· · · Institutional Repository

Graduation project for Hybrid Buildings

Before you starting read this report, I would like to ask you to take a moment to recall how you experienced your wake-up process this morning. Did you enjoy the moment? Were you dreaming before that moment? Did you feel delight, pleasant or just sad and depressed? How did you wake up? Were you still sleepy or fully wake up then? Were you in hurry or still lazy? What did you do to make sure that you won’t be late for work this morning? Were you waked up at the right moment? Is it different from yesterday? How about the weather? Was there sun shine? How do you feel your wake-up experience? How would you like it to be? Look, your personal waking up experience is determined by a series details and factors relating to the time, the context and your mental status etc. Everyone has its own waking up experience every morning. But lots people indicate that their waking up experiences are not always pleasant. For example, an alarm clock disturbed you from a deep sleep. Unexpected noise forced you to wake up much earlier than usual. Or a dark morning may lead you to oversleep and mess up your morning schedule. All of these are bad waking up experiences. Unpleasant wake-up experiences may result in drowsiness or inability to concentrate during the day. Most people would rather like a pleasant vigorous and refreshed wake-up experience to start their new working day. So how do we make change of this problem? Lots of surveys indicate that lots of people, especially those college students or office workers who need to be punctual in the morning, have very limited knowledge and wrong beliefs about what sleep is and how we wake up. For most of them, an alarm clock is a must in the morning and to some extent, the alarm clock helps them adapt to their highly organized life. On the other hand, an alarm clock may disrupt their natural waking up system and do harm to their health. 1.1 PROJECT GOAL As more and more people came to realize that a pleasant waking up experience could benefits their wellbeing and working status during the day. It becomes necessary to improve people’s waking up quality and find a way to create a pleasant waking up experience. In this project, we will apply tactile stimuli into a waking up context to help people to improve their waking up quality. To achieve this goal, Philips Research, one of the world's largest corporate research organizations, will focus on people’s experience, what drives people, what dilemmas consumers face, and how we can help them in the best possible way to enjoy a healthy, refreshed, energetic and pleasant waking up experience by applying proper tactile stimuli into morning wake-up context. In this project, first step, in order to have more deep understanding and knowledge of this topic, I had a literature study about people’s sleep and wake up. After that, mean to extract qualitative data from the waking up context, a 2 weeks duration context research which involved 18 participants has been conducted. Then, we had a group session with 6 participants whom participated the context mapping. In order to make the participants to express their own waking up insights and tactile experience, we used collage as a method to make the session. After the session, several end user insights were formulated based on the participants’ own wake-up experience. Then a new design vision of a pleasant wake-up experience was developed based on end user insights and the scientific insights about wake up experience which developed from the literature study. This vision is as the following: Using proper tactile stimuli to eventually make one fully awaken (energetic, bright, alert etc.), one needs to go through the process of waking up that involves body and mind, this process need to be taken care of. Therefore the user needs to be aware of. Considering this design vision as a start point of concepts development, I start exploring design directions and generating ideas. Then several product concepts were developed from these ideas. Finally a concept was chosen by using a method named matrix in making a design decision. Finally, a prototype evaluation is completed in a sleep lab of Philips. During the test, 5 participants were involved in a series tests and an after action interview was also completed for each participant. Finally, the results of evaluation experiment will be given and we will provide directions for the future design and further research. 1.2 RESULTS By analyzing the data of the research, a new design vision is formulated as I mentioned above: Using proper tactile stimuli to eventually make one fully awaken (energetic, bright, alert etc.), one needs to go through the process of waking up that involves body and mind, the user needs to be aware of this process. A design concept which applying vibration effects on people’s body that wakes people up at the right moment was developed. After a concept evaluation test, we got lots of feedback which could be used for improving the current concept and formulate the future design direction. For example, applying tactile stimuli in people’s waking up context can efficiently wake people’s body up as well as wake their mind up in the morning. In this report we will communicate the knowledge of sleep and wake up. And the process of the whole project will be described. The methods we applied in context research, designing and evaluation will also be described and discussed.

