2. Daily life needs change
The focus of this chapter is to look into the daily life of Texelaars in the accommodation sector. Again, the chapter starts of with a literature review. Then the current sub/system will be described using a YUTPA analysis. How does this sector work and what do the people need? The same will be done for a future vision of the island, based on the future sustainable accommodation principles described in chapter 1. The results of the the YUTPA analyses will be compared with each other and a conclusion will follow, resulting in a more refined design challenge.
2.1. Literature review
The most important actor of the design challenge will be the Texelaar. As concluded in chapter 1, the needs of the local community should be taken into account, because the local community can help make Texel sustainable and a more interesting island for tourists. Both the tourists and the Texelaars are actors that are physically present on the island and are highly affected by socio-economical changes. The Texelaars are probably more affected, since they are present all year round, unlike tourist who stay for a short time and leave. The presence of Texelaars also grows by the means of involvement, such as participating in communities. The design of presence is a prerequisite to participation: understanding the value of presence is a prerequisite to the design of large distributed complex participatory systems (Nevejan & Brazier, 2015), which is the case of Texel.
The five key notions that have and still guide presence design during the last two decades are being there, being here, merging realities, presence as the strive towards well-being and survival, and co presence, social presence, and witnessed presence.
This neurobiological perspective on “presence” claims that the strive for well-being and survival, or what Spinoza referred to as “the conatus,” is the essence of presence (Damasio 2004). Sensations, emotions, and feelings inform us of the direction in which well-being and survival can be found. We steer towards sensory sensations, emotions, and more complex feelings of solidarity, compassion, and love, and we steer away from pain, hate, and unpleasantness. Damasio also suggests that it is likely that the steering towards one’s own survival and well-being includes the well-being and survival of others as well
Presence as a value for design, as a requirement, facilitates designs that make it possible for us to be able to have agency, accept responsibility, and be able to engage with others in meaningful interaction, making it possible for us to steer towards our own wellbeing and survival.
There is a direct relation between design for presence and design for trust in the emerging network society in which on- and offline realities merge. Arguing that witnessed presence is fundamental for establishing trust, Nevejan (2007) introduces the YUTPA framework in which four dimensions of time, place, action, and relation define potential trust in different presence configurations of these dimensions. The YUTPA analysis will be used to gain insight in the presence of a local homeowner on the island, representing the private accommodation and a tourist, representing the tourist accommodation. This will be done for both the current situation as the potential future situation, so the difference in presence of various sectors can be shown.
As mentioned before, presence as a value for design could help make designs that steer towards our own well-being. In this scenario, a design for a sustainable self-sufficient island is needed. To grasp this concept, it is important to know how sustainability can improve a person's well-being, as part of their presence. Some say that leading a pro-environmental life would threaten one’s quality of life. Well-being can be seen as experiencing a lot of physical and cognitive preferences and pleasures (hedonic well-being), but also living well and pursuing the right ends (eudaimonic well-being). These two types of well-being are not mutually exclusive.
The hedonic well-being of a person could decrease by living a pro-environmental life. First of all, there is no possible way to envision or experience the actual effect on the condition of earth of a pro-environmental lifestyle. Big goals like these should be reframed into smaller sub goals, so they are not perceived as unattainable. Secondly, consumption brings hedonic-well being. However, a pro-environmental lifestyle implies a lower consumption rate, although a pro-environmental lifestyle can also be achieved by consuming differently, not per se less. Another counterargument is that a hedonic lifestyle can also be achieved in other ways than consuming. Solely focusing on on the pursuit of consumer products actually decreases the well-being.
One could say that hedonic well-being of a pro-environmental lifestyle derives from the better environmental conditions, but these changes happen slowly, depend on the action of a large group of people and eventually have effect on everyone, not just people with a pro-environmental lifestyle. Another solution could be pro-environmental behaviours and products bringing pleasure, but pro-environmental behaviours aren’t perceived as pleasurable than their environmentally harmful counterparts, some are even less pleasurable. Added hedonic aspects to these pro-environmental behaviour wouldn’t help, since it would only increase the hedonic well-being of that specific behaviour and not the intrinsically and autonomously motivated.
The actual secret lies in the eudaimonic well-being. The eudaimonic well-being improves by taking the effort to engage in good behaviour and therefore improving one’s self-worth. This would mean that by-products of pro-environmental behaviour would bring pleasure, not the behaviour itself. However, for pro-environmental behaviour to lead to eudaimonic well-being it is necessary that the engagement in pro-environmental behaviour is intrinsically and autonomously motivated. Otherwise pro-environmental behaviour is less likely to add to eudaimonic behavior.
In conclusion, the YUTPA analysis helps us find potential trust in different presence configurations of the four dimensions; time, place, action and relation, within our design. In this case it will show the change in presence of actors in the current and future situation, making it clear where to act. When also designing for sustainability, which is the case, it should be noted that all actors need to be clear of their pro-environmental actions, so it can add to their eudaimonic behaviour. This increases the well-being of the actors, which is one of the steering points of designing using the value of presence.