Beyond Maslow’s Pyramid: Introducing a Typology of Thirteen Fundamental Needs for Human-Centered Design

Abstract

<jats:p>This paper introduces a design-focused typology of psychological human needs that includes 13 fundamental needs and 52 sub-needs (four for each fundamental need). The typology was developed to provide a practical understanding of psychological needs as a resource for user-centered design practice and research with a focus on user experience and well-being. The first part of the manuscript briefly reviews Abraham Maslow’s pioneering work on human needs, and the underlying propositions, main contributions and limitations of his motivational theory. The review results in a set of requirements for a design-focused typology of psychological needs. The second part reports on the development of the new typology. The thirteen needs were selected from six existing typologies with the use of five criteria that distinguish fundamental from non-fundamental needs. The resulting typology builds on the strengths of Maslow’s need hierarchy but rejects the hierarchical structure and adds granularity to the need categories. The third part of the paper describes three examples of how the need typology can inform design practice, illustrated with student design cases. It also presents three means for communicating the need typology. The general discussion section reflects on implications and limitations and proposes ideas for future research.</jats:p>

What Type of Consumption Induces or Alleviates Consumer Psychological Distress? Evidence From the COVID-19 Pandemic in China

“…Consumers with different levels of need will be motivated to purchase corresponding products (Tay and Diener, 2011). Physiological needs are the basic needs of living, such as the need for food and water (Desmet and Fokkinga, 2020). On this level, individuals need to purchase these kinds of "must-have" products to fulfill the physical requirement for human survival (Boone et al, 2014), and we defined these kinds of products as "fundamental products."…”

“…On this level, individuals need to purchase these kinds of "must-have" products to fulfill the physical requirement for human survival (Boone et al, 2014), and we defined these kinds of products as "fundamental products." Security needs are the psychological needs for safety (Desmet and Fokkinga, 2020). On this level, consumers would purchase products that make them feel safe and stable (Chen et al, 2015).…”

Chaos in Motion: Measuring Visual Pollution with Tangential View Landscape Metrics

“…Maslow's hierarchy of needs [1] as graphically formalized by Charles McDermid [2], organizes human needs from the basic to the higher-order, placing the aesthetic needs, such as appreciation and search for beauty [3], at the very top. According to this hierarchy, physiological needs (sustenance) precede social needs (friendship), which in turn precede cognitive needs (education).…”

Psychometric Analysis of a Postulated Set of Evolved Human Motives

“…Desmet and Fokkinga began with Maslow's hierarchical typology of needs, but also included candidates identified by several other studies that satisfied a set of five criteria for only identifying “fundamental” needs. From this list the authors used a variety of techniques, such as collapsing similar needs, to arrive at a consensual list (Desmet and Fokkinga, 2020 ).…”

“…However, psychologists have yet to agree as to the existence of separable motives (Barrett, 2017), how many there are, nor on the identity of individual motives. Many different systems of human motives have been postulated in the psychological literature, from its earliest days (James, 1890) to the present (Talevich et al, 2017;Chierchia et al, 2020;Desmet and Fokkinga, 2020;Ko et al, 2020). Scholars have used a wide variety of approaches to identify sets of motivational constructs (sometimes called by names such as ergs, drives, needs or goals).…”