Keeping Wellbeing At The Core Of Design - Laura Ryan

As our world is taken over by more products and services than ever before, it's the job of people like Laura Ryan to ensure that these will assist and benefit people's wellbeing. I sat down to discuss this with her at PauseFest last year. Laura is the Strategy Director at Mentally Friendly, an exciting design and innovation studio with a human-centred approach.   We talked about what wellbeing (really) is and where it can come from - especially in the workplace. A feeling of wellbeing stemming from a sense of purpose, by doing something that matters to you, by being empathetic. Laura refers to herself as a designer, even though she says she can't draw, she works as part of the design team using research and strategy to help the process, rather than designing in the traditional sense.  We both believe that designers have a responsibility when it comes to marrying profit with empathy and ensuring that what they produce doesn't cause distress or concern to the user. We chatted about all this and more. Another very fitting podcast for our Humans Aren't Robots series. Enjoy.