Cognitive Design

One goal of cognitive design is to support or even create specific mental states (thoughts and feelings) in people. We do this by tweaking the features, functions and forms of artifacts  or anything that is designed  such as products, workflows and customer experiences.  We don’t do this by tweaking randomly. Ideally, we use solid and sometimes emerging insights into how minds really work from cognitive science.

For example, the so-called science of happiness has been very much in the news lately. So it is not surprising when I get a question like:

How can we use the science of happiness to design organizations that make employees happier (more productive)  and customers happier (more satisfied)?

[Chinese symbol for double happiness - employee and customer]

The literature on positive psychology and happiness studies is vast. Where should you start? 

I like the approach of Hein Zegers.  As a happiness researcher at the University of Leuven, a nearly 600-year-old Belgian center of learning and research, he  stressses  the importance of  establishing evidence-based interventions.  

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