User Empowering Design: Expanding the Users' Hierarchy of Needs

We offer a comprehensive framework for HCI designers to empower users. Our purpose is to lay the foundations for a complete design method: User Empowering Design (UED). Empowerment is not a new human need, and the ability of technologies to empower users has already been discussed and deemed important by many experts. UED concentrates on the human need to fulfil the potential for growth, increase strengths, and reduce weaknesses. It does not replace user-centred design (UCD) but expands it to a higherlevel need. Thus, we suggest that UED is the third revolution in developing interactive technology. Just as user experience (UX) has expanded usability, UED expands the user experience. The UX design method focuses on the user experiences while interacting with a digital product (e.g., emotions, feelings, aesthetics, hedonic needs). The UED approach takes a step further, as it focuses on the impact that goes beyond the scope of the digital product with an emphasis on aspects that are in the user's main life path. Within this framework, we offer a methodology that includes eight distinct models, each referring to a variety of technologies that have an impact on personal, community and organisational empowerment. We explain the current need for a design that is intended to empower users, present the different models by describing their mechanisms, and offer practical examples to implement the empowering design.