· · · Institutional Repository

This report describes the process of the graduation project of Xu Chen. The project was carried out for Philips Consumer Lifestyle Netherlands on TA2 project and under supervision of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at the Delft University of Technology. TA2, Together Anytime, Together Anywhere, is a large integrated multimedia project funded by European Union FP7. The main task of this graduation project is to look into the human factors in ambient intelligence, namely strategic design for “Connected Lobby” on how to enhance family “togetherness” while taking into account of people’s privacy. This thesis focused especially on investigating on the possibility of balancing “togetherness” and “privacy” through computer-mediated communication. A new design approach was explored in the project to guide the strategic product planning process from expressing user’s latent experience by combining semantic differential scaling (SDS) experiment into user research. A context model was generated, providing the possibility of balancing “togetherness” and “privacy” through three factors in seven different usage contexts. A design part followed the exploratory phase. A strategic design guideline on control scheme, namely how to use ambient awareness system to trigger people to communicate was generated. The concept of “smart awareness assistant” was developed and a renewed “Connected Lobby” interface was designed and tested. The “smart awareness assistant” could trigger the family members to share the meaningful moment with each other at the right time, and filter the unwanted information exchange when the user is not available to communicate, which could enhance family “togetherness” through balancing “awareness” and “privacy”.

Introduction You only have to read the paper or watch the evening news to understand the problems local hang-out youth is causing recently. Last year, Mayor Mr. Cohen called youth-molestation one of the biggest problems of the city of Amsterdam. Humiliation of the youth, safety cameras, the Mosquito1 and gathering restriction orders; in recent discussions, nothing is too much to control youth which is hanging out on the streets. This graduation assignment will give a positive solution for the Youth Meeting Point of the Future. Context To understand the meeting adolescents in the public space, the first step of the process, was to build up the current context by a questionnaire (left behind at youth forums), observation (of meeting points), generative techniques (with more structural hangout youth) and literature research. It seemed that the adolescence phase of life is very important in the process of creating an own identity. Part of this process is belonging to different groups of cliques and seeking for sensation (risky behaviour). The youth’s transition from dependence to independence happens in different adolescence arenas. Home and school are the most common arenas. Some adolescents have to cope with a lot of stress in these scenes, because the internal structure of schools cannot stimulate them and the financial situation of their parents is not sufficient. A relatively new arena is the virtual world, which is, especially during adolescence, important to get and maintain social contacts. The fourth arena is the public space, which is for 80 percent of the (Dutch) youth a place the meet friends and escape from supervision. Future Context In a world that is becoming more stressful (by an economic recession), more crowded (bigger cities) and more individual (lack of religion, leisure planning), youth will be pushed towards the Boy’s Room Culture (having all the technical and social possibilities, which is being conducted behind closed doors) or the Street Culture (being excessive assertive/ aggressive, driven by the lack of success experiences, financial pressure and low self-esteem). In both situations, youth does experience an individuality, which does not work for all adolescents. Either way, youth has to self-explore their values, education, leisure time and social interactions. Vision In order to provide the adolescents and others in the neighbourhood of the social interactions they need for creating their own identity, the statement I would like to make is: I want to enable adolescents to express their social and explorative behaviour, in such a way, that it stimulates the participation of strangers. Product The product that fulfills this statement consists of LED-tiles integrated with pressure censors. The configuration of the tiles is, that it provides the adolescents of a place to meet their friends (see figure). While meeting, users will be challenged to hit tiles, that spontaneous light up. When users doing extremely good, they will be rewarded by, for example, an entire floor that starts blinking. To find out what really happened, or to achieve the same result, youngsters will become active. The exploring, searching, doubting and trying, create an interaction that can be called vulnerable, which makes the situation more approachable for strangers. Since the configuration has a boundless character, it also invites by-passers to hit a certain tile. The result is a social interaction between the different users of the public space. Test To find out if the concept worked out as described, a prototype has been built to execute a usability test. The prototype consisted of seven interactive tiles (tiles with a lighting heart and four switches) and one remote control, which was necessary to tune in certain programs. The usability test was nothing more than the placement of the prototype in an environment that was suitable for youth meeting each other (place of retreat and interaction). In total three groups of youth were observed during their exploration with the prototype. The interaction with the product could be described as active and vulnerable. According to the youth itself, the concept was inviting and challenging. Some by-passers stopped to look at the action that was going on.

