Understanding Happiness

Life is made up of choices, both big and small but ultimately we choose what will make us happy.

Paul Dolan explains within his novel ‘Happiness by Design’ that our experience of happiness is weighted around two factors – pleasure and purpose.

Taking a closer look at these two factors, the following piece considers how experiences are monitored by users, something that we (as UX Professionals) should be continuously conscious of moving forward within our profession.

The pleasure, purpose principle suggests our everyday interactions are subconsciously evaluated against these two factors. The experiences which we choose over others are those which give us the most pleasure and purpose.

The pleasure scale is probably the most readily understood with pleasure being placed at the top and pain weighted at the bottom. Experiencing pleasure is sourced from finding enjoyment and delight within an experience. What gives us pleasure can generally be easily distinguished, such as going on holiday or socialising with friends, and therefore (in theory) easy to design around.

However ‘purpose’ is finding meaning and importance within an experience that may not provide instant ‘pleasure’ yet conducive to a desired outcome, such as paying council tax or filling out a form. Interactions that are both highly pleasurable and purposeful for the user can result in full absorption, what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi titles ‘flow experiences’.The flow happens as a result of experiencing true happiness in the moment and in which the person becomes fully consumed.

This happens as there is a limit to the level of information our nervous system can process (110 bits per second to be precise). When fully engaged within an activity there is no attention left to focus on additional elements happening on the peripheries as they escape your consciousness, resulting in an immersive experience.

Inspired by Paul Dolan, we should design experiences and interactions which acknowledge the pleasure, purpose principle that are set to achieve an immersive outcome that the user can fully enjoy and choose to repeat time and time again.