· · · Institutional Repository

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.

This master thesis presents a design inclusive research project, with the aim of developing a device for supporting seniors´ independence. In an explorative research, Existing and emerging technologies, perceived independence, quality of life, social networks and social support and were studied. Additionally, a context mapping study amongst 8 seniors was conducted to identify the major issues in independence for seniors. This explorative research showed that ones independence can be improved by improving ones social network, and the importance of improving the social network is recognized by seniors. The results of the explorative research were used to design a concept of a cyber-assistant capable of improving seniors´ social network. The MeetMe concept consists of a bracelet and a dock. The bracelet can be taken with the user while the dock can stand in their home. On basis of a personal profile, the bracelet can find other people in the area that have things in common with the user. These people can be stored as contacts in the dock, and through camera and touch-screen input, users can send messages to them and to friends and family. In a final confermative research, a working prototype and a sight model were tested with end users, in order to specify if the design met the set goals. This research showed that the MeetMe is indeed a good way of acquiring new contacts for seniors willing to expand their social network. Recommendations were made for further research, which can ultimately prove a positive effect of the MeetMe on the independence of seniors.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

Physical workload can cause injury to the employees’ health and this could results in absenteeism. Low back pain is the most frequent physical cause of absenteeism. Low back pain is also experienced in the Engine Shop of KLM by mechanics of the Low Pressure Turbine (LPT), a component of the aircraft jet engine. Especially the work on discs one to three during the assembly and disassembly of the LPT, causes physical injuries. The problems seem to be the result of unhealthy postures which have to be maintained for extended periods of time. While working on the LPT the mechanics have to bend forward, rotate their spine and apply force to components of the LPT. Their reach is limited while precision is required. The prevention of injuries is important for the efficiency, safety, health and job satisfaction of employees. After analyzing the situation it became clear that the amount of complaints during assembly could be mainly reduced by designing an improved workplace. The disassembly could be enhanced with adjusted equipment. An external company was appointed to improve the equipment. Therefore the assignment of this paper was; ‘Design a device for the assembly of the LPT that reduces the lower back problems, without displacing the problem.’ In order to reduce the back problems extreme joints postures should be avoided, the upper body, head or arms should be supported and the time of an operation should be decreased. Variation in postures can contribute to better health as well. In this way the activity of the surrounding muscles and the tension in ligaments can be minimized. To be sure mechanics will use the product voluntarily, they were closely involved in the gradual development of the product. After a brainstorm session with a divers group of stakeholders, four different ideas were developed into a concept. Finally, two concepts were chosen based on the feedback of the mechanics and according to the design criteria; 1. The Fat-Support; to give the users a more comfort and support during the assembly. 2. The Feetsupport; enables the mechanics to straighten their back and gives support to the feet. In the detailing phase the selected concepts were optimized on the domain of material, form, safety, stability and comfort. It could be said that after years of operating in bad circumstances, a design proposal is presented in this paper which finally improves the poor ergonomic conditions at the workplace, while fulfilling the preliminary demands and requirements. The design is a combination of different devices which will make the operation much more comfortable. A prototype of the devices has been tested with the mechanics during an LPT assembly. The mechanics were enthusiastic about the devices and loved to use them. Especially the Fat- Support increases the comfort for mechanics with all different heights. Its positive effects are ensuring that the chance of rework and foreign object damage is diminished, the arms are provided with more support, the pressure on the stomach is reduced. The Feetsupport mainly improves the situation for the smaller mechanics. While they are positioned closer to their task it provides the body to stand with less extreme joint postures and it enables the mechanics to straighten their back more. A posture analysis confirmed that the supports improve the body postures of the mechanics during LPT assembly. Next to quality improvement, and more job satisfaction for the mechanics, the devices will also save costs and time. Together they will result in success for all stakeholders. Though, if the LPT operation remains to be done manually, the operation will never become ideal and will always remain intensive. However the product designs will make a big step in the right direction and the mechanics are content their situation is finally improved.

This research project explored the possibility of involving not only positive emotions, but also negative emotions into product experiences. To achieve the resulting rich product experiences, the concept of complex qualities is introduced, which are interaction qualities designers can apply to their product interaction. These complex qualities were further developed into a design method for interaction designers. To test this method, a design case was carried out in which the Philips Activity Monitor was redesigned.

