Beyond Maslow’s pyramid: Introducing a typology of thirteen fundamental needs for human-centered design

This paper introduces a design-focused typology of psychological human needs that includes 13 fundamental needs and 52 sub-needs (four for each fundamental need). The typology was developed to provide a practical understanding of psychological needs as a resource for user-centered design practice and research with a focus on user experience and...

Design -|+ Negative emotions for positive experiences

Experience-driven design considers all aspects of a product – its appearance, cultural meaning, functionality, interaction, usability, technology, and indirect consequences of use – with the aim to optimize and orchestrate all these aspects and create the best possible user experience. Since the late 1990s, designers and design researchers have...

Ten ways to design for disgust, sadness, and other enjoyments: A design approach to enrich product experiences with negative emotions

This paper demonstrates how designers can enrich user experiences by purposefully involving negative emotions in user-product interaction. This approach is derived from a framework of rich experience, which explains how and under what circumstances negative emotions make a product experience richer and enjoyable. The approach consists of three...

Meaningful mix or tricky conflict? A categorisation of mixed emotions and their usefulness for design

Mixed emotions are at the basis of some of life’s richest experiences. However, in other instances they are inferior to experiences that elicit just positive emotions. A phenomenological study was carried out to find out which kinds of situations evoke mixed emotions, how these emotions influence and transform people’s subjective experience, and...