A design for a new interactive exhibition for the Vermeer centre in Delft. The design was approached based on context analysis done by the ViP approach. The report describes the analysis, the resulting product and analyses how well the final result fit the design visions that were formulated based on the context analysis.

Implementation of the context-guided design as a major tool for high-rise integration with the city, street level and its daily life.

Involving user in the development process is becoming inevitable for companies to stay competitive and innovative. Technology is no longer the main factor to furfill the customers needs. Especially in product innovation the integration of the needs and desires of customers are fundamental (Veryzer R. W., 2003). User-centered design is an approach to designing products, systems or services that put the people who will use the product at the center of the development effort (Buur & Ylirisku, 2007). Their involvement leads to more effective, efficient and safer products and contributed to the acceptance and success of products (Preece, 2002). There are several methods for user centered design within a new product development process. Personas is one of these methods, they were introduced in 1999 by Alan Cooper and are “fictitious, specific, concrete representations of target users” (Pruitt & Adlin, 2006, p. 7). It is a method that describes the actual “user” of the product. This to get a clear and consistent understanding of this user within a company. If everyone has the same understanding of the user, the product is less likely to fail (Cooper, 1999). Exact is a company that is using personas now for several years, but the personas were not really used and failed several times. To overcome this problem the idea of using video to make the personas more emphatic was invented. Exact didn`t have the knowledge and capabilities to execute this idea, so this graduation assignment was initiated together with the TU Delft. This thesis is a research for Exact into the use of video in personas, to make the personas more empathic, engaging and inspiring. The first aim of this thesis was to create and evaluate both types of personas within Exact; static and interactive* personas. The second aim was to create guidelines about the creation of Interactive personas. PERSONA CREATION Two personas were created based on an participatory design research that was held in Exact with IT and management consultants. The static persona is one paper with a photo, quotes, explaination of his working process, hobbies and family life. Photos of his children and employees are also shown. The interactive persona is a website which starts with a short introduction. Then it is possible to go further, there a map is shown of the spots he daily visits. His home, the park, the road and hos office are shown. Each of the spots will lead to one or more movies about this spot. For example the office leads to 6 short movies about his working life. To make both personas comparable, visual are similar and the same subject are dicussed. The difference is mainly found in the details and the eleboration about the subjects. PERSONA EVALUATION The comparison of both personas was done between groups. One group only saw the static persona, the other one only the interactive persona. Both groups received a similar quesionairre about the persona they saw. Several statements had to be valued and several mechanisms had to be ranked. The questionairres were compared and analyzed in SPSS. The outcomes showed that there was no significant difference in means between empathy, engagement and inspiration of the two personas. GUIDELINES Several guidelines were made based on my own creation process of the interactive persona and interesting insights from literature and experts in video methods. The following eight guidelines were developed for the creation of interactive personas: Involve the company during the whole process Presentation of the personas should depend on the current communication channels within the company. Be aware of the impact that video can have for a participant Try to supply information about the study to the participant Explain the procedure of the shooting of the video Let the participant be in control of what can be recorded Try to be open to any situation Do not try to make a to detailed script; be open to the situation the participant creates Record in the natural environment of the participant Try to focus on showing the everyday details and the context of the participant. When recording, try to focus on where the attention moves of the participant. People surrounding the participant should also be aware of the situation. Be aware of your appearance Avoid wearing obvious clothes and noisy objects; like bangles or heels. Try to make the video as natural as possible Choose a participant that can tell the story Avoid special effects and music Let the participant tell the story Stay close to the original material Show different types of information Try to combine different types of information; video, audio, pictures and text. Use these different types of information to show the different layers of information; raw data, interpretations and conclusions. Use other communication means to support the video Use posters, cups, placemats or other means to promote the persona. The goals is to trigger people to see the persona; make them curious. The guidelines are used in the toolkit for making interactive personas. This toolkit consists of card in different color and sizes, which have a similar system as a swatch book. The four colors each represent a different phase is the creation process. The toolkit shows methods, guidelines and equipement that can be used in the creation of the persona.

