In response to shifting human development patterns following globalization, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) called for development to address broader societal needs while addressing climate and environmental change [1]. Society, economy, and environment are the three pillars of sustainability; this means that sustainable development seeks a win–win situation of “economic growth” and “social and ecological development” [2]. In recent decades, the search for a more sustainable approach to development has become increasingly important in international politics and economics [3]. Social attention to sustainability has also helped transform design ideas. More design methods that consider social and ecological sustainability have emerged, such as nature-centered design [4], life-centered design [5], and value-sensitive design [6]. With this development, human-centered design is increasingly showing its limitations regarding sustainability.

In the field of positive experience design, researchers have been exploring how design can contribute to sustainable people’s well-being and achieve long-term goals. In recent studies, the user-centered research perspective has gradually changed, and scholars are beginning to explore how to design long-range positive impacts to achieve users’ long-term personal and social well-being. For example, Kermavnar has designed a serious game about COVID-19 knowledge to influence users’ behaviors and attitudes through short-term experiences [7]. In a framework of artificial intelligence systems established by Maden to support community well-being, more attention is paid to influencing residents’ happiness through community construction [8].

2. Positive Experience Design

Positive experience design, derived from positive psychology, is a possibility-driven positive value-creation activity that provides pleasant and meaningful interactive experiences for individuals and communities via innovative products, services, and systems. Thus, this design promotes individual well-being, community prosperity, and a flourishing future [9]. To meet user’s needs and optimize the experience process, scholars have developed a series of design models around positive experience design, as shown in Table 1. Desmet brought eight mood types into the two-factor mood model to help designers identify and describe users’ moods and carry out the design related to mood regulation [10]. Peters believed that encouraging users to accomplish tasks and develop behavioral habits can improve their happiness and developed the Motivation, Engagement, and Thriving in User Experience (METUX) model to help designers measure the basic psychological needs that support user behavior [11]. Wiese built a multi-stage design framework for sustainable well-being, providing a visual design path for creating positive activities through product interactions to achieve users’ happiness [12]. Wu contributed a positive experience design model for intelligent products of the Internet of Things (IoT), which covers the design path from pleasurable experiences to personal significance and group relationships [13]. Chen developed an emotional interaction design framework model for children’s application development, guiding designers to enrich users’ pleasure and cognition by enhancing users’ emotional experiences [14]. Perrino‘s model, designed for temporal harmony, revealed the potential impact of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors on users’ current positive experiences within the positive experience cycle, inspiring designers to improve positive experiences by changing users’ cognitive memory and plans [15]. So far, the design models related to positive experiences are mainly focused on users’ perceptions. They are committed to providing positive experiences for individuals or groups through product interaction to influence their mood, behavior, attitude, and cognition and improve subjective well-being.

3. Impact-Centered Design

As early as the 1990s, American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner noted that there is a two-way, dynamic interaction between individuals and their living environments. Furthermore, recent studies have demonstrated that environmental problems and social and economic changes affect the health and well-being of individuals [16]. Researchers have investigated the relationship between users and their external environments to achieve sustainable well-being. For instance, Norman proposed the concept of humanity-centered design, which focuses on the long-term impact between societies and ecosystems [17]. More-than-human-centered design focuses on the interdependence of people and biological systems and seeks design methods that harmonize positive human experiences with the environment’s needs [18]. Sustainable design emphasizes integrating social, environmental, and economic impacts in designing products, systems, or services, balancing people’s needs with environmental and ethical concerns [19]. Therefore, Fokkinga believed that designers need to consider creating positive impacts on individual and social well-being in addition to users’ goals, feelings, abilities, and practices, and defined this coherent design intention as an “impact-centered design” [20]. The Oxford Dictionary defines “impact” as the powerful effect that something has on somebody or something. To illustrate the link between technical characteristics and happiness factors, Calvo divided the key factors affecting happiness into ego, sociability, and detachment [21]. For the design methodology, Cloutier considered that personal well-being is related to environmental conditions and social connections and proposed the Sustainability Through Happiness Framework, which is based on the vision of future happiness for sustainable design [22]. Weijs-Perrée found that transient experiences depended on the environment’s objective features and the individual’s subjective characteristics, and the short-lived experience ultimately influenced the individual’s sense of well-being through long-term experience [23]. In the impact-centered design process, designers need to comprehensively consider the interaction between users, society, and the environment and take the positive impact as the design goal. The impact can be further divided into two dimensions: (1) short-term impacts: changing users’ behaviors, attitudes, emotions, etc., through a short experience; (2) long-term impacts: making long-term impacts on users or stakeholders through sustainable experiences, with the combined effect gradually changing their qualities of life and social well-being. Shaping prolonged positive impacts can provide users with a more sustainable sense of well-being, and long-term impacts should be the main design goal during the impact-centered design process. Table 2 presents some research details on impact-centered design. Impact-centered design is a design concept that focuses on the long-term impact of design, with sustainable and broader well-being as the design goal. Positive experience design is driven by the pursuit of prolonged personal and social well-being. Therefore, the shift from user-centered to impact-centered approaches is the current trend in positive experience design. Although the concept of impact-centered design has been proposed, no scholar has developed relevant design models and methods for its execution. In addition, as positive experience design focuses on improving the well-being of users and society, less attention has been paid to environmental impact in research.