Exploring design applicable enablers that motivate mundane mindfulness

Abstract

The burnout society we live in demands the need for us to be mindful in our everyday lives. The burnout society refers to today’s meritocracy society worsened by the digital development. Based on the statistics, the increase in the digital development within the meritocracy society results in a constant increase in the rates of mental illness such as depression and stress. The interesting character of this burnout society is that is it encouraged to be self-driven, thus resulting in self-sabotage and voluntary burnout. In this context, this research aims to investigate the opportunity of design applicable enablers to motivate mundane mindfulness in everyday life context. To do so, user-centered studies were conducted to understand user’s overall moments of mindfulness through reflection with the use of mundane sound as a design material. Based on the results, a comprehensive organization of the set of enablers that motivate the mundane mindfulness was developed and its role and value in the design practice was examined. This research contributes to user experience design research and design practice as follows. First, this research proposes a set of potent design applicable enablers in a comprehensive organization that motivate mundane mindfulness in the form of sequential process and applicable means. Second, this research proposes opportunities on how ingrained life materials such as mundane sound can be used to influence mindfulness and perceptions of value and meaning for individuals. Third, by providing comprehensive set of enablers for motivating mundane mindfulness of an individual without the limitation of space and time, the results of this research contribute to inform the design of mindful experiences in a more human-centered way.