This master thesis shows the development of a product that stimulates elderly to be physical active on regular basis. This process has been user-centered and qualitative researches like Context mapping and Co-creation took place in order to gain extensive user insights. These insights are translated into an interaction vision with the help of the Vision in Product method. After generation many ideas, the final concept, named 'Flex-Up', is developed. This concept is an alarm clock including audio-guided exercises that can be done during the waking-up ritual. The content of the product can be extended online with the help of the 'Flex-Up' web tool. Here people can create new exercise sets.

Masturbation is now proven to be beneficial to both physical and psychological well being. Within the focus of this project, in order to emphasize the aspect of well being the term autoerotic activity replaces masturbation. Autoerotic activity focuses on the whole body and any self induced erotic activity rather than only the stimulation of the genitals. It also covers activities that do not necessarily result in orgasm but still has an erotic value to contribute or affect personal well being. Moreover products play a supportive and enhancing role in female autoerotic activity. However products for female solitary use still do not enhance this aspect or address emotional needs and expectations of women. Therefore the design goal of this project is defined as: “to develop an autoerotic stimulator reducing negative emotions related to the usage while supporting the positive ones and reaching an engaging autoerotic experience in order to support the overall well being and health of the user.” The target group is selected as young women who are older than 20 years of age. After the definition of design goal and the target group; the project process consists of the literature research on autoerotic activity and the context research on emotions towards autoerotic activity; defining design directions, reaching a final concept and finally the evaluation of the concept through working prototypes. MINE is the product of an emotional approach to the design of an autoerotic stimulator. It focuses on the well being of the user through combining a self wash product, a shower puff and an autoerotic stimulator in a modular product. MINE is a long braided thread enabling three functions: self wash, stimulation of the inner thighs and stimulation of the genitals. The two parts of MINE, silicone and PE mesh are braided in one another in order to have an integrated multifunctional product yet undoable. The braiding supports user involvement and enables the user to chose a mesh thickness and texture suitable for herself. The modularity also allows the user to change the mesh as often as desired fir hygienic reasons and to take the wet piece away from the silicone piece to recharge. A wrapping cloth is provided with the product to wrap while recharging. This project showed that an academic study on emotional design of autoerotic stimulators and stimulation definitely holds challenges related to the sensitive nature of the topic however offers apparent benefits to the product group.

This master project is about finding applications for ADA. ADA stands for a brand new technology named Active Digital Aura, which was invented by Philips. It is a kind of technology enable the data transfer via body skin, and accordingly make it possible that the human intuitive touch in everyday life can be the trigger of itself. The whole project is consisted of Literature Study, User Research, Design, User Test and following Reflection and Future Development. During the literature study and the user study, the opportunities and challenge of this project were collected, and the research questions were answered. Afterwards, my design goal came out which was to improve the interpersonal connectedness between family members by ADA via relaxing touches. Keeping this goal in mind, and also with the support as well as suggestions from my coaches and ADA experts, a final concept called “AL” was generated collaborating with ambience lighting system and digital photo frame. In “AL” scenarios, firstly, users can trigger their favorite lighting ambience (previous set) accordingly when they sit in the sofa naturally. Secondly, users can experience other family members’ lighting scenes before getting their own lighting ambience, while seeing these family members’ pictures on a digital photo frame. Thirdly, family members can share their lighting ambiences by sitting together. Following, “AL” went through a user test which finally revealed that “AL” is a good design. People enjoyed the ADA way to control lighting ambience, and they gave the feedbacks that the momentary connectedness between them was improved. At the end, I made reflection on the whole project process, and showed up some inevitable effects which should be treat neutrally. Then a plan basing on “AL’ and specifically on ADA technology was created for their future development.

