Design for Wellbeing

Technology shapes how we live, work, and relate to one another. It holds great promise for enhancing human well-being—improving health, safety, connection, and comfort—yet it can also create new forms of stress, inequality, and harm. 

In this PhD course, we explore the complex relationship between technology and human well-being. We ask fundamental questions such as: What does human well-being entail? How do technologies promote or undermine it? Who gets to design technologies that shape our well-being? and What values are embedded, prioritized, or neglected in these designs? 

We also investigate the philosophical foundations of designing for values, focusing on theories of well-being, the nature of values, and how they can be integrated into technological design processes. Attention is given to value conflicts and value change, and how these dynamics influence what it means to design for well-being in diverse contexts. Throughout the course, we discuss and analyze a variety of case studies, including those involving artificial intelligence and digital health, to explore how design can foster or hinder human flourishing. 

The aims/objectives are as follows:

• Understand the relation between technology, values, and human well-being.
• Argue why technology can or cannot embody values (and if so, how).
• Explain basic notions of values and human well-being within philosophy and other relevant disciplines.
• Differentiate main approaches to designing for human well-being.
• Characterise and discuss ‘value conflict’ and ‘value change’ and understand the implications of these phenomena for designing for values and designing for human well-being.
• Evaluate technology in terms of its impact on human well-being. 

This course takes place from February 9-13.

Full program TBA.

List of topics:

• Technology and values: brief historical overview about thinking about values and technology in philosophy of technology; technology: value- neutral or value-laden?
• Embedding values in technology: how to think about the connection between value and technology; Key theories and philosophical accounts of how values can be embedded in technology
• Design for values: design for Values and Value Sensitive Design, and other approaches of embedding values in technology (e.g., participatory design); value conceptualisation and value specification; value conflict and changing values
• Understanding wellbeing: different conceptualizations and theories of wellbeing
• Wellbeing and technology: exploration of how technology can enhance or undermine wellbeing
• Designing for wellbeing: approaches to designing for wellbeing; examples and cases 

Active participation is required. Each session has several required readings, that participants should have read beforehand

As a final assignment, participants will be asked to write a blog post (or a similar assignment) to complete the course. 

Please note that the primary target group for this event are PhD students. However, if places available, ReMa students can also register. In order to receive the ECTs for this course, their blog post will be graded with a pass or fail.

Costs:

• Free to PhD students who are a member of the 4TU Center for Ethics and Technology and/or OZSW and/or another Dutch research school in the Humanities (LOGOS); 
• Free to Research Master students who are a member of the 4TU Center for Ethics and Technology and/or OZSW and/or another Dutch research school in the Humanities (LOGOS); 
• All others pay a tuition fee of €300  

How to register:

• Members of the OZSW: make sure you are logged in on the website. After you have successfully registered for the course, it will appear in your ‘profile page’.
• PhD researchers may register via the registration button on this website.
• ReMA students may apply for a waiting list (as the primary target group for this activity is PhD researchers) by sending an email to [email protected]

The registration deadline is January 27, 2026. If registration has been closed because the maximum amount of participants has been reached, you can submit your name to the waiting list by sending an email to [email protected]. Please also indicate whether you are a ReMA student or PhD candidate and whether you are a member of the OZSW or not.

• Primary target group PhD students  If places available also open to 1st / 2nd year ReMa students Type of activity PhD Course Certificate credit points

  5ECTS