Design for the Value of Human Well-Being

This chapter studies how and to what extent it is possible to design for well-being. Well-being is rarely considered in the design literature and is rarely linked to technology and design in philosophy and the social sciences. A few approaches to design for well-being have recently materialized, however, including Emotional Design, capability approaches, positive psychology approaches, and Life-Based Design. In this chapter, the notion of well-being will first be clarified and contemporary theories of and approaches to well-being will be reviewed. Next, theoretical and methodological issues in design for well-being will be discussed that must be accounted for in any successful approach. This will be followed by a review of the abovementioned four approaches to design for well-being. The chapter will conclude by considering open issues and future work in the development of design approaches for well-being.