In the field of design, users and consumers are often characterised in quite narrow and stereotypical ways, resulting in a world of manufactured objects that reflects an impoverished view of what it means to be human. Dunne & Raby set out to explore and develop a design approach that would lead to products that embodied an understanding of the consumer/user as a complex existential being. Dunne & Raby treated the phobias as though they were perfectly reasonable and designed objects to humour their owners.

The resulting objects are concrete examples of a very different way of designing for how people really are rather than how they are supposed to be. They explore how psychological realism can be applied to designed objects.

By starting with irrational fears, phobias and anxieties this project introduced a new way of creating designed objects that are deeply human, original and humorous. The process developed to achieve this can be abstracted and applied to other design areas where emotional needs are prioritised over practical needs.

The work was first shown in 2004 in London as Designs for Fragile Personalities in Uncertain Times at England & Co. It was then shown along with other Dunne & Raby projects as part of Safe at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Extraordinary at the Kulturhuset, Stockholm; and PopNoir at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, in 2005. In 2006 two pieces were shown at 2006 Design Art at Phillips de Pury & Company, New York, and one piece as part of the UK architecture section at the Venice Biennale. It has been included in catalogues accompanying the Safe and PopNoir exhibitions and in Twenty-first Century Design by Marcus Fairs and The Furniture Machine by Gareth Williams (both 2006).