S5.E3. Anna Pohlmeyer: Form and Function Follow Experience

Experiences are something we remember for a long time. Much longer than we remember things. How do design for them? With Anna Pohlmeyer, the assistant professor at the Institute for Happiness at Delft University of Technology, we talk about the challenges behind hedonic adaptation, designing for values and virtues. And we also consider designing for inefficiency as a way to engage people on a new, deeper level than it usually happens.

IMPORTANT LINKS

Check out the Delft Institute of Positive Design for a selection of inspiring projects, tools & methods, as well as scientific publications 

Books recommended by Anna:

“Funology: From Usability to Enjoyment” (Human–Computer Interaction Series)

“Designing pleasurable products” by Patrick Jordan

“Sketching User Experiences” by Bill Buxton

“Design of everyday things” by Don Norman

“Design for the real world” by Victor Papanek

“Thinking fast and slow” by Daniel Kahneman

“How of happiness” by Sonja Lyubomirsky

"Speculative everything: design, fiction, and social dreaming" by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby

 

Other links:

PERMA model for well-being

Hedonic adaptation

 

And if you would like to dig even deeper you can check out the following articles on:

 

Positive Design:

- 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.

 

Hedonic Adaptation:

- Frederick, S., & Loewenstein, G. (1999). Hedonic adaptation. In D. Kahneman, E. Diener, & N. Schwarz (Eds.), Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 302-329). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

- Sheldon, K.M., Boehm, J., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2013). Variety is the spice of happiness: The hedonic adaptation prevention model. Oxford handbook of happiness, 901-914.

 

Experiential and material purchases

- Carter, T.J. & Gilovich, T. (2010). The relative relativity of material and experiential purchases. Journal of personality and social psychology, 98(1), 146.

- The study on experience enablers was conducted in collaboration with J. Claus. Mental Subtraction / Taking Notice and Savoring

- Koo, M., Algoe, S. B., Wilson, T. D., & Gilbert, D. T. (2008). It’s a wonderful life: Mentally subtracting positive events improves people’s affective states, contrary to their affective forecasts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 1217–1224.

- The coffee machine that occasionally declines to serve coffee was developed in collaboration with J. Nanne.

- Pohlmeyer, A.E. (2017). How design can (not) support human flourishing. In C. Proctor (ed.), Positive Psychology Interventions in Practice (pp. 235-255). Cham: Springer.