at the time you were ever stressed out
by technology it might have been that
you were frustrated by a computer
program or you felt enslaved by your
email or the notifications on your
mobile phone if you ever experience
frustration anger because of a
technology please raise your hand now
Wow we all have something in common now
I would like you to think of a time you
felt connected to family or friends
because of a technology it may be that
you felt a heartwarming glow or you had
a sense of belonging to a community and
this was made possible by technology if
you ever had a moment of connection to
someone else because of a technology
please raise your hand
thank you now for my last challenge I
would like to be a bit more specific I
would like you to think of a time you
empathize with someone else with another
human being because of a technology it
might happen that you saw the world
through someone else’s eyes in a video
game or maybe you heard a heartfelt
story on a live video stream or you read
a very candid post on a community forum
if you ever felt something of what
someone else was feeling because the
technology allows you to connect to
their experience please raise your hand
now holy their holy there and look
around that’s a lot a lot of empathy we
know technologies have negative effects
they stress us out they overwhelm us
sometimes they steal our focus and all
these issues are widely discussed as
they should be but today I would like us
to focus on how technologies of the
future can do better
not have a negative impact on how they
can help us thrive
because that’s how they’re going to
change the world for the better when
they help us think act and evolve the
themes of today’s event
so what versions of ourselves that are
happier and kinder and wiser because I
think that’s what technology should be
doing and I think they can now first I
need to confess something I’m an
engineer and we’re not known for being
good with human emotions but geek that I
am I have a daily secret I have been
secretly obsessed with understanding
human nature in fact that may fail
philosopher philosophy was a passion of
mine when I was younger but my parents
somehow thought that he wouldn’t pay the
bills philosophy so they steer me away
towards the higher Sciences I don’t know
what they thought that physics will pay
for the bills and after years of being a
software engineer and tweaking
algorithms and building smart machines
they need to relate my work to more
humanistic values keep coming back I
kept asking myself how the work I was
doing will help people be happier kinder
how could I help them flourish we
engineers are really good really good at
making people more productive tasks more
efficient algorithms more powerful
search engines more accurate but is all
this making us happier of course we all
have moments of happiness with
technologies and they have plenty of
clear benefits but is the overall
improvement on our quality of life so to
answer that I turn to the literature on
psychology in your science and economics
and what I found is that the answer is
not wealth and digital technology
ownership has increased radically of
last few decades but measures of
well-being have hardly changed how could
it be I mean all these technologies all
these tweaking of algorithms all they
say for all this investment and we are
not having a overwhelming impact on
improving quality of life how could we
be failing this badly without even
noticing and that’s when I had a
realization
maybe the recent technologies are not
helping us be happier it’s because we
don’t design them – we have put all our
focus on productivity and sales and
maybe just maybe productivity and
happiness and not the same thing crazy
notion right so why don’t we aim for
goal and design for well-being directly
think about it every chair we sit on
every keyboard we touch has been
economically designed to respect our
physical health should in every
technology we use we decide to respect
our psychological health how much
happier will everyone in this room be if
every app we open every technology we
use in the workplace every device we
carry in our pockets was designed to
support our well-being how different
will be the experience for the next
generation but Rafa I hear you say
productivity sales that’s easy to
measure but thriving well-being
that sounds very hip EDP is it even
measurable is it scientific it’s a good
point but yes the study of well-being is
scientific is it complex absolutely but
new scientists psychologists economies
have been working behind the scenes for
decades
helping us understand it and measure it
we have people like Nobel Prize winner
Daniel Kahneman who was developing
measures of well-being decades ago so
measures of well-being are not new in
fact they’re being used in crazy things
like insurance claims and economic
policy why are we not using them in the
design of technologies so to give you an
idea of how this would work I want to
take you back to the questions I asked
at the beginning I asked you to think of
a time where you were frustrated by a
computer technology and I ask you to
think of a time where you felt connected
or empathic to were someone else
because of the technology what these two
experiences have in common is that they
affected your well-being for better or
worse these two experiences had an
impact on one of three things the
psychologists know are key to well-being
and these three things are drumroll
autonomy competence and relatedness it
might not seem like much but these three
factors have shown to be the three most
critical things for a healthy
psychological functioning when you get
frustrated by a computer program it is
your autonomy and your competence that