This master thesis researched Homemade Cooking and how to communicate this experience through the sensory modalities. In order to find what the qualities of Homemade Cooking were and what kind of product would be interesting to develop three studies were carried out during this eight month thesis project: a contextmapping study (qualitative), a questionnaire study (quantitative) and an evaluative study (qualitative). The contextmapping study revealed wishes of the users and their view on what Homemade Cooking is. This resulted in a list of qualities that can be attributed to Homemade Cooking. These qualities were subsequently validated using the questionnaire study. This study showed that Homemade Cooking is: healthy, tasty, happy, friendly, informal, safe, open, honest, retro and human. The same questionnaire also presented the respondents with four design concepts (based on the results from the contextmapping study). Out of four concept proposals one concept proved to be the most promising for the respondents because it fitted the most with Homemade Cooking and their households. The qualities of Homemade Cooking were subsequently taken into account to detail the design on a sensory level (e.g. materials, visual appearance, sounds). The result is the Steammet. The Steammet is a (modular) two person tabletop cooking device which can steam, grill and broil food. The products curvature and materials was designed to allow for a friendly look and feel, while the use of silicon materials muffles the sound aiming to create a friendly auditive character. A look and feel prototype was constructed to be used in the evaluative study. The evaluative study showed that the Steammet can be seen as a product which communicates Homemade Cooking quite well while the participants were enthusiastic about the product’s functionality.

In the five years that Hyves exists it has grown to be the biggest social network site in the Netherlands with over 9 million members. One of the most used parts of the site concerns the uploading, editing and sharing of photos. At the moment more than 3 billion photos are stored on Hyves and 1 million more are uploaded each day. This project focused on gaining insights into the way photos are uploaded, edited and shared on Hyves currently and the experience users of Hyves have while doing this. Furthermore, more was found out about the reasons of people for taking, editing and sharing photos and their wishes concerning an application that supports one or more aspects of this process. To gain these insights six participants were asked to show the way they use the Hyves photo feature. Next to this seven participants were interviewed about their reasons for taking photos, what are important aspects of these photos and how and with whom photos are shared. One of the things that became evident in research was that users like telling stories when showing photos to others in real life (e.g. on a laptop). It was felt by participants that this could not really be done when showing photos to others online (by placing them on Hyves). It was decided to make a redesign for the photo feature of Hyves focusing on telling stories. More was found out about what would enable users to tell stories online, by organizing a creative session and creating scenarios. A redesign was made of the photo feature, which enables users to share photos with specific friends. Groups of contacts can be made to make selecting friends easy and quick. Next to this, shared albums can be created to which specific friends can add photos as well. Photos in albums can be used to create stories. Stories can be created by using text balloons and frames in several shapes into which photos can be placed. Next to this, details in photos can be emphasized by adding little messages (notes) to a photo. Stories can be viewed by the creator of the story and visitors. To view a story a separate layer is placed on top of the photo specific page. When clicking on a photo while viewing a story, users can respond to a photo in the story by placing a comment or respect.

Time management is an essential part of every company, and the amount of energy devoted to keeping a business running smoothly can be surprisingly large. To keep track of the relevant factors there are a variety of management tools available, with different focuses and purposes. Companies tend to use a mix of these tools to fit their specific needs, and also use self-created tools such as whiteboards and checklists. Because time management is scattered over many tools, there is limited flexibility to update a project when something changes. The majority is text and numerically based, which makes them slower to update, and means that people cannot gain an overview of their situation without reading a lot. In the case of designers, the complexity of the situation increases. Most tools are suited to businesses with well-structured processes. This doesn’t match with the needs of designers, who have a less structured process. Expert designers tend to work intuitively, so time plans are followed ‘opportunistically’; only for as long as they are of benefit. Task durations are difficult to estimate, since there is great variation between projects. Also, one good idea can change a whole plan, so the need for a flexible tool is even greater. To have such a tool, that was used consistently, would also mean that planning knowledge could be recorded accurately for use in the future. Primary research conducted at Kiss the Frog Productions B.V. (referred to as KTF) confirmed these assumptions, and revealed deeper insights into what planning factors make a project effective and satisfying to work on. Using the results of this study, a prototype was created for a new time management system. This prototype was tested with four design companies to gain further insights for its development. The end result, TimeTrace, is a living, breathing time planning software for design companies, which gives an accurate visualisation of what is happening with all design projects at all times. The default screen is an overview, showing a visualisation of all projects. This screen is used to create popup windows, which extract the relevant information needed for planning activities, by any person at any moment. All visualisations can be directly manipulated to change the plan, without the need to type in a lot of text/numbers. Information is synchronised to update across the whole system. TimeTrace addresses the problems and insights uncovered throughout the project, and in doing so effects changes to three paradigms of current time management processes: Visual not Numerical: unlike most management programs, TimeTrace does not present project data using numbers. All time-related information is represented through visual proportions, and elements such as people and projects are represented through icons and colour codes. This makes it fast to ‘read’ and flexible to adjust. It is also more in keeping with how people perceive the passing of time; as proportions of their day orweek; not numerical figures. Shared Responsibility: the usual management scheme for companies is top-down; project managers make the decisions. TimeTrace encourages managers to benefit from their employees knowledge, by providing a system that can be contributed to by everyone, and ensures that everyone stays informed. Situational Awareness: Plans are usually used to provide a framework at the beginning of a project, and are intended to be followed as closely as possible, and updated when necessary. For designer, this close following of the plan is not a reality, so TimeTrace instead puts the focus on offering continuous situational awareness. Instead of making decisions based on the initial plan, it is possible to make decisions based on the reality of how the project and organisation is running at any given moment. It stays up to date by doubling as a financial system; when tasks are confirmed for financial purposes, they are fed back into the system and used to renew the visualisations. TimeTrace is also a very important record for the company. It stores all past project information, so that it may be of help in making future plans. Information about the usual duration of tasks is offered as suggestions, when a new plan is being made. It also keeps a record of the typical process of the company; by detailing the main phases and sub-phases of a project, project managers and designers are reminded of the full range of the tool box they can draw on for every project.