This master thesis shows how to assitant users to create music playlist collaboratively on a Multi-touch surface in an interface design. The project is sponsored by Philips Applied technology. As Philips gains profound knowledge while manufacturing and selling large display products, the large display technology itself tends to increase in size and decrease in cost. For the future development of it, people in Philips had observed enormous potential with developing applications on large displays by using Multi-touch technology. In order to address suitable use cases to apply to this expanding technology, Philips started this project to explore multiple user interactions with music browsing. The project mainly concerns itself with exploring how multiple users can collaboratively build music playlists. I first conducted research into user context about how people search music, and found out that people tend to mainly search music through performer and title of the song. More importantly, user’s music searching turns out to be a social interaction with others. Later I performed a user study to investigate this aspect. This resulted in a few key findings. When users start to search, they would like to receive recommendations based upon top songs and artists, with the songs that are most popular at the time, the mainstream music, being selected as the primary ones. In addition, they want to build a playlist which best suits the atmosphere, and they also want to achieve a balance between personal taste, and the preferences from others. From the results of the user study, the Sharestream application was designed and built on a multi-touch table, and then tested for the final demonstration. It helps multiple people to build a music party, while browsing music collections spontaneously. Users are able to construct their playlist together in a social way: they can perceive others’ search results and are able interact with them, as well as evoking intensive social discussion during searching. In addition, Sharestream can also enable users to change the playlist they build to suit their mood. For the future development of Sharestream, integration with Philips Ambient lighting technology will play a critical role to create a better atmosphere for users. Developing concepts like Sharestream into Philips’ product portfolio, which evoke social interaction of multiple users, will be significantly beneficial in the future business market.

A bag has been designed for GoTo aimed specifically at the lifestyle group of young creative professionals. The aspects of sustainability, fashion and last but not least usability were combined in this project. First of all, sustainable methodologies and textiles were investigated. Then, an internal and external analysis was conducted, after which the method of cultural probes was used to map the context of the lifestyle. A collage showing the style of the target group can be seen at the right. A list of criteria was set up as a result of the analysis phase. Next, ideas were generated. Three concepts were developed: the concept of a modular but simple bag, the concept of a bag that can be transformed in size and finally the concept of a book that contains guidelines to make your own bag from waste materials. These concepts were evaluated and the modular bag has been chosen to elaborate further. The design result is a bag that be split in two bags of different sizes by means of zippers. The bag, which can be used as a backpack or shoulderbag, is made of naturally tanned leather because that is a durable, beautiful and classic material. The price positioning has been determined by comparing the new bag to bags in the same segment (Claudio Ferrici, Fred de la Bretoniére and Cowboy Bags) and bags with the same target group (Freitag, Gravis and Crumpler). Finally, a protoype was made and a user test was conducted to get insight in optimization points of the design. Together with the assessment to the criteria, the conclusions from the user test are summarized in a recommendation to the company. This recommendation includes ways to realize series expansion, increasing the brand familiarity of GoTo and marketing concepts. Furthermore, a photoshoot is held with a photographer to make product- and lifestyle photos.

Since 1990 a smoke free working environment is compulsory at institutions, since 2004 on the work floor in general and since 2008 in the catering industry. This graduation project describes the development of a smoke solution to be used at companies, events and in the catering industry. The project is executed for Neptunus structures, a company that develops, manufactures and rents out temporary structures of superior quality for the event and business market. Neptunus is first in the development of new technologies, which makes them market leader in the top segment, where many competitors are active. In this market many trends can be noticed. A growing need for flexible housing, more restrictions for semi-permanent solutions, a stagnating event market and growing market for semi-permanent structures are most important for Neptunus. In the market of smoke solutions small tents and permanent smoke cabins are the biggest competition, but most of these solutions are not very comfortable. Only few bars offer a smoke solution. Bar owners state that this solution increases their income. Often bars and restaurants without smoke solutions do not offer these solutions out of a lack of space, money and sometimes interests. Although customers say their choice of bar does not depend on an available smoke solution, they do tend to end up in a bar where a smoke solution is present or smoking is still allowed. For this situation a half open shelter or a closed smoke solution can be developed. People will walk in and out all night or permanently stay in the smoke solution during their visit. With alcohol consumption unintended usage will be an important problem, therefore some kind of openness has to make it easier for bar owners to keep an eye on the customers using the solution. Smoke solutions can be found at institutions and companies, but there are still many employees without that luxury. Reasons are similar to those in the catering industry, but sometimes it is a question of principle. At events an additional tent to function as smoke solution can be placed almost effortless. However, this is not seen very often. For companies and events the smoke solution will be mostly used for short periods in time and rush hours during brakes. At companies there will be more peer pressure, thus less unintended usage. Depending on what kind of event, a music festival or a polo game, the usage will be similar as in the catering industry and at companies. Managers are willing to pay approximately €1500,- for a possible smoke solution. In the concept generation phase a brainstorm session has led to several product categories, for instance material, storage & assembly and existing shelters. These categories are used as guidelines to search images which serve as inspiration to start the idea sketching. Furthermore a process tree of the total life cycle, from production to dismissal of the smoke solution is drawn up. From this process tree a list of demands and wishes for the smoke solution in the catering industry and at companies and events has been concluded. The smoke solution has to fulfill all demands and as much wishes as possible for both the catering industry and companies and events since the final smoke solution has to be applicable in all environments. Design criteria are formulated to evaluate all concepts, for instance does it fit the Neptunus’ portfolio and is it better than current smoke solutions. Finally this analysis has led to 3 concepts of which one, The Smoke Dome, is chosen and elaborated in the detailing phase.

