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  • Services
  • User Experience & Design
  • Prototyping
  • About Me
    • Portfolio
    • Publications
    • Contact Me

ARE YOU POSITIVE?

David J Gilmore & Aaron Sklar
IDEO, San Francisco, CA, USA
interactions / may + June 2004 / pp28-33, SIGCHI, ACM

2004

As practitioners of human-centered design, we continually strive to develop new methods that ensure and enhance the value of our contributions to multidisciplinary design teams. In our own work, we regularly challenge ourselves to explore outside of the traditional comfort zone of addressing physical and cognitive factors. As we venture to explore beyond the basics, we recognize that creating products and experiences that people will value and enjoy requires positive thinking.

We find inspiration and camaraderie in the growing movement of positive psychology. This perspective emphasizes mental and emotional strengths rather than failings; it reminds us that our role encompasses much more than ensuring safety and minimizing confusion. In fact, all of us in this field have a responsibility to use human-centered design to create experi- ences that delight and empower.

Just as with psychology, human factors (HF) and human-computer interaction have been hampered by a disease model, focused almost exclusively on the diagnosis and avoidance of damage, rather than on developing our knowledge and understanding of how to create pleas- urable experiences. Isn’t it time to explicitly create a space in our work and our curriculum for a positive approach to human-centered design?

We declare that it is high time to do just this.

interactions / may + June 2004 / pp28-33, SIGCHI, ACM
As practitioners of human-centered design, we continually strive to develop new methods that ensure and enhance the value of our contributions to multidisciplinary design teams. In our own work, we regularly challenge ourselves to explore outside of the traditional comfort zone of addressing physical and cognitive factors. As we venture to explore beyond the basics, we recognize that creating products and experiences that people will value and enjoy requires positive thinking. We find inspiration and camaraderie in the growing movement of positive psychology. This perspective emphasizes mental and emotional strengths rather than failings; it reminds us that our role encompasses much more than ensuring safety and minimizing confusion. In fact, all of us in this field have a responsibility to use human-centered design to create experi- ences that delight and empower. Just as with psychology, human factors (HF) and human-computer interaction have been hampered by a disease model, focused almost exclusively on the diagnosis and avoidance of damage, rather than on developing our knowledge and understanding of how to create pleas- urable experiences. Isn’t it time to explicitly create a space in our work and our curriculum for a positive approach to human-centered design? We declare that it is high time to do just this.

© 2023: David J Gilmore