Wellbeing supportive design -- Research-based guidelines for supporting psychological wellbeing in user experience

TL;DR

This paper provides research-based guidelines derived from psychology to help technology designers create user experiences that support psychological wellbeing, addressing a critical gap in current design practices.

Contribution

It translates over 30 years of psychological research into 15 heuristics and 30 design strategies for supporting wellbeing in user experience design.

Findings

Development of 15 heuristics for wellbeing support

Creation of 30 actionable design strategies

Guidelines grounded in self-determination theory

Abstract

While human beings have a right to digital experiences that support, rather than diminish, their psychological wellbeing, technology designers lack research-based practices for ensuring psychological needs are met. To help address this gap, we draw on findings from over 30 years of research in psychology (specifically, self-determination theory) that has identified contextual factors shown to support psychological wellbeing. We translate these findings into a list of 15 heuristics and 30 design strategies to provide technology makers with theoretically grounded, research-based, and actionable ways to support wellbeing in user experience.