Usability, simplicity and ease of use are still ‘hot topics’ in product design. To illustrate how important the user became in product design, Philips introduced Sense and Simplicity as their brand promise in 2004. However, in the early nineties, Philips had already launched a product line that aimed to be specifically easy to use. The line was named the Easy Line and consisted of four audio products: an analogue clock radio, a portable radio, a radio cassette recorder and a HiFi set. Although, the line was intended to be THE solution to difficult to operate audio equipment, it didn’t sell well. The question arose: why? The desire to find the answer to this question formed the basis for this study. The study into the Easy Line was approached as a retrospective case study. The main research question was: ‘Why and how was the Easy Line developed and how come it was (not) a success?’ During the study, multiple sources of evidence were used. A large and important part of the information was obtained by interviewing people who played a role in the Easy Line project. When data were collected, mind-maps were made that formed the basis for ‘The story of the Easy Line’ which is told chronologically: The Easy Line Fierce competition in the consumer electronics market from Japan (Sony particularly) made it necessary for Philips to react and innovate to maintain a profitable market share. The combination of the growing dislike of complex products, the graying of the population and the then recent successful segmentation of the audio market into target groups was seen as an opportunity for Philips to develop easy to use products. Philips’ Business Group Audio thought that easy products would fulfil an unsatisfied need for uncomplicated products and would therefore result in sales and sustainable profit for Philips. The initial target group Philips chose for the Easy Line were the elderly, however, this has been adjusted at the start of the project to (almost) everyone. The Easy Line project was initiated by Philips’ Business Group Audio. The development of the portable Easy Line products (i.e. the analogue clock radio, the portable radio and the radio cassette recorder) started first. The design was done by Philips Corporate Design. The design phase of the portable range was relatively short: it took the designer about three weeks to finish the concepts. The development and design of the HiFi set was done by an external company: Cambridge Consultants Ltd. During the process there was little communication between the two project teams which resulted in a HiFi set that had little in common with the portable Easy Line products. During the development, especially of the portable Easy Line, no real user tests were done: the step to see if people really needed or wanted ‘easy’ products and what they expected of them was skipped. The Easy Line products were positioned in the ‘high-end’ segment. The high price was justified by emphasizing that the products were of high quality and had a special design. In the sales situation it wasn’t specifically emphasized that the Easy Line was a coherent line and that its products were easy to use. Besides, when compared to similar products, the Easy Line products were expensive, but had a short feature lists. The Easy Line was mainly sold in mass market stores which meant that products with similar functionality and much lower prices were displayed next to the Easy Line and consumers didn’t have the opportunity to try the products. Although the idea for an Easy Line seemed, and still seems, promising, the Easy Line itself cannot be labelled successful due to low sales numbers. Various reasons can be given for the fact that not many Easy Line products were sold, for example: the high prices in combination with the small feature lists, little marketing, the focus on a combination of selling points and the therefore diluted message to consumers. Besides, the project suffered from organizational changes in Philips’ management, shifting priorities and pressure on time to market. To support and strengthen the conclusions of the Easy Line case study, three short studies were done that were used to draw parallels with the Easy Line. The first topic was Braun (a German consumer electronics firm) to illustrate that the desire to simplify people’s lives by creating easy to use products was not new when Philips introduced the Easy Line. In addition Braun’s approach to product design showed similarities with simplicity as defined in this report. The second topic was Philips current approach to simplicity in products and the third is a short study to a selection of other products that somehow use ‘easiness’ in their development process and/or as selling point. The studies in this report indicate that: - Naming a product or product line ‘easy’ or having ‘sense and simplicity’ as a brand promise, influences consumers expectations about the easiness of a product. Fulfilling expectations of easiness requires (much) time and effort and is therefore (more) expensive. - Developing ‘easy’ products (might) require concessions on functionalities and price and the goal to make easy products therefore has to be set early in the process; - ‘Easiness’ doesn’t seem to be a useful (unique) selling proposition. Adding or focussing on other selling points like sustainability, design or a low price (next to easiness) seems beneficial to sales; - A product or product line needs to have a consistent and clear message to the consumer. A ‘message’ should preferably communicate the advantage(s) the product has for the consumer (i.e. makes the advantage observable). - Having easiness as selling point implies investing in the ‘triability’ of the product(s) in the sales situation, as ‘triability’ contributes to the ‘observability’ of the advantage(s) of ease of use and is therefore likely to contribute to sales. Exhibition An exhibition was designed to communicate the results of the Easy Line case study. The exposition is divided into four areas where the first forms an introduction; the last three together answer the research question: 1. An introduction to the Easy Line, 2. Why Philips developed the Easy Line, 3. How Philips developed the Easy Line, 4. And the results of the Easy Line project. The reasons why the Easy Line wasn’t successful should become clear while visiting the exhibition. The exhibition is flexible, so that it can be transported and set up in different locations. The exposition means include large panels with posters, rectangular blocks to put the products on with small signs and standards for magazines and information.