are taking a hit that is stressful when
you feel in slayed by your email or the
notifications or you feel that you have
lost control over your privacy it is
your sense of autonomy and competence
that have been betrayed that have been
frustrated of course technologies also
have positive effects they create new
options open new possibilities allow you
to do things that you couldn’t do before
or do them better of course they say a
third factor relatedness relatedness is
about our positive connection to other
human beings
actually sorry I will include animals
but maybe that’s just because I have a
very cute dog relatedness is about our
sense of belonging
it’s about feeling part of a community a
mule here will have positive and
negative examples where technology’s
connected us or disconnected us right
technologies have the potential to
support or hinder our psychological
well-being so it may know the what’s
amazing about these three factors is
that decades of research have shown that
they predict well-being if you mess up
with one well being goes down if you
support another one well-being goes up
in fact this applies to all cultures and
age groups that’s why researchers like
Ryan and Essie call it basic
psychological needs as a bonus these and
other psychologists have developed
techniques that allow us to compare what
happens before and after and experience
on these factors so we can understand
its effects shouldn’t we be using this
in the design of technologies now where
should well-being technologies or what
we call positive computing look like how
will they be different well they don’t
need to be different obviously different
an ergonomically designed chair doesn’t
always look different but its experience
is very different to one you know where
the back is too low the bottle too hard
and you end up the day with a terrible
headache all right sometimes they do
look different and this happens in
digital technologies in a sense maybe
this is what happened
when we were also attracted the first
time we saw the iPhone its visual design
held the promise in loop like it was
going to satisfy our psychological needs
we might not have understood this
explicitly but the first time we looked
at it we thought wow that’s going to be
easy to use a pleasure event it’s going
to allow me to connect to others it’s
going to allow me to do things that I
couldn’t do before it’s going to allow
me or support my psychological needs of
course we were only making reasonable
assumptions whether or not it happened
is a much more complex question mobile
phones do satisfy our psychological
needs but not every time and not in
every way possible if the overall net
improvement it’s a very hotly debated
question what we know for sure is that
we can do better much better now
five years ago sorry one more thing
there it’s important that we ensure that
all technologies are designed to support
well-being and to do that we need to
bring the seeds of psychology into our
design practice it’s not enough to say
we want to make the world a better place
you know like in that Silicon Valley
cliche or we want to make people happy
now we need to bring the scientific
approach that is provable measurable
reliable reproducible and five years ago
I committed myself to doing just that so
my team and I are the positive computer
lab in the University of Sydney stop
developing for productivity and for
behavioral tasks alone and started
focusing on well-being as well so now
when a colleague consen says hey can we
develop an app to remind the asthma
adolescents with asthma to take their
medication I say hey let’s build an app
to support the autonomy and their sense
of competence in managing the illness
and not that helps them connect to
others and we will look for ways in
reminding them to take the medication so
the critical insights on how to design
for well-being in any given technology
should come in great measure from the
users themselves so in this project and
it’s a real project funded by a smart
rally we knew that it was more to it
than just reminders but we didn’t know
how the app will support their
well-being it was only until we got the
young people into a room to share their
experience and design the app with us
that we did so positive computing is
really about at a superficial level
problem solving when there are
well-being hindrances we can redesign to
solve them at a deeper level it is about
understanding how your product connects
to people’s lives and then tapping into
what is really important to them
now you might be asking well I’m not a
designer what can I do well if you are a
technology maker an engineer and
entrepreneur you can be a pioneer or
well being supportive technologies in
positive computing if you’re not a
technology maker you’re still a user and
as a consumer you vote with your time
with your money and increasingly with
what you share on social media so I ask
you raise your standards we think we
know what Grady sign is a technology can
be sexy gorgeous high tech disruptive
but if it is addictive
is it still great design if a technology
promote
aggression disconnects you from others
is it still great design I think we’ve
been support is a criterion for great
design so raise your expectations of
what a technology should offer you if it
stresses you out these respects your
privacy disconnects you from others
turn them off fight back fight for your
right to be well because of Technology
not in spite of it if it stresses you
out report that well-being back to the
complete technology company that
produces believe me technology companies
will be listening if you do this
together we can design a world where all
technologies help us flourish thank
[Applause]
you
[Applause]
