Many years ago, when I was deep in the halls of academia, Aristotle, a Greek philosopher from the 4th century BCE, stood out as one of the most practical thinkers in a sea of abstract ones. He spent less time on unattainable ideals than on how we could live a good life by cultivating virtue. That focus on practical wisdom turns out to be useful in an unlikely place: digital product design.
Tech products take up more and more of our lives, and designers mostly focus on engagement, efficiency, and aesthetics. I think Aristotle gives us a way to design products that also help people live better, more virtuous lives.
Living a good life
If you haven't read Aristotle, start with his virtue ethics. He didn’t think a good life meant following rigid rules or chasing personal pleasure. He believed in developing virtues, positive habits that help us find a balance between extremes. For instance, courage lies between the extremes of recklessness and cowardice, and generosity sits between stinginess and wastefulness. According to Aristotle, living a good life requires practicing these virtues in a balanced way, a concept he referred to as the golden mean.
Virtues, for Aristotle, are not innate but learned through experience and repetition. The more we practice a virtuous behavior, the more it becomes part of our character. His philosophy teaches that real happiness and fulfillment, or what he called eudaimonia (flourishing or well-being), come from developing and practicing these virtues over time.
So how does this apply to product design? Designing with an Aristotelian mindset means building products that help users form good habits and look after their long-term well-being, on top of solving the problem in front of them.
Building habits instead of addictions
Aristotle would argue that the best products help users grow and find balance in their digital lives. Many products today are built to capture attention and maximize engagement, which tends to produce addiction more often than self-improvement.
Take the app Forest. Instead of endless scrolling and attention-draining notifications, Forest encourages users to develop focus and time-management skills. The app works by allowing users to “plant a tree” when they need to focus. If they stay on task, the tree grows; if they leave the app or get distracted, the tree dies. Over time, this simple, gamified system builds the virtue of self-discipline and healthier work habits.
In Aristotelian terms, Forest helps users practice moderation, somewhere between the chaos of constant distraction and a rigid obsession with productivity. People use it to get better at something, which is a different reason from engagement for its own sake.
Designing for long-term fulfillment
Aristotle’s eudaimonia is a deep, long-lasting sense of fulfillment that comes from living a virtuous life. Pleasure is fleeting; eudaimonia comes from living in a way that leads to growth and well-being. In product design, this means moving the focus from short-term rewards to actions that pay off over the long term.
Consider Duolingo, which guides users through the challenging but rewarding process of learning a new language. Duolingo rewards steady, consistent effort over instant gratification. Streaks and daily practice goals push users to develop the virtue of perseverance: sticking with a difficult task long enough to make real progress. Aristotle believed mastery and growth were what led to fulfillment, and this is a version of that.
Fitness apps like Fitbit do more than count steps. They encourage moderation and self-care by setting reasonable goals and rewarding gradual improvement. Somewhere between sitting all day and overdoing it is a healthier habit, and these products try to steer people toward it.
The golden mean in practice
Aristotle’s golden mean, the balance between extremes, applies directly to product design. Many digital products either overwhelm users with too many features or oversimplify to the point of frustration. The ideal product, like Aristotle’s virtues, sits between the two.
Notion, the productivity tool, gets this balance right. It has a lot of features for note-taking, planning, and organization, but users decide how much of it they want to use. It doesn't force templates on anyone or limit what they can make. People shape the app to fit their own needs, which encourages the virtue of autonomy, along with some discipline in how they organize their work.
Encouraging growth and virtue
Applied to product design, Aristotle would have us build products that help users grow as well as finish tasks. That might mean designing for reflection, for real interactions between people, or for healthier habits.
Headspace, the meditation app, offers quick stress relief, but it also asks users to practice mindfulness, patience, and calm on a regular basis. Aristotle would probably appreciate an app that pursues eudaimonia through a daily habit.
Designing to flourish
In product design it’s easy to chase quick wins: features that boost engagement, or whatever visual style is trending. Aristotle asks us to look further ahead, and to design products that help people build virtue and look after their well-being over the long run.
Next time you sit down to design, consider Aristotle’s teachings. Ask yourself how this product could help its users flourish. You might find it does more than meet their needs, and helps them live a bit better too.
Further reading
- Nicomachean Ethics, by Aristotle, is available for free on Project Gutenberg.
- The Art of Disappearing Tech