The project was on expanding the service of Greetinq's voicemail product. The product allowed users to set multiple welcome messages for their callers. In this project, voicemail, its use and applications for this product have been explored. The end result is a service which allows users to control their availability better through the use of these 'greetinqs' and an interface was designed for managing them. The interface as well as the application for the greetinqs are thoroughly analyzed during the research to create a usefal and user friendly product.

The project described in this thesis is named “Meaningful use of depth cues within the design of automotive Head-up Display Interfaces”. It strives to research whether spatial impression on the automotive Head-up Display (HUD) interfaces can be beneficial for usability and user acceptance.

In our digital age the news world is in turmoil. With the Internet news media became interactive and collaborative which has widespread implications on traditional business models. Today everyone can contribute by posting content online, ranging from pictures to videos and from comments to complete stories. Journalists are no longer the gate keepers of the news, the public can now decide for itself what news is relevant for them and what is not. Traditional media are struggling to survive the decreasing advertisement revenues and print circulation. In their search for new business models they have a difficult task of finding new ways of making money on the Internet, where almost anything is, or seems to be, free. Moreover, simply putting old news formats online is no longer sufficient. Adolescents and young adults in particular have radically different ways of communicating and interacting with information. They even have different ideas about what news is and the role it serves. The mere notion of what news is needs to be redefined. This thesis describes how a new generation consumes news in a new manner. It shows why traditional media are not sufficient anymore and how Internet and mobile phones are becoming the most important media for them. Since the media landscape is changing in a rapid pace only recent work is used, ranging from reports from American and Dutch journalism organizations to scientific research reports. Several explorative interviews with potential users were conducted in order to place the findings into context. The conclusions from the interviews as well as the literature study were used to define the research questions, supporting the project goal: Conduct a context mapping study in order to understand the ‘news’ needs of young adults in the broadest sense of the word (i.e. world news, news on topics of interest and news from the social graph). Use these findings to design an innovative product concept which improves the total news experience of today’s youngsters. The research questions were used as a basis for this context mapping study, in which eight young adults participated in a qualitative study. The outcomes of the study led to a design model in which three design requirements emerged: ‘Anywhere, anytime, anyhow’ ‘Personalize’ and ‘Low effort.’ These are supported with design directions as ‘depth’ ‘cross media’ ‘social network’ and ‘suggestions.’ The final concept is envisioned within two scenarios, showing how two fictive users stay updated and gain depth on their personal news sources on their mobile as well as on their computer. As an outcome of this project, these scenarios were used to evaluate the developed design model and chosen directions. In general, the scenarios were welcomed positively and they would improve the current news experience of the participants. Improvements can be made on managing sources to stay updated on, navigation within the news experience and gaining depth by acquiring automated overviews on specific topics. It is recommended for Vodafone to continue with research and development on this subject. There is a lot to gain within the young adults’ news experience. This thesis shows that young adults do not search for new solutions themselves, but would like to have them. There lies the opportunity for Vodafone: to offer an improved news experience. Vodafone could offer a news agent as proposed within this theses, which could intensify the change in the world of news for consumer as well as for the content providers.

In this project, the interactions between parents and their children, while performing daily activities were researched, as well as their opinions on energy saving and playing games together. Using these insights, a product had to be designed that fits within the current activities at Philips and that brings together parents and their children in their attempts to reduce their energy consumption. The focus for this product was on something fun that parents and children could do together. This design had to be evaluated, in order to assess its effectiveness to support behaviour change and family fun, but also to gain more insights in people’s needs and wishes towards sustainable family fun for future Philips projects.