by technology it might have been that
you were frustrated by a computer
program or you felt enslaved by your
email or the notifications on your
mobile phone if you ever experience
frustration anger because of a
technology please raise your hand now
Wow we all have something in common now
I would like you to think of a time you
felt connected to family or friends
because of a technology it may be that
you felt a heartwarming glow or you had
a sense of belonging to a community and
this was made possible by technology if
you ever had a moment of connection to
someone else because of a technology
please raise your hand
thank you now for my last challenge I
would like to be a bit more specific I
would like you to think of a time you
empathize with someone else with another
human being because of a technology it
might happen that you saw the world
through someone else’s eyes in a video
game or maybe you heard a heartfelt
story on a live video stream or you read
a very candid post on a community forum
if you ever felt something of what
someone else was feeling because the
technology allows you to connect to
their experience please raise your hand
now holy their holy there and look
around that’s a lot a lot of empathy we
know technologies have negative effects
they stress us out they overwhelm us
sometimes they steal our focus and all
these issues are widely discussed as
they should be but today I would like us
to focus on how technologies of the
future can do better
not have a negative impact on how they
can help us thrive
because that’s how they’re going to
change the world for the better when
they help us think act and evolve the
themes of today’s event
so what versions of ourselves that are
happier and kinder and wiser because I
think that’s what technology should be
doing and I think they can now first I
need to confess something I’m an
engineer and we’re not known for being
good with human emotions but geek that I
am I have a daily secret I have been
secretly obsessed with understanding
human nature in fact that may fail
philosopher philosophy was a passion of
mine when I was younger but my parents
somehow thought that he wouldn’t pay the
bills philosophy so they steer me away
towards the higher Sciences I don’t know
what they thought that physics will pay
for the bills and after years of being a
software engineer and tweaking
algorithms and building smart machines
they need to relate my work to more
humanistic values keep coming back I
kept asking myself how the work I was
doing will help people be happier kinder
how could I help them flourish we
engineers are really good really good at
making people more productive tasks more
efficient algorithms more powerful
search engines more accurate but is all
this making us happier of course we all
have moments of happiness with
technologies and they have plenty of
clear benefits but is the overall
improvement on our quality of life so to
answer that I turn to the literature on
psychology in your science and economics
and what I found is that the answer is
not wealth and digital technology
ownership has increased radically of
last few decades but measures of
well-being have hardly changed how could
it be I mean all these technologies all
these tweaking of algorithms all they
say for all this investment and we are
not having a overwhelming impact on
improving quality of life how could we
be failing this badly without even
noticing and that’s when I had a
realization
maybe the recent technologies are not
helping us be happier it’s because we
don’t design them – we have put all our
focus on productivity and sales and
maybe just maybe productivity and
happiness and not the same thing crazy
notion right so why don’t we aim for
goal and design for well-being directly
think about it every chair we sit on
every keyboard we touch has been
economically designed to respect our
physical health should in every
technology we use we decide to respect
our psychological health how much
happier will everyone in this room be if
every app we open every technology we
use in the workplace every device we
carry in our pockets was designed to
support our well-being how different
will be the experience for the next
generation but Rafa I hear you say
productivity sales that’s easy to
measure but thriving well-being
that sounds very hip EDP is it even
measurable is it scientific it’s a good
point but yes the study of well-being is
scientific is it complex absolutely but
new scientists psychologists economies
have been working behind the scenes for
decades
helping us understand it and measure it
we have people like Nobel Prize winner
Daniel Kahneman who was developing
measures of well-being decades ago so
measures of well-being are not new in
fact they’re being used in crazy things
like insurance claims and economic
policy why are we not using them in the
design of technologies so to give you an
idea of how this would work I want to
take you back to the questions I asked
at the beginning I asked you to think of
a time where you were frustrated by a
computer technology and I ask you to
think of a time where you felt connected
or empathic to were someone else
because of the technology what these two
experiences have in common is that they
affected your well-being for better or
worse these two experiences had an
impact on one of three things the
psychologists know are key to well-being
and these three things are drumroll
autonomy competence and relatedness it
might not seem like much but these three
factors have shown to be the three most
critical things for a healthy
psychological functioning when you get
frustrated by a computer program it is
your autonomy and your competence that
are taking a hit that is stressful when