The aim of the project is to design a product or device that will enable autistic children to practice emotional expressions with the use of PrEmo animations. It will have to grow with the capabilities of the children and it will have to trigger the children to explore and learn. The product will be aiming at autistic children between 6 and 10 years of age that have no deficits in mental capabilities. These are the children who struggle most with their social problems during puberty. Snapje is an iPhone app. to learn emotions to autistic children in everyday life. The parent or caretaker makes photo’s with his iPhone from situations in which the child is part of or from familiar people. With these photos and the PrEmos games can be played. The iPhone has an additional cover with key cord that protects the iPhone from falling, bumping or breaking. Not only does it protect, it also brings more structure to the game in giving feedback on who’s turn it is. In the settings menu, players can chose their own character with belonging colour. The colour, lighting up from the RGB-leds in the cover, correspond with the colours of the characters that have been chosen. The level can be changed in the settings menu as well. A photo is opened and parent and child can play a game with the photo in which they both have to tag the photo with an emotion. The turns are well addressed by the coloured cover and the characters. The game can be played very openly, discussing what emotions take place, but it can also be played in a way you only know afterwards if the same emotion or different emotions have been chosen by parent and child. If the child selects an emotion that is identical to one chosen by the parent, the child gets directly extra reward. Afterwards it is clear who has chosen which emotion, by coloured distinctions similar to the colours of the players. This can be discussed, and the importance of emotions can be defined. In addition to this game the child can play four other games on his own. Match and Memory make the child familiarize with the emotions. With the other two games the photos can be reviewed. This happens either in a passive mode in which the PrEmo’s are visible or in an active mode in which the child has to choose which PrEmo belongs to the photo. Snapje is a fun way to learn emotions in relation to it’s context! Fun! The younger children do not only have a big interest in reviewing photos of themselves and familiar people, they also like the PrEmo-animations. Useful! Snapje interests the younger children who can still learn from situations in which they played a role themselves. It raises awareness to the emotions that took place in relation to the context. Intelligent children over ten years might have less interest in playing the game in their spare time. However, the game is useful for them when played with photos of strangers and situations in which they were not present. Adaptable! Parent and child find their own way to play Snapje. Either in an open or competitive way. Snapje stimulates playing together! The play-in-turns, create structure and clearity. Not only the child revives situations and becomes aware of emotions that have occurred with themselves and around them, but the parent can get more insights on the child’s emotions as well. Parents are enthusiastic about Snapje and eager to make photos for the game, if their child can still learn about emotions that occur by usage of these photos.

Products are no longer solely judged on their functionality; this is nowadays taken for granted. Today's products distinguish themselves by the user experiences they elicit. Depending on the product at hand, audition may play an important role in establishing such an experience. Therefore, it is important for product designers to consider the quality of the auditory experience. A typical design process consists of four phases: problem analysis, conceptual design, embodiment design, and detailing. A final prototype is commonly built during the last design phase, often it is only at that time the sound of a product becomes apparent. The sound may be evaluated, and should it fail to comply with the aimed user experience, a large part of the product may have to be redesigned. The product development process could be much more efficient if product sound design is incorporated from the very beginning. Product sounds, as emitted by domestic appliances (e.g., electric tooth brushes, microwave ovens, alarm clocks, etc.), are composed of sound producing mechanical and electrical parts. Various sounding models and tools have already been developed to imitate the sound of product parts. However, at the beginning of a product design process often no knowledge is yet available on the parts to be used. Contrary to sounding models, no tool to sketch product sounds existed, until now. This graduation project concerns the conceptual development of PSST: a Product Sound Sketching Tool. PSST is a sketching tool consisting of a collection of playful physical icons (phicons), a table, and a web-cam connected to a product sound synthesizer. The synthesizer can be controlled by manipulating phicons on the table. Each phicon resembles the sound parameters it manipulates by means of its visual and tactile design. PSST allows unexperienced industrial sound designers to create ideas for product sounds belonging to different product sound categories. Findings of two experiments demonstrate this activity can be characterized as sketching. Furthermore, the findings strongly suggest that the tool facilitates an interpretive cycle, and consequentially thinking sketching. Finally, findings demonstrate that the tool allows for intentionally creating energetic product sound sketches. PSST is specifically designed for the conceptual design phase. Proposals have been made to integrate PSST in a design studio environment. These proposals include exchanging sound sketches between design team members, modifying existing sound sketches, and coming to a fine-tuned compromise during design meetings. PSST is a first step in designing product sounds from the very beginning of the design process. When the resulting product sound sketches are used as guide throughout this process, a final prototype can be developed more efficient and more effective. The sound of this prototype will then comply with the intended product character, and the experience the product is supposed to evoke. PSST was realized through iterations of building, testing, interviewing, and creative sessions with (sound) designers. The project took place at ID-StudioLab, a design research community at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology.

