Kranzberg’s first law states:
“technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral”.
UCD Computing and Mental Health (CMH@UCD) started as a conversation over lunch between several researchers in the UCD School of Computer Science. We came from diverse backgrounds, but had one thing in common. We all had PhDs in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and digital mental health. This made us quite unusual. We were surrounded by computer scientists, but spent most of our time thinking about humans, and mental health in particular.
CMH@UCD is now an interdisciplinary group dedicated to the design of technology that supports mental health. Our members come from Schools and Colleges across UCD.
Many arguments can be made about the impact of technology on society and mental health. We tend to agree with Kranberg that technology in and of itself is neither good nor bad. But we do have the power to shape it. Technology provides us with powerful tools. The real question is how we use these tools. We aim to shape technology in ways that have positive impact on mental health.
As you’ll see on our projects page we do this in many different ways. Across our projects, we emphasise interdisciplinary and human-centred approaches that place human values at the centre of the design process. In this, we agree with the user-centred philosophy articulated by Donald Norman:
We take this philosophy and apply it to the design of technology that supports better mental health.