Happiness is often considered a universal goal of people. In the relatively new field of positive psychology, many studies have been conducted to understand the concept of happiness and its broader counterpart; subjective well-being, leading to a collection of theories that explain their determinants. It has been shown that although there are genetic influences on subjective well-being (SWB), people are not necessarily ‘born’ happy, but can and do change their levels of SWB. On the basis of these theories researchers have introduced and validated a variety of strategies to increase SWB. Although widely available in literature and validated to be useful, not many people seem to pick up on SWB strategies by implementing them into their daily lives. Comprehension is one thing; action is another. Here lies an opportunity for design, and the main design question of this graduation project is therefore: “Can strategies for subjective well-being be translated into or supported by tangible designs that inspire and persuade people to adopt these strategies into their daily lives?” To answer this question, SWB was studied in theory and practice, problems and opportunities for product design were identified, and these insights were translated into an interaction vision. The product should give hope, inspire and reassure the user that it’s OK to try new things (Active experimentation.) The product should allow the user to take some time for contemplation (Reflective observation.) After a diverging and converging stage of ideation, a set of concepts was designed that explored the interaction vision. Theory from behavioral psychology was used to design their persuasive qualities. These concepts were compared to and evaluated with existing companies that produce similar products. One concept was chosen, and further developed into a final design proposal: a system named Tinytask. Tinytask is a system that offers users new experiences. Users subscribe to Tinytask and receive key chains that contain small and concrete assignments related to SWB strategies. Users commit to the assignments and use the key chains as a reminder. They add and confirm assignments to their profile page on www.tinytask.nl, where they can also add comments to reflect on their experiences. Tinytask should inspire and persuade people to break with routine and have new experiences related to SWB strategies, by making a habit of active experimentation and reflective observation. A prototype was built and was tested by fifteen participants over the course of three weeks. Various strengths, weaknesses and recommendations were found as a result of this user test. Tinytask was successful in persuading participants to break with routine. The system inspired and triggered active experimentation. Due to limited functionality of the website prototype, participants could not reflect on their experiences online. However, conversations with others – in some cases elicited by the key chains – caused participants to contemplate their actions. Concluding, Tinytask has inspired and persuaded people to adopt strategies for subjective well-being into their daily lives, which answers the design question. Although the design is still premature, it is a case study that explores the possibilities of design for subjective well-being. There are many opportunities for design within this direction. Even though there is a large gap between abstract theories and concrete products, this study has shown that theory from behavioral psychology can successfully be used to make that translation.

This graduation study investigates how (methods like) contextmapping can be applied within a large multinational company such as Philips. This Master Thesis shows the development of a research method for Philips to obtain and leverage rich experience research in the early value creating stages of its product development processes. The method developed is based on the method of Contextmapping (Sleeswijk Visser et al., 2005). This method has been developed at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University of Technology. Contextmapping aims to support the obtainment of knowledge about the contextual aspects that influence the end-users experience during product use. Next to that it offer an approach to analyse the data and inform and inspire project teams with the experience knowledge obtained. During this graduation project the conventional contextmapping method has been adjusted to meet the demand within Philips. Two major adjustments have been made to the conventional contextmapping method, to make the method applicable. The first difference is that the members of a project team themselves analyse the rich experience data, instead of (end-)user researchers. Next to that an online tool has been developed to support these analysis. Next to that the tool enables the project team members to present and discuss the rich experience knowledge (obtained individually) with each other and translate this shared knowledge into concepts during a group meeting. This report can be valuable for those interested in (method like) contextmapping and the implementation (of such consumer centered methods) in a large multinational product development company. Next to that the support in the analysis of the rich experience data (deriving from such methods) by a digital tool or web-applications and the support of consumer centricity during ideation workshops have been treated extensively in this report.

The essence of this graduation project leans on understanding the context situation of an interventional procedure performed with the x-ray system Philips MultiDiagnost Eleva. To dive into the real context of usage, field observational researches at hospitals allowed to identify the interaction and usability problems that occur among doctor, staff, patient and this system.

This project was sponsored by DOK library concept centre, Delft. The library wanted to create a touch point in the upcoming town hall (spoorzone) in the city. The problem was how and what service could the library provide at the location? The users of this service would be the citizens of Delft who come to the town hall for a variety of tasks. Following from this, an information service was formulated, it aimed at stimulating connections between the citizens and voluntary organisations (encouraging social cohesion) and celebrating the citizen through the people-generated stories, additionally creating awareness about social citizen initiatives in the city (encouraging a sense of empowerment). The final concept used a Microsoft multi touch surface to execute the user interface (UI), to display certain multi media content relevant to the above themes. Apart from the UI, the physical embodiment of the touch surface considered spatial constraints of the town hall, concluding by embedding the surface with the waiting area furniture.