Het huis als communicatiemiddel in de stedelijke plekken (urban rooms) van Varallo Sesia. || Dit afstudeerproject beslaat het ontwerp voor een ensemble aan de voet van de Sacro Monte in Varallo Sesia. In dit ensemble worden twee groepen samengebracht: de hardst groeiende groep inwoners, de ouderen, en de groep die een economische impuls kan geven aan de stad, de toeristen. De hoofdgedachte van het ontwerp is dat de ruimte tussen de gebouwen net zo zeer ontworpen moet zijn als de gebouwen zelf. Daarmee wordt aangesloten op de taal van de stad, om beide groepen zich thuis te laten voelen in het nieuwe ensemble.

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.

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.

What could be the potential of integrating social networking & intelligent services that analyse user activity in communication products? Alcatel- Lucent would like to have a concept of the user experience on different products that demonstrates the possible benefits of this marriage. The personal information and interpersonal relationships could offer opportunities to discover and identify usefull people. By providing extra contextual background on people or incoming communication sessions, it can be made easier for the user to handle communication tasks. The application should help the professional in the initiation of communication. The application should be supportive, directly benefit the user in his work and not disturb him in his current activities. It should be simple to use. With this in mind, different ideas were generated and developed into three concepts. The result are three concept applications, a contactlist that suggest contacts based on the current context of the user, initiating calls less obtrusive by sending a message first and a social reminder application that help remind the users of certain information before an interaction takes place. A small usertest was performed and in the final phase, elements from the three concepts are combined in a smartphone application and presented in a scenario.

This thesis describes the design process of a service, Pearls in North, for elderly who live in Humanitas. The goal of the project was to design a product or a service that makes elderly physically more active so they feel good, stay healthy and independent. When people become older they tend to become more passive. Especially when people move from their independent lifestyle to elderly homes. This behavior is a significant problem because it worsens the physical decline and makes them more dependent on the care system than they would be if they were more active. Being passive is both the cause and the consequence of physical decline. The challenge is to break this negative spiral and motivate them to start being active. The main focus for this project was on the pleasure that physical activity can provide. Being active should be intrinsically pleasant to do. When you move your body, you feel your body; you feel the muscles, the skin, and the bones. Feeling your body means feeling that you are: the feeling that you live. Research was done to understand how elderly experience physical activity and what pleasures they have when being physically active. It was found that elderly do not perceive physical activity as very important. Elderly relate physical activity mainly to things that are necessary and less to health. Doing things for other people and being together makes activities meaningful and worthy to do. Another cause for passiveness is their social situation. People often have lost their partner and need to find new contacts to do recreational things with. Finding these contacts is difficult, especially in an elderly home where there is a lot of struggle and irritation. How the problem of passiveness is solved is described in a vision. The main theme of the vision is; “Go out and meet the world.” Research showed that people enjoy being among people and watch the world pass by. It gives them a feeling of belonging and worthiness. I want people to discover the world around them together with neighbors or friends. The design is a door to the outer world and offers the possibility for social contact. Besides that it aims to make people aware of what they still do, not focus on making them do new, strange, activities. At last it is important that people can use their personal creativity and initiative. This makes activities valuable and enjoyable. Ideas were generated, and several concept directions were tested. The insights gained through testing and trying lead to the final design; Pearls in North. Pearls in North is a service that stimulates the new people in Humanitas to discover places in their neighborhood. Because of personal invitations from spots in the neighborhood people are stimulated to go out and visit those places. The spots are small businesses in the neighborhood; it can be a café, a restaurant, a shop, an ice cream shop, a bakery or a cultural place. Because the invitation offers a discount for two people, they are stimulated to go with somebody else, for instance a neighbor or a friend. Every month there is a different activity in another spot; that spot is called The Pearl of the Month. Over a year people are introduced to twelve Pearls in their neighborhood and the threshold to go there again will be smaller. This results in more movement outside Humanitas because people feel safe and know what to expect. When people visit the Pearl of the Month there is the possibility to write a review and make a picture with it. This review will be send to Humanitas and will be hanged on the central display in the atrium. These reviews are fun to read and can inspire other people to visit the Pearl of the Month as well. The service was tested to see if the interactions that were foreseen really work as expected. The tests show that the general concept functions very well and is promising for future implementation. The entrepreneurs are willing to join, other customers of the Pearl of the Month are enthusiastic users of the camera and reviews and elderly people start talking about their experiences and inspire other people because of their enthusiasm. The social aspect of inviting another individual; a neighbor or a friend is more difficult than expected. Improvements should be made to make it easier for people to invite one another. Recommendations are made to improve the design and a plan is given to implement this service in the context.