This graduation project was done for Guide ID: A company that specialises in the development and production of audio and multimedia guides. Their products are sold to museums, visitor centres, zoos, etc. Museums are the main customers of Guide ID and the project has therefore focused on them. The assignment for this project was to design a new product for Guide ID that enhances the museum experience of visitors. The project especially focused on two aspects of the museum experience, namely personalisation and interpretation. Personalisation is a strategy employed by museums to respond to individual visitor interests and preferences, which can then be linked to their collection and/or activities. Interpretation is about the understanding of museum objects. Audio and multimedia guides like wall labels and catalogues are used to provide this interpretation and help visitors to make meaning of museum objects. With these aspects in mind, the ARGO was designed. The ARGO is a handheld application that makes use of the Augmented Reality see-through-effect to link interpretive content to museum objects. It enables visitors to actively engage in the stories of museum objects, follow their interests and choose the depth of their interpretive experience. In addition the product is able to help visitors navigate through the museum building with the help of virtual signs. This not only helps visitors to find the different museum facilities but also enables them to find specific objects within the museum. The application is distributed via the Internet and can be downloaded on the visitor’s own smartphone.

In this report the project of designing a leg support for use during the procedure of an ultrasound-guided nerve block is described. The ultrasound-guided peripheral nerve block is a new regional anesthesia technique that is very promising. This new technique encounters problems when parts of a patients leg needs to be sedated for a certain operation. In most cases there are two nerves that need to be blocked, the n. Femoralis and the n. Ischiadicus. The first one is positioned in the groin while the other is positioned in the subgluteal region (buttock). In general pediatric patients are under general anesthesia while performing the ultrasound-guided peripheral nerve blocks. This results in that there is a problem when the n. Ischiadicus needs to be reached, because the pediatric patient is lying unconscious on his back. The conventional way is to turn the patient around with two to three anesthetic staff members. This causes problems for the staff and the patient. In this report a new solution is explored, one that is staff and patient friendly. The end result is a product that can be placed by one anesthetic staff member while the patient lies unconscious on his back. The product lifts the leg that needs to be operated and in this way create a large workspace for the anesthesiologist to perform the ultrasound-guide nerve block of the n. Ischiadicus.

For head and neck cancer treatment by hyperthermia, a waterbolus is needed to cool the skin and the transport electromagnetic energy. The redesign uses compressible foam and elastic foil in the waterbolus, and splits it in two. The patient is installed in the treatment position first. Then the ring around the water boluses is administered to him from the sides. By this approach the patient will have more comfort, and the treatment will have a more precise positioning. The waterbolus and positioning strategy are combined in an integral redesign of the head and neck hyperthermia applicator.

900.000 visitors go to Schiphol every year to see and experience this man-made marvel. These visitors do not come to the airport to travel nor to pick up or say goodbye to friends and relatives. These visitors are solely there to have a nice day out; do some shopping, look at the airplanes and get something to eat. Schiphol wishes to provide a new leisure activity for these visitors based upon their fascination for the airport. Such a leisure activity should be: fun, informative and a PR message, and in that respective order. This graduation project is concerned with the design of this leisure activity. Because of the fascination of the visitors for the airport, the best leisure activity would be a sightseeing tour. Without actually giving people access to restricted areas, a “tour behind the scenes” can be made possible with mixed reality technology. Mixed reality is a context sensitive digital layer which can be placed over the real world. With this the tour can become an exciting and serious leisure activity focusing on meaningful content and social interactivity.

This master thesis explains the development of an improvement for Dutchband’s token dispenser. Dutchband is a young company, which develops products to increase efficiency in the event world, such as the tokens or coins as replacement for money and wristbands to replace the traditional admission tickets. The token is used in different places, at small events it is possible to break the tokens of the string manually and sell them, but once the numbers of visitors increase, as is the case on a major event such as Lowlands or Sensation, this can be automated. For instance by using one of the three machines Dutchband has developed. Pin dispenser Cash dispenser Hand dispenser All machines work with the same principle to dispense the tokens. Inside these machines, the rolls of tokens are mounted, unrolled and broken off automatically. For the hand version there is a person sitting in a booth takes care of the payment and manages the machine with a few buttons. To create an even faster and cheaper service, the pin and cash machine do this fully automatically, reducing cost of labour. Currently the machines can only dispense tokens in a multitude of five or four tokens. Since the cash machine only accepts standard euro bills there is a problem with payment for certain token rates. To solve this problem the cash machines needs to become more flexible and able to provide every amount of tokens instead of the multitude of 5. This makes possible to remain using the machine in the future. The product developed in this graduation project is created to cut the tokens in multitudes of one token. The main problem was divided into three sub problems Separating; the physical separation of the tokens from the string, this resulted in a specially designed cutting devices which bends and cuts the token Propulsion; unrolling the string to the correct amount of tokens and feeding it in to the machine so it can be broken off, this resulted in a new system, to count the tokens as they pass and check how many tokens are still in stock. Aligning; crucial in dispensing the tokens without unwanted damage, this resulted in a new approach to correct errors in aligning, by comparing the length of the individual tokens, travelled distance by the token string and actual distance from sensor to break line and correcting accordingly. After the three main problems had been developed into three different concepts they are combined into a full functioning prototype to demonstrate its ability to cut tokens, which provided a satisfactory result.

