Activity-Centered and Emotional Design as Catalysts for Sustainable Innovation in Open and Distance Learning for Adult Learners

Zulisman Maksom, Hanif Al-Fatta, Faaizah Shahbodin, Che Ku Nuraini Che Ku Mohd, Fadhlan Faizal Nuruddin
pp. 62-77, download
(https://doi.org/10.55612/s-5002-069-003)

Abstract

Sustainable practice in the creative industries calls for design methods that support innovation without losing sight of human experience and longer-term cultural change. In Open and Distance Learning (ODL), adult learners’ engagement, persistence, and well-being depend on how learning goals, digital tools, institutional rules, communities, roles, and emotional experience work together. This conceptual paper brings Activity-Centered Design (ACD) and Emotional Design into a single theory-synthesis framework, informed by an integrative review of activity theory, temporally extended user experience, adult ODL, and sustainable creative education. The proposed logic moves from diagnosis to design: ACD locates contradictions in the activity system, Emotional Design examines how those contradictions are experienced over time, and the combined lens guides structural and experiential responses. An illustrative online studio case shows how this approach changes decisions about critique, scheduling, tool integration, feedback, community, and recovery for working adult creative practitioners. Design heuristics, candidate evaluation indicators, ethical safeguards, and boundary conditions are also proposed. The framework remains a conceptual proposition for empirical testing; it is not presented as evidence of established effectiveness.

keywords: Activity-Centered Design, Emotional Design, Sustainable Innovation, Open and Distance Learning, Adult Learners, Creative Industries.

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