Using design to improve the lives of people towards a positive flourishing state is the main premise of Positive Design. Our contribution to this growing field focuses on making use of the symbolic meaning that design can have to bolster human happiness. This paper presents the development of a card set for designers aiming to inspire design for happiness. The card set is explored in three sessions with groups of design educators, design students and design professionals respectively to collect diversified recommendations to improve its format and use. The resulting SIM toolkit for designers (‘Design with symbolic meaning for user happiness’), composed of a card set and a website, is disclosed and a workshop on how to use it is discussed.
Citation
Casais, M., Mugge, R. & Desmet, P.M.A. (2016). Using symbolic meaning as a means to design for happiness: The development of a card set for designers. DRS2016: Future-Focused Thinking, Brighton, 27-30 June 2016.