Study shows that children like to play active, but are playing more and more physically inactive (by means of computer and television). Creazi, the company in this assignment, aims to change this and wants to have a product for children that is fun to play with, and also helps to achieve a healthy lifestyle. From earlier design they had a vehicle for adults, which might interest children as well. The Banjy a vehicle that is driven by the movement like made on an elliptical trainer. This was the starting point for this graduation project. Four identical (red) test models of the Banjy were provided to test and adjusted later in the project. In order to find out what children’s preferences are and whether they like to play with the Banjy, an interaction research was started. In this research several smaller studies were performed. First of all children playing with the Banjy’s, which were provided at a playground, were observed and interviewed. Then some families got a Banjy for two weeks and were interviewed afterwards about it. Thirdly, children of five classes at primary schools were asked to design a vehicle based on the movement made on an elliptical trainer. A Banjy-hyves was made to keep in contact with the children and discuss with them. Finally, literature was consulted to support all gathered information. The main result of this research was that children do like to play with the Banjy, because they like the movement with both arms and legs. Also the way of steering is liked. The main negative aspect of the Banjy was the size. It made the vehicle difficult to store at home. Based on the results some decisions about the new design were made. It would be a children’s toy vehicle, targeting at children in the age between 8-12 years. Because the vehicle is for private use, the Banjy needs to be small, so a total redesign for a smaller version is needed. During the idea generation some interesting options were found, that remarkably all used the movement of an elliptical trainer. These ideas lead to four promising concepts. From these concepts the Banjy STUNT was chosen as the basis for further design, with the remark that options for playing together needed to be optimised. The Banjy STUNT is totally different from the previous test models, both in form and in function. The Banjy STUNT has the levers bend backwards, has the ability to drive in two directions, and has a higher learning curve which challenges children for a longer time span. Children have a lot of options on how to use the Banjy Stunt. They can stand and drive forward, even with someone sitting in the front and they can stand or sit to ride backwards. Because of the large differences with the red model, the size of the Banjy STUNT and placing of the pivot points were optimised first. Two (blue) adjustable test models were made to test the most optimal levels for the ergonomics. Next to the pivot points the steering mechanism, form of pedals and form of the levers were optimised. These blue models were tested by children, also to check how they experienced the new vehicle. Most striking was the design of the form of the levers. The form and motion of the lever influence the posture and the movement of the user. The posture and motion are very important factors of riding convenience. The children all had their own preferences as a result of their length differences. In order to offer all children in the age-group of 8 to 12 years old the possibility to find a pleasant posture, the levers will be made adjustable. The information gathered form the test was used to improve the size, form and placing of pivot points for the final model. Also the name Banjy STUNT was changed to Banjy Play, because children did not manage to stunt with the vehicle within a short time. With having the ergonomics right, the design for the Banjy Play was completed. However some details are recommended to be improved, to make the design safer and stronger, before production. To conclude, this graduation project has resulted in a redesign of the Banjy, the Banjy Play; a vehicle that is demonstrated to attract children and their parents, in form, in playing abilities and in storage options.

This thesis is about a project on dynamic coloured lighting and the atmospheres that can be created with such lighting. The graduation project for Philips and TU Delft consisted of two parts. A literature study showed that very little information is available on people’s preferences regarding dynamic lighting. Therefore an extensive user study was carried out in the first part of the project, to find out what the specific requirements are that people have with regard to dynamic lighting settings. The goal was to find out what needs and wishes people have concerning dynamics in light atmosphere creation. In two sessions of the user study the participants were shown a large quantity of dynamic lighting settings in a living room environment and were asked to judge these settings on preference and naturalness. The quantitative analysis of the data gathered showed interesting trends in preference regarding the different dynamic settings. Interviews were held with the participants after each setting and these provided information for a qualitative analysis. Colour and speed are concluded to be the most important parameters that people want to change when it comes to dynamic settings. Also, the more a dynamic setting resembles a natural setting, the more it is preferred. The correlation between preference and naturalness is high (r=0.645). The results and conclusions of the quantitative and qualitative analyses were used in the second part of the project. The goal of this second part was to develop an interaction concept for the creation and control of dynamics in light atmospheres. The most important focus point was the usability; to make sure that people are able to interact with the concept in an easy and intuitive way. A partially functioning digital prototype was created which was used in evaluation sessions. From the evaluation sessions can be concluded that the proposed concept is generally appreciated. Recommendations are however given to further improve the concept. The relevance of this thesis lies in both parts of the project. The user study provides important insights in an area which is still largely uncovered. It functions as a fundament in the analysis of the perception of dynamic lighting. The concept functions as a showcase of what can be done with knowledge on dynamic lighting. Because the concept is generally appreciated it can function as a starting point for the development of interaction concepts for the creation and control of dynamic lighting settings at home.

