How to make sense of choices in life?
In a world shaped by uncertainty and conflicting values, decision-making has become increasingly complex, yet the tools we rely on often reduce it to optimisation and abstraction. Whether in personal life, organisations, or society at large, this can lead to decisions that are “rationally correct” but emotionally disconnected. From my perspective as a designer, this reflects a broader over-reliance on cognitive and data-driven models of thinking, while neglecting embodied, sensory, and relational ways of making sense of the world. Research in embodied cognition and tangible interaction (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999; Dourish, 2001; Hornecker & Buur, 2006) shows that understanding emerges through physical engagement with, rather than just representation of, ideas.
My design vision is to reintroduce tangible engagement into complex decision-making. I design visual, interactive, and spatial tools that externalise thought, making abstract information manipulable and discussable. By combining physical interaction with digital support for data storage or personalisation, I aim to create systems where technology enables, rather than replaces, embodied thinking.
Playfulness is central to this vision. I see decision-making not only as optimisation, but as exploration: a process of trying, iterating, and reframing. As LEGO research fellow Mitchel Resnick argues, creative thinking is deeply rooted in the way children learn through experimentation and play (2007). In contrast, adult decision-making environments often suppress this exploratory mindset in favour of efficiency and certainty.
Design thinking can, therefore, extend beyond a designer’s method to become a transferable mindset that helps people structure and refine their own decisions. However, creative ideation does not come naturally to everyone, and designers often respond by offering facilitated, workshop-based interventions. While valuable, these approaches are typically limited in accessibility and scalability. I therefore aim to design intuitive, self-explanatory tools that enable non-designers to engage in reflective and iterative thinking independently.
Also, many decisions are not made in isolation, but with multiple stakeholders (e.g., families, teams, organisations). Tangible and visual tools can make perspectives visible, shared, and negotiable. Approaches such as LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® demonstrate how structured material engagement can support dialogue by literally bringing ideas “onto the table,” reducing assumptions and enabling co-reflection.
Ultimately, I position my work against a dominant trend in design and technology that prioritises efficiency over meaningful understanding. In doing so, design becomes not only a problem-solving practice, but a medium for cultivating more reflective and human ways of relating to complexity and reaching shared understanding. By developing artefacts and experiences that translate complex information into spatial, manipulable forms, I aim to move beyond one-off workshop tools toward interfaces for meaningful reflection.
References
Dourish, P. (2001). Where the action is: The foundations of embodied interaction. MIT Press.
Hornecker, E., & Buur, J. (2006). Getting a grip on tangible interaction: A framework on physical space and social interaction. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (437–446). https://doi.org/10.1145/1124772.1124838
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. Basic Books.
Resnick, M. (2007). All I really need to know (about creative thinking) I learned (by studying how children learn) in kindergarten. In Proceedings of the 6th ACM SIGCHI Conference on Creativity & Cognition (1–6). https://doi.org/10.1145/1254960.1254961