter

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Over time, the care you put in Dunes helps it grow into a beautiful sanctuary

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10 Design for Pleasure

Massage Booth Many of the best experiences in life are shared. I wanted to create an indoor place at home for people to experience physical pleasure in a social environment, just like a hot tub.

Massage booth is a curved couch made up of individual massage chairs, ideal for having discussions and hosting guests. It’s semicircle shape allows members of a family to look at each other, or to a movie all together while experiencing the

Early sketches. Inspiration was saught from the two scales of pleasure encountered in a hot tub: physio-pleasure (from the warm sensation) and socio-pleasure (from enjoying the experience with others).

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Use it yourself

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Watch a movie

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Have an intimate conversation

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Indiividual massage controls in the middle for a shared experience

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Host guests over for a party

pleasurable sensation of a massage. The massage controls are placed in the middle, on a table, to allow family and friends to do each other a nice gesture and adjust each other’s massage routines.

It’s double as much pleasure to get a hassle-free massage with your loved ones.

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Design

Products which help you accomplish your life goals become meaningful for people through repeated use.

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for Personal SigniFicance I

nstead of trying to compete with the unique objects which contain meaning for individuals, supporting people in the pursuit of their goals by means of creating enabling tools can foster meaning through repeated use and building a “relationship” with the product.

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o some extent, I found designing for personal significance to be easier than designing for pleasure, even if pleasure can be a bit more generalized than personal meaning. If one has a clear outline of their persona’s personal goals, it’s important also to design the product in such a way that the

user notices and appreciates the help given to them by the product. If one has a better grasp on the target group’s virtues, designing symbols to represent the values seems more fitting.

••

14 Design for Personal Significance

Hammoclock Inspired by the good old days where we weren’t so distracted with social media and our smartphones, Hammoclock helps people commit to moments of disconnectedness by taking them up in the air on a hammock for a committed period of time.

Ideal for busy students who want to take a guilt-free limited study break, or for people who always feel they’re in a rush and have to keep working on things, Hammoclock helps in balancing the dilemma of wanting to do all activities at once.

What if you could just go up in your hammock, lose track of time and commit to balancing work and personal life?

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Set the timer

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Step into the Hammoclock

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Hammoclock will reel you up so you can commit to your break

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When the timer ends, you will be let down gently. You cannot leave early!

It’s possible to read, reflect and relax in the Hammoclock, whatever activity you commit yourself to. However, it’s difficult to bring your computer in the hammock, based on how you climb into the hammock.

Hammoclock protects you from distractions by keeping track of time for you and giving you no excuse but to stay committed.

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16 Design for Personal Significance

xHale Everyone can benefit from meditating and striving towards inner peace. Nevertheless, some people need help in achieving mindfulness. Committing to yoga classes or other forms of therapy could pose a barrier for some people. xHale helps you learn how to breathe by making contact with your skin and monitoring your heart rate. After exercising or a stressful day, you lay down on xHale and it adapts to your back. Through contact with your skin it can tell when you’re inhaling and exhaling, moving

For those with aging parents, mental health becomes as important to maintain as physical health. Mindfulness and being in the moment are important to learn, but sometimes it can be difficult. xHale is designed to help you master your breahting and calm yourself to a level of tranquility.

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Set your target goal

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Place xHale on the ground in a private place

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Take off your shirt to create good skin contact

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Lay your shoulderblaldes down on xHale

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xHale curves matching your back, signalling

gently to enhance your breathing technique. xHale keeps track of time for you. An exercise can be as short as 2-3 minutes if you master the breathing techniques. xHale helps you lower your heart rate, making it your companion for a healthier, peaceful life.

appropriate skin contact 6.

xHale will gently expand (exhalations) and contract (inhalations) to encourage deep breathing

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xHale monitors your heart rate for progress (slowing)

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Upon heart rate slowing, xHale will gently beep and flatten to signal completion

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Design

Receiving a reflective reminder before a social interaction can make all the difference in helping people exercise the power of their intention.

Virtues can be strengthened only in practice, thus timely opportunities to reflect, dissolved into the every day can be quite helpful.

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for Virtue V

irtues must be pursued for their own right, so I was very careful to introduce external rewards when designing for virtue.

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found it useful to “bend” social situations in such a way to create opportunities for people to show virtue.

Simply asking someone to take initiative in being virtuous is a gentle push and appropriately disruptive–they must muster up the strength from within to reflect on how to do so, and to act.

he pleasurable element in such a technique could come from the reaction of the recipients of virtuous acts, which adds variety and genuine impact to the design.

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20 Design for Virtue

Peering Don’t talk to strangers – that’s what’s frequently taught to kids.

As a result, it’s tough to reach out and brighten up the day of a complete stranger. Peering is a waiting booth in a train station that gives you the opportunity to make an anonymous gesture of kindness to a stranger.

person they are observing via SMS or Whatsapp.

The message is transmitted and displayed on the other side of the barrier to the unsuspecting person.

When two people sit across the barrier, advertisements move away to reveal a one-way mirror.

After a countdown, designed to captivate attention, the observer is presented with a window of opportunity to send a kind (moderated) message to the

In train stations, we often sit close to one another but ignore each other’s presence. What if you could foster empathy between two strangers by making them realize their proximity and giving them an opportunity to be kind to one another?

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Waiting for the train

opportunity to text a kind, anonymous message to a stranger

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Ambient atmosphere

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Someone sits across the division from you

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The stranger receives the message

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Ads roll away to reveal a one-way mirror and a screen counting down from 10.

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You are given the

As an added surprise, if the stranger replies with gratitude to your message, you will receive the message later in the day

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•••

22 Design for Virtue

Life is Short Life Is Short is a ritual object to help you commit to salvaging every last moment with a dying loved one by showing kindness and love. The design is a stool not made for sitting on with a clockface made of a fluteroni and a v-tool carver.

The idea is to keep the stool in a private location, and to sit near it and reflect on how to show gratitude and love to said individual beyond expectations.

You commit to the actions you conceive on the stool, and mark them with carvings.

The user may keep a diary 1.

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gaatha.com

Early ideas. A stool not for sitting, but rather carving and burning, to help bring out virtues here and now with loved ones, and cope with the pain and suffering later.

Reflect on your relationship with your loved one, and how you can show them kindness, love or gratitude When you’ve committed to an idea, carve the stool

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Collect the wood shavings within the stool

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Document the date and your commitmet, carving

to capture more memories around the carvings, their date of transcription and what they signify.

The wood sheddings are collected within the stool itself, for burning upon the loss of your loved one. The seat of the stool becomes a clock to remind you of time well salvaged, as represented by the carvings.

and memory in a diary 5.

Go create the moment with your loved one

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Watch the carvings grow

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Upon loss, burn the wood shavings to help cope

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Keep the stool seat as a clock for a positive reminder

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24  Design for Pleasure

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