Education is ever changing. The latest development, the introduction of the Bachelor-Master structure, has shifted the focus of the educational system to more activating and practical pedagogy. Parallel to this change, the number of students at the Delft University of Technology will increase drastically in the next ten years. Up till now, the solution was to build larger lecture rooms. However, research shows that on average only 32% of the seats in the Delft University of Technology lecture rooms is used. This calls for a different approach; not the number of seats should be increased, but the utilisation of seats. This utilisation can be increased by a higher flexibility of rooms. A part of this flexibility can be achieved by the upcoming technology of video conferencing; lecture rooms can be linked to each other and students in one lecture room can watch a lecture given in another lecture room. With the help of aiming microphones and cameras, students can even ask their questions to the teacher from another room. This is already being tested at the faculty of 3ME. The other possibility to increase flexibility is by changing furniture. The furniture in the rooms at the DUT currently has only one purpose; either lectures or group work. Increasing the possibilities of the rooms can cause more usage and thus enlarge efficiency. Such creation of flexibility by developing new furniture was the goal of this project. Furniture company Eromes also saw an opportunity in this project and with the help of their experience and manufacturing possibilities a piece of furniture had to be designed that could accommodate both lectures and group work. It had to be easy to use and combine the work space and comfort of a group work table, with power and network connections, and the practical side of fixed lecture furniture. The result of this project is the Flexstool; lecture room furniture capable to accommodate both lectures and group work or a combination of both. The latter allows lectures to have practical intermezzos. The Flexstool consists of a frame with a fixed table, a bench and two rotating chairs. Each Flexstool unit can be used by five or, if necessary, six persons. Two persons can take place on the rotating chairs in the front and three or four can be seated on the bench. The users seated on the bench use a fixed table, while the users on the rotating chairs use tables attached to their chairs. These will rotate with the chairs, resulting in an individual table when in lecture mode and, when joined with the fixed table, one large group table. If the Flexstool is used in three combined lecture rooms, each with a current capacity of 100 seats, the occupation of these rooms can be increased from 64% to 100% and the utilisation of the rooms can be increased from 21% to more than 60%. Besides a computer design, a prototype of the Flexstool was made. This prototype is a complete working model of the design, with the same aesthetics as the Flexstool would have when produced in series.

This report presents a reinterpreted Human Machine Interface (HMI)design aimed at the DAVIE diagnostic tool and facilitating an efficient workflow for DAF and Paccar mechanics. It describes the process thereof as part of a graduation project for Master degree in Industrial Design Engineering at the faculty of Industrial Design at the University of Technology in Delft. The DAF Vehicle Investigation Equipment (DAVIE) diagnostics tool, specially developed for DAF Trucks, is used by mechanics in the workshops of its dealers or for road side assistance to diagnose malfunctions, change vehicle systems setup and perform repair and maintenance. Due to new legislation and as the truck’s configurations become more complex DAVIE needs to adapt accordingly. The current DAVIE is focused on the truck’s internal components and rather disregarding the user’s workflow. This perspective needed to be altered to a more User Centred Design approach and so the interaction needs to be reinterpreted to facilitate an efficient workflow. The new tool and design will be developed and implemented within DAF and Paccar and will find its way to all its dealers. Within the design process, the navigation of the HMI design is defined according to use cases from the field and the user research by carefully dissecting, merging and rearranging DAVIE functions with the mechanic’s workflow in mind. A quite complex tool became ‘simple’ in structure. The design is consistent throughout all functions to reduce acclimatization for the mechanic. The entire GUI is designed for use with touch screen and therefore has widely spaced, large enough buttons. A system is developed to provide feedback about where the user is in the navigation, what steps were taken, and provides accessibility to return to these steps. The user can go ‘Home’ in one touch. The way items in the content are presented to the mechanic forms an important part as such system appears in every DAVIE function. The hierarchical categorization is made transparent to the mechanic and consistent throughout all functions in order to facilitate understanding about interrelations. This aspect manifested in two ways: a categorised list in which loose items and their hierarchical relation can be identified and a schematic of the vehicle’s ECU’s (Electronic Control Units) representing the vehicle’s ECU structure. An easy accessible system to acquire background or detailed information is developed to supplement the mechanics knowledge. To provide transparency towards DAVIE’s connection to the network and truck, a status display is developed representing the actual parts, configuration and connection status. Pop-ups were developed to present procedures which the mechanic can perform on the vehicle. These along with the rest of the tool’s content are written by the DAF authoring environment and so providing content (knowledge) to the tool for the mechanics. Dialog boxes (pop-ups) present warnings, questions or progress of processes to the user. The mechanic always knows where he is through half opacity when presented with such a pop-up or dialog box. To validate the design in advance of developing and launching it in the field a usability study is conducted in the Netherlands and North America with mechanics. This research aimed to validate the usability of the developed workflow and navigation concept, terminology (readability, icons) and the various HMI design aspects. Cases from the field were used and a prototype is developed with the content to support these cases. Generally several mechanics remarked the new tool to be user friendly. During the tests the participant succeeded in solving the various cases; sometimes not at first try, but at second or third. Therefore the HMI design can be argued to be quite successful as the tool is entirely new and unfamiliar for the participants. They had never seen the interface and some functions were new for them. Results, conclusions and recommendations from the research were subsequently implemented in a HMI redesign.

