In praise of beauty and enchantment: setting the scenery of respectful design

Respectful design emphasizes the experience of using systems/products that leads to feelings of emotional engagement, resonance, enchantment and wonder. It entices reflections on value-related and societal relevant questions. Respectful design also implies respectfully addressing all human skills, the perceptual-motor, emotional, cognitive, and social ones through rich, natural, and meaningful interaction possibilities. This vision requires societal, cultural and aesthetic sensitivity to be achieved. This paper frames respectful design from a theoretical viewpoint, and illustrates two design cases addressing the vision. It also offers methodological insights on art and poetry as resources for respectful design. In particular it describes how to play with the subtleties of those languages, to reflect on values (aesthetic, social, ethical) and use them to drive the design process.