The author suggests three principles of designing happiness into experiences:
1. Mindfulness - anticipating a providing for the users’ needs and goals, even before they realize what they are
2. Flow - making the users’ tasks and the transitions between them so smooth and so immersive that they lose track of time
3. Meaning - creating the perception that the user is changing the world in some way.
I’m not sure if the word “Flow” fully captures what the author is presenting it as, and the word implies a relationship with how she defines “Mindfulness”. Shouldn’t “mindful” design, as it is defined in the article, require and encompass good “flow”?
By “Flow”, it seems like author is speaking more about the infusion of game design theory into non-game design. This is the type of thing that keeps people playing Farmville. In any case, even though I think better themes might be able to be defined for designing for happiness, the examples that the author provides are all good and worth looking over.