The Philips Design Probes are a ‘far-future’ research program aimed at understanding lifestyle post 2020. The program aims at identifying probable systemic shifts in the social and economic domains likely to affect our business and create intellectual property in new areas. By developing future scenarios (narratives) and accompanying concepts (provocations) the Probes team aims at challenging conventional thinking and stimulate debate both inside and outside of Philips Design. This debate helps to develop an understanding of the research domain, which can then be translated back to medium- and short term projects, stimulating people in thinking things can be done in a different way. At first the focus of this project was on finding out how insights on the Electronic Tattoo provocation could be made valuable as a source of inspiration for the internal design community of Philips Design, Therefore the context studies were aimed at the internal and external communication of the Electronic Tattoo provocation and the current insights generation and communication. From these context studies it became clear that the main problem preventing the insights from the provocation being inspiring for the designers was the lack of engagement of the designers with the Design Probes. This lack of engagement is caused by the fact that the designers do not feel they can contribute to the Design Probes and do not see the link with their own work. This is caused by the lack of dialogue between the Probes team and the designers and the limited amount of information the designers get about the purpose of the Design Probes within the innovation strategy of Philips Design and the narrative behind the provocation. These findings led to the formulation of the design focus for the concept development, which is on the design of a communication tool to stimulate dialogue between the designers and the Probes team, make it easy to share inspirational materials with colleagues and with that enable the inspirational information from the Design Probes to spread through the company. The communication tool should match the current way of handling inspirational materials of the designers, allowing for serendipitous encounters with inspirational materials outside their project scope, stimulating critical thinking about the proposed future possibilities and the development of their own point of view about it. The information from the Design Probes should be communicated when the designers are looking for inspiration themselves at their personal workspace, as part of their daily work. When looking at the insights, it is concluded that contextual insights should be generated for the Electronic Tattoo provocation as they are currently not available. The contextual insights allow the designers to connect to the experiences of the consumers as well as their own, which helps them to develop their own opinion about the issues addressed in the probe narrative and the insights. Three concepts have been developed; the Probe Sketch Tables, Personal Probe Book and Probe Talks App. The concepts are based on the same principles,but make use of different media. For the evaluation an experiential prototype was made of one of the concepts and tested at Philips Design in Eindhoven. The conclusions from the evaluation are that the concepts complement each other and should be implemented together, as they all match different preferences of handling inspirational materials of the designers.

The TikTegel, by Serious Toys, is a game computer that looks like a tablet, without keyboard, mouse or traditional screen. Players interact with the board by placing objects on it and receive auditive and visual feedback by sound and parts of the board that light up. The objective of the project is to use the tangible interactive possibilities of the TikTegel to create a new learning aid for the first two classes of primary school in the Netherlands. Education in group 1-2 is a versatile process that includes both learning specific things and general development. In the classroom teachers create an environment where children 'learn' in different ways: pupils are completely free to decide what they do, teachers take up child initiatives or activities are prescribed by the schedule or as a result of personal development of a pupil. A set of predefined targets imposed by the government, the Kerndoelen, are used in different ways to set up educational activities. Rules of a game create a structure that can lead the activity of playing in a specific (educational) direction. When knowledge and challenges are included in a, for players, meaningful way a game can create educationally valuable and internally motivating activities. A game on the TikTegel consists of multiple different interactive reactions to physical objects. It can create an adaptable structure that provides multiple interrelated educationally valuable experiences. The TikTegel can create a ‘small world’ (physical and reactive) based on the rules and logic that we want a pupil to learn at that moment. This objective includes three opportunities that combine the qualities of the TikTegel with education in group 1-2: learn about physical aspects, a structure of different behaviours that induce combined learning effects and adjustment to an individual pupil. The final design is a set of five separate games in which the weight of objects has to be used in different ways to be successful. Objects, games and difficulty levels are put together in such a way that progress requires an increased notion about the concept of weight and advancing skills for applying this knowledge throughout the games. The level of difficulty adapts to the playing pupil. New challenges are provided in small steps, giving pupils the possibility to find out something themselves. When this finding out is too slow or absent the system will provide more guidance. A working prototype with the five games was used for one week in a classroom. Observing pupils and feedback from teachers showed that the material creates an internally motivating and educationally valuable activity. Pupils learn about weight and the exploratory approach is recognised to train cognitive thinking skills. As mentioned above there are different needs towards the learning process. In the prototype teachers appreciated the exploratory character (to develop thinking skills) more than the guidance (to guarantee learning specific aspects of weight). Additional optimisation should reveal if there is a balance in which this material can foresee in both needs.

This assignment can be seen as an integration of IPD and SPD assignment. The original assignment received from Philips is to design a new monitoring solution for the Chinese market. This is too broad for designing a product and as a result, need to be concretized obviously. Researches must be done to the healthcare status of Chinese people in order to define the design direction. The target group and the application environment must be decided after the analysis to the target market as well. Researches to the Life style of the anticipated target group was considered to be vital for this assignment since one main design aim is to improve the life quality of the patients. Designing of a new solution started after most the questions had been answered during the phase of analysis. A household monitoring solution for the urban patients with heart failure (stage III) was designed as the final product. This is a system composed of a garment and a glove which enables the doctors to monitor the development of the disease and the health status of the patients in distance and helps the users to find the boundaries of life with regard to their health condition. It also provides protections to the users with its alarming system which connects the users together with their families and the medical institutions in case of emergency.