you feel in slayed by your email or the
notifications or you feel that you have
lost control over your privacy it is
your sense of autonomy and competence
that have been betrayed that have been
frustrated of course technologies also
have positive effects they create new
options open new possibilities allow you
to do things that you couldn’t do before
or do them better of course they say a
third factor relatedness relatedness is
about our positive connection to other
human beings
actually sorry I will include animals
but maybe that’s just because I have a
very cute dog relatedness is about our
sense of belonging
it’s about feeling part of a community a
mule here will have positive and
negative examples where technology’s
connected us or disconnected us right
technologies have the potential to
support or hinder our psychological
well-being so it may know the what’s
amazing about these three factors is
that decades of research have shown that
they predict well-being if you mess up
with one well being goes down if you
support another one well-being goes up
in fact this applies to all cultures and
age groups that’s why researchers like
Ryan and Essie call it basic
psychological needs as a bonus these and
other psychologists have developed
techniques that allow us to compare what
happens before and after and experience
on these factors so we can understand
its effects shouldn’t we be using this
in the design of technologies now where
should well-being technologies or what
we call positive computing look like how
will they be different well they don’t
need to be different obviously different
an ergonomically designed chair doesn’t
always look different but its experience
is very different to one you know where
the back is too low the bottle too hard
and you end up the day with a terrible
headache all right sometimes they do
look different and this happens in
digital technologies in a sense maybe
this is what happened
when we were also attracted the first
time we saw the iPhone its visual design
held the promise in loop like it was
going to satisfy our psychological needs
we might not have understood this
explicitly but the first time we looked
at it we thought wow that’s going to be
easy to use a pleasure event it’s going
to allow me to connect to others it’s
going to allow me to do things that I
couldn’t do before it’s going to allow
me or support my psychological needs of
course we were only making reasonable
assumptions whether or not it happened
is a much more complex question mobile
phones do satisfy our psychological
needs but not every time and not in
every way possible if the overall net
improvement it’s a very hotly debated
question what we know for sure is that
we can do better much better now
five years ago sorry one more thing
there it’s important that we ensure that
all technologies are designed to support
well-being and to do that we need to
bring the seeds of psychology into our
design practice it’s not enough to say
we want to make the world a better place
you know like in that Silicon Valley
cliche or we want to make people happy
now we need to bring the scientific
approach that is provable measurable
reliable reproducible and five years ago
I committed myself to doing just that so
my team and I are the positive computer
lab in the University of Sydney stop
developing for productivity and for
behavioral tasks alone and started
focusing on well-being as well so now
when a colleague consen says hey can we
develop an app to remind the asthma
adolescents with asthma to take their
medication I say hey let’s build an app
to support the autonomy and their sense
of competence in managing the illness
and not that helps them connect to
others and we will look for ways in
reminding them to take the medication so
the critical insights on how to design
for well-being in any given technology
should come in great measure from the
users themselves so in this project and
it’s a real project funded by a smart
rally we knew that it was more to it
than just reminders but we didn’t know
how the app will support their
well-being it was only until we got the
young people into a room to share their
experience and design the app with us
that we did so positive computing is
really about at a superficial level
problem solving when there are
well-being hindrances we can redesign to
solve them at a deeper level it is about
understanding how your product connects
to people’s lives and then tapping into
what is really important to them
now you might be asking well I’m not a
designer what can I do well if you are a
technology maker an engineer and
entrepreneur you can be a pioneer or
well being supportive technologies in
positive computing if you’re not a
technology maker you’re still a user and
as a consumer you vote with your time
with your money and increasingly with
what you share on social media so I ask
you raise your standards we think we
know what Grady sign is a technology can
be sexy gorgeous high tech disruptive
but if it is addictive
is it still great design if a technology
promote
aggression disconnects you from others
is it still great design I think we’ve
been support is a criterion for great
design so raise your expectations of
what a technology should offer you if it
stresses you out these respects your
privacy disconnects you from others
turn them off fight back fight for your
right to be well because of Technology
not in spite of it if it stresses you
out report that well-being back to the
complete technology company that
produces believe me technology companies
will be listening if you do this
together we can design a world where all
technologies help us flourish thank
[Applause]
you
[Applause]
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