Marije Kanis, Willem-Paul Brinkman. What do people like?: the design of a mobile tool to harness and share positive thoughts. In Willem-Paul Brinkman, Dong-Han Ham, B. L. William Wong, editors, Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics: invent! explore!, ECCE 2007, London, UK, August 28-31, 2007. Volume 250 of ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, pages 191-198, ACM, 2007. [doi]
Motivation – To increase understanding of technologymediated sharing of positive thoughts.
Research approach – Following in the positive psychology tradition, two studies involving over 50 participants, using paper-based questioning techniques and social-online tools were conducted that captured over 150 contributions on what thoughts people like to share. The contributions were analysed and motivated the design of a positive expressive prototype.
Findings/Design – The studies conducted showed the potential for a prefix-based elicitation of positive emotions and suggest that various messages of a predominantly positive nature can be harnessed. The contributions revealed the importance of immediacy in expression. This drove the development of a mobile tool called PosiPost Me (Mobile Edition) that allows users to create and share positive thoughts anytime and anywhere.
Research limitations/Implications – Early findings suggest that PosiPost Me has the potential to study and catalyze beneficial effects such as increasing social awareness. Additional studies will have to further explore and verify these benefits.
Originality/Value – This research provides the design of a mobile tool that aims to encourage positive communication through technology. It is also an exemplar of how on-line social tools and positive psychology can be beneficial for theories and studies of human computer interaction.
Take away message – Technologies such as PosiPost Me can offer promising outcomes for communicating positive thoughts. However, their success depends on understanding and incorporating appropriate strategies for interactive system design and development.