Vision

As designers, we are currently trained to design mostly products. How can we solve this issue for a user? This will all too often lead to following the wants of people, the desires for a more convenient product.

Climate change is an existential threat. While user-centred design tries to improve the lives of people by improving products and innovating in this space, it often caters to the desires of people. People are easier to sell to if you sell them what they desire, which is low on the hierarchy of needs (McLeod, 2025).

There is no magic trick to keeping up consumption on the same level without our ecosystem collapsing. Attempts are made with circular design and recycled materials, which are great and do help, but fail to distinguish between products that are important and should be made, and those that are arguably not necessary, while still emitting greenhouse gases. Design for sustainability in this way is a paradox.

The end goal for a utilitarian designer should be to cause happiness while negating negative effects on the world. Creating for wants and desires does not create long-term happiness (Airaksinen, 2012). A way to achieve this is to only design for values and duty, which do lead to long-term happiness (Musek, 2020).

People are now more disconnected from their values. A big part of this is technology made to hold our attention, externalising our wants and needs (Song & Sela, 2023). This has removed time to introspect.

By doing more, by making more, and by expressing more, one will do things that are genuinely fulfilling to them. They will be closer to their values, and maybe even become more distant from their desires.

Designers here can aid here by making consuming harder and doing easier. They can motivate and persuade. They can convince someone to do things. Remove the friction to start, and create the motivation to do things again. To paint, to draw, to repair, to exercise.

In the happier lives we can create, people will find that this may be the better way of life, that one does not need more clothing. The value of wanting a better world might even win out over the convenience of the car compared to the bicycle.

As Kant would say, we are the only creatures on earth able to weigh our choices rationally, and we should utilise this wisely (Johnson & Cureton, 2024). Although many forces work against this, we should always strive for a perfect world, which may never exist, but this struggle will eventually create positive change.

Airaksinen, T. (2012). Desire and Happiness. Homo Oeconomicus, 29(3), 95–118.

Johnson, R., & Cureton, A. (2024). Kant’s Moral Philosophy. In E. N. Zalta & U. Nodelman (Eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2024). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2024/entries/kant-moral/

McLeod, S. (2025, March 14). Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

Musek, J. (n.d.). (PDF) Value-aligned behaviour makes us happier. ResearchGate. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.30685.03047

Song, C. E., & Sela, A. (2023). Phone and Self: How Smartphone Use Increases Preference for Uniqueness. Journal of Marketing Research, 60(3), 473–488. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437221120404