Designing for wellbeing

interaction design shifted from offices to everyday practices, and mobile
phones became the iconic design product, user orientation changed again.
When designers want to know with whom and about what people share
information, trust becomes essentially more important. With design for
wellbeing we are now facing the fourth phase of sensitivity. When design
teams aim to contribute to the design of health and social services, for
example child protection, psychiatric care or reporting sexually transmitted
infections, doing it through a process including stakeholders – as we
believe is the right way – places the sensitivity and privacy of individuals
at its core. Sensitivity is the design target but it is also a condition that
defines its approaches. We believe real people with their real conditions
are the fundamental foundation for design, the understanding of which
calls for cross-disciplinary dialogue. But how can we talk – and show and
create images – about things that are extremely private and sensitive?
One of the questions that we need to address, optimally before but
at least after parachuting into this new territory, is what type of contribution
should we aim at. Sometimes it is possible for designers to identify
solutions that seem attractive and on some kind of superficial level
would solve certain problems, but which at the end of the day would not
be compatible with system structures and thus would most likely remain
unused. Should we work for and wait until we have gathered a proper and
deep understanding of the healthcare system, and then contribute with
focused, compatible and well-integrated solutions? Or should we choose
the opposite way and turn our ignorance into a strength, using design as a
way to ask questions and illuminate conventions that could be changed?
It might be possible that from time to time good design would be a reason
to change current practices.
Historically, participatory design has had a political agenda of ensuring
the democratic participation of employees in the development of their
working environment. Some interpretations underline the importance
of the participation as a tactic to get stakeholders committed to change.
22 · Design, wellbeing and design for wellbeing