Philips Healthcare wants to enter the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) market with Ambient Experience (AE). This requires a well-thought out business plan that demonstrates why it is interesting for Philips to enter the NICU market with AE. There are different methods to determine why Philips should (not) enter the NICU market with AE. Design research is a method that approaches these type of questions from a user (context) perspective. Consumers are invited to illustrate and reflect on their experiences, for instance through collages or artifacts. This project has followed a context mapping method, because it is a powerful and proven design research technique to map the context of stakeholders and identify their needs. This information enables Philips to demonstrate why AE does (not) have the right ingredients to address these needs. The NICU contains four main stakeholders: the baby, the parents, the NICU staff and the hospital administrators. This project has specifically focused on understanding what is important for administrators in the NICU, because information about the needs of parents and the NICU staff has already been captured by Philips in a previous research study. The analysis and the context study have demonstrated that neonatal intensive care is a complex market with a broad range of opportunity areas for Philips AE. Administrators find three topics most important in the NICU. Obviously, delivering high quality care to babies and their parents is a top priority. Many hospitals seek for a position of excellence in a certain neonatal care discipline such as complex cardiology surgeries. This requires top facilities and dedicated, experienced NICU staff members that are well-educated. Secondly, the ability to anticipate efficiently to fluctuating patient volumes and different levels of care that most babies need is very important. Currently, babies are transferred from one care level to another, because each care level requires different medical and mechanical support. Eventually, administrators want to create flexible NICU rooms that can easily be adapted to the desired care level. This means that babies can stay in the same room throughout the whole care process. Administrators have addressed that the business role of the NICU is most important. The NICU is a very profitable service line, unlike many other service lines in a hospital. The NICU has an important role in attracting customers and retaining them for future services. Because of payment reforms the profitability of the NICU might be under pressure in the near future. To respond to this reform, administrators will focus on patient satisfaction scores, effective preventive care and process reliability in the near future. Administrators perceive dedicated family spaces and support services for NICU families (family-centered care) as two important investments to increase patient satisfaction scores and retaining customers for future services. To create promising and competitive propositions that address a major need of NICU stakeholders and that match the vision and brand of Philips, a design focus was defined. The design focus provides a well-defined and more concrete scope. Philips is advised to focus on two specific solution directions. Solution direction one focuses on support services for NICU families, which is a new market with great potential for Philips to gain market share and establish sales growth. Developing support services for NICU families enables Philips to target every NICU, regardless their design and configuration. Furthermore, support services for NICU families are an important differentiator for administrators in the future. Solution direction two focuses on a communication system for the NICU. This direction addresses the need for a solution that reduces noise levels in the NICU. Introducing a communication system that is results in more peaceful and quiet NICU rooms, supports hospitals in realizing a great experience for NICU families and stimulating a steady growth of the baby. Two concrete concepts have been developed to open a dialogue with experts, NICU stakeholders, Philips project stakeholders and designers about these selected solution direction. The first concept is an example of a potential Philips support service for NICU families. The Preemie-monitor is a tablet computer with a dedicated NICU application for parents who either have a premature baby or expect to have a premature baby. The Preemie-monitor application enables parents to access information about a variety of topics whenever they want. The aim is to present information in such a way that parents can easily understand what is going on. The objective of the Preemie-monitor is to optimize and increase the involvement of parents during the stay of their baby in the NICU. The Preemie-monitor application provides parents the option to send video messages or to ask questions about the care process or condition of their baby. Physicians and nurses receive questions and video messages from parents on a Preemie-monitor in the NICU. Video messages and questions from parents enable physicians and nurses to prepare the right level of information and to provide the best support during the next visit of the parents. In turn, physicians and nurses can send parents video messages to share information about the condition of the baby or to explain care treatments and communicate other relevant news and topics. The second concept is an example of a potential Philips communication system for the NICU. The Communicator is a remote communication system that aims at reducing sound levels and enabling physicians and nurses in the NICU to communicate with each other intuitively rather than using phones or pagers. For instance, nurses and physicians receive warning signals via the earpiece of the Communicator if the monitoring equipment measures a critical value. The Communicator supports hospitals to realize quiet NICUs and to increase the workflow of physicians and nurses. On the basis of the concept evaluation, Philips AE is recommended to move forward with support services for NICU families. To establish a feasible product-service system and a truly explorative interface, Philips is recommended to partner with a key account that can function as a pilot location for the Preemie-monitor application. Considering the fast growing market of smart phones and tablets, Philips should investigate to what extend it would be beneficial to only offer a Preemie-monitor software application to hospitals. Parents can easily download the Preemie-monitor application on a separate website of Philips. Philips is recommended to set-up a NICU excellence center in cooperation with leading healing environment architects, parallel to the development of the Preemie-monitor. This NICU excellence center is a physical building that will move Philips into the inner circle of the hospital not as a seller or vendor but as a partner, offering hospitals quality solutions, data and evidence in the early stages of NICU investment decision-making processes. The context study has demonstrated that administrators generally do not involve vendors such as Philips in analyzing possible solutions and gathering evidence to justify their business plan. However, it is very relevant for hospitals to involve a third party such as Philips early in this process, for instance when a hospital is reconstructing (parts of) the NICU. Philips has knowledge and expertise that could help hospitals to imagine and create innovations they never thought about. A business plan is required to estimates the potential profit of this so-called future concept strategy.

This graduation project is a collaboration between Music Library Rotterdam (in Dutch: Centrale Discotheek Rotterdam (CDR)) and Delft University of Technology, faculty of Industrial Design Engineering to improve the quality of music education at primary schools in The Netherlands. The aim is to make the music collection of CDR accessible and usable for teachers and pupils in their music lessons. Different research techniques such as literature study, observations, interviews and context mapping have been used to gain insight into current music education and identify the needs and wishes of both children and teachers. Research in this project shows that many primary school teachers have limited musical knowledge and skills. These teachers struggle to give high quality music education. The final result of this project is a design proposal of a educational music platform. This platform consists of a collection of lesson plans, interactive teaching materials and music games to support teachers to teach informative and fun music lessons.

In the past decade, there has been an increasing number of natural disasters that led to catastrophic damage to mankind. China is one of the countries most affected by natural disasters in the world. Although logistics activities account for a large percentage of total operations in aftermath relief, they have frequently not been recognized as key levers for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of humanitarian organizations and as being crucial to operational excellence. Meanwhile, due to the large number of relief actors involved in the Chinese context, the coordination among various players becomes a very prominent challenge to cope with. Therefore, this master study aims to explore how to improve the coordination among actors in the Chinese relief chain context. This research consists of theoretical and empirical parts. In the theoretical party, this thesis explores the prospects of transferring lessons learnt from the commercial supply chain to the relief chain by finding out the existing coordination mechanisms in the commercial logistics operations. Some coordination mechanisms- i.e. Joint Procurement, Quick Response, Continuous Replenishment Program, Vendor Managed Inventory, Joint Managed Inventory, Continuous Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment and 3rd party logistics are the practiced coordination mechanisms in procurement, inventory and transportation processes together with corresponding characteristics and requirements to adopt them. Besides specific coordination mechanisms, generic lessons learnt from the commercial supply chain are also abstracted. They are Resource Sharing, Joint Decision Making and Outsourcing, which can be performed on strategic, tactical or operational levels based on the orientations of relationships among coordinating alliance. These experiences from the commercial supply chain come as a foreground for relief actors to step on. Although the objective of the relief chain and commercial supply chain remains the same i.e. delivering right amount of materials to the right places, some factors existing after major disasters distinguish the relief chain from the commercial supply chain fundamentally. These factors are 1) Urgency 2) Uncertainty 3) Complexity of operation conditions 4) Co-existence of various actors. Due to the existence of these challenging factors in disaster aftermath, the current practicing coordination mechanisms in the commercial supply chain can’t be transferred directly into the relief chain. As the application level for these coordination mechanisms are evaluated respectively in this thesis, it turns out Joint Procurement, Quick Response and 3rd party logistics are those promising mechanisms with a high level of application prospect in the relief chain. Meanwhile, the generic lessons from the commercial supply chain still hold in the relief chain and especially when they are put in practice operationally or tactically among organizations. The theoretical study provides the research a direction to further explore the reality. The Wenchuan earthquake case study is conducted to test the prospects of these coordination methods in Chinese context. Through this case study, all the specific promising coordination mechanisms are found with some changes adapted to specific situations. Some coordination initiatives that reflect the generic approaches (Resource Sharing) in commercial chain are also discovered i.e. demand information sharing and inventory capacity sharing. Meanwhile, some new coordination initiatives are invented uniquely by relief actors. They are coordination to have a complementary supply effect and coordination for the sake of legal operation. In order to better involve actors in the relief chain, the following recommendations are offered to humanitarian organizations during the preparation phase 1) Non-governmental can be incorporated into existing relief system to achieve an overall complemented effect to governmental relief 2) Build up sustainable relations with suppliers on emergency supply 3) NGOs Identify strategic alliance before emergency. During response phase, it is advisable for NGOs to 1) Spot their position in less attention areas to avoid media’s framing effect 2) Coordination by standing by when information is unclear.

This research initiative addresses the issue of Design in relation to Virtual Context. Central to this study are the innovative potentials and instrumental opportunities of computer based media techniques, capable of generating interactive models and changing perspectives for the benefit of urban and architectural design. The ambition was to not only make a contribution to the existing body of knowledge concerning digital technologies and their applications, but explore theoretical conditions which might help define and stimulate further study. From the outset, the focus was on furthering the opportunities for computer based representation media in creative design. On the basis of a series of explorative studies the subject of this research was targeted: the issue of Design in Context, or more specifically: Design(ing) in a Virtual Context. During the process there was a marked shift in the conception of the subject from -more or less immersive- VR technologies in the direction of approaches which might be expected to become readily available in practice and education and could be effective in actual design processes. This insight also brought about a shift in emphasis from realism per-se towards creating a sense of situatedness. The design representation system which was developed was intended to not just allow for one type of model view, but to afford an array of different views, from which the designer would be able to choose freely, depending on the phase and focus of design as well as personal preferences. A series of interface prototypes and support tools were developed especially and successively tested experimentally. For the intended final design driven experimental study, different virtual context models were considered. Eventually, an integral ñ purely fictitious ñ design ëenvironmentí was constructed in the computer, so that the workings of the proposed system and its components would be tested systematically. A conscious choice was made for an in depth study, on a relatively modest scale, which would a certain amount of mutual involvement between designer and researcher, to confront the participants with the finer aspects of the proposed system in a relatively short time and to gather detailed data. A half dozen design professionals were invited to participate in a closely monitored experimental exercise. The results of this study therefore do not offer straightforward, indisputable facts, to be considered representative for the design community as a whole, but indicate that the working methods of the individual designers -when discovering aspects of the site, developing and presenting proposals and reflecting on the qualities of represented designs- tend to vary considerably. For this reason the interactive representation system proved to be of value. Participants could express different view preferences, with more or less realistic image modes being used in different phases of their design developments, with varying experiences of situatedness. Some of the design professionals participants were very appreciative of the systemís opportunities, others tended to be