Designing for the wellness factor
Human factors are foundational considerations in human-centred product and service design. It is an essential framework that helps designers think through the apparent and the not so apparent factors of a design that makes the product robust and valuable. Here is a definition that I found that sums it up nicely.
“Human factors applies knowledge about human strengths and limitations to the design of interactive systems of people, equipment, and their environment to ensure their effectiveness, safety, and ease of use.” — National Center for Biotechnology Information
Depending on its applications or product category, these factors may change — making it a nimble and flexible tool in our designer toolkit. Its goal is to maximise the performance of a product/service against the human abilities, resulting in less waste and detrimental outcomes such as injuries or harm.
Being a designer and yogi, I’m especially interested in things that promotes a state of well-being in us and the amazing world we live in. So, what factors will we need to consider if we’re to design with wellness in mind?
Let’s start with how a human experience wellness, more specifically a state of well-being. It goes beyond feeling happy. From a biology point of view, it requires us to feel safe which involves the parasympathetic nervous system so that we can relax and engage with our environments. The alternate state is one that is based on our fight/flight response (sympathetic nervous system), which produces adrenaline and cortisol, leading to stress.
As a yoga teacher, we study the ancient science of Yoga. Through the practical knowledge of the human body and it’s chemistry, our goal is to guide our students through a series of posture and mindfulness so that the body is in a parasympathetic mode. For there, they can then work on achieving a state of peace and liberation. This is why many people feel relaxed and rejuvenated after a class of Yoga asana practice. For me, when we talk about Chakras, it is not just some spiritual thing. Rather a reference point to talk about components of well-being.
But, we can’t just add a practice of Yoga into every product/service we design (though I wish we could 😆). And how do you even measure well-being and know that you are making an impact? This is especially difficult in a world where business metrics and well-being metrics do not mix? While businesses know that keeping their employee well = more productivity and innovation, they often don’t seem to have made the connection/leap to the products and services they offer. Companies measure Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) but not Customer Well-being Score.
Thankfully for us, there has been tons of effort spent by governments, scientists and communities on this because a population that is well is healthy, highly productive and desirable. Governments and societies have been studying and measuring subjective well-being for a while now. For them, it is the KPI that tells them if the societies are progressing for the people living in them.
Measuring Well-being
These investigations into what factors promotes human well-being are helping us develop better environments to live in. They help us understand why an environment is not great when these factors are lacking.
When you look into the research, you may start to see a framework that we, as designers, often reference. The Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. However, we often just place our products/services we are designing for into the “layer(s)” of the hierarchy, not seeing the need to satisfy all or most of the components of the human needs. The end product/service cannot and may not be needed to provide all levels of needs but considering them during your design sprints may yield greater insights to what is it the people need.
This may be due to the normalisation the Hierarchy (or the nature of the Pyramid) in people’s minds. Perhaps, a change in how we talk about well-being factors with our colleagues will help everyone consider these human factors better. I think a move from using the Maslow’s Hierarchy to a simple model of measuring subjective well-being will help with this.
By evaluating a product or service against this matrix, we can start to uncover insights into areas we may have missed that could lead to better outcomes for our users and businesses.
I’m in the process of using this matrix on a service I’m designing for. I shall report back on its efficacy in another write-up once I have results for that. 👍 If you have anything you can share on this, I would love to hear/learn about it in the comments.
The innovation in Well-being
My research into measuring well-being surfaced an interesting group of products that are tapping into the knowledge and science of well-being. Popular in the bio-hacking communities, a slew of hardware and software products are emerging in efforts to help people understand if they are in the parasympathetic mode or in their sympathetic mode.
With these devices, perhaps, we can start learning about how people feel when they interact with our products and services while wearing them. 🤔 I’m keen to try the Happy Ring. What I love about these is that by surfacing data, we can start measuring and quantifying the efficacy of well-being.
The big question
With these positive advancements in understanding well-being and the standards in measuring its effectiveness. I believe it is time for companies and business leaders to consider what outcomes they can achieve when they deliver against the well-being of their customers.
What will happen if one of your business outcomes is measured by how well your users are when they use your products and services?
Thanks for reading. 🙏
By the way, if you’ve not noticed. It is rather amusing that the Chakras is some what similar to Maslow. 🤷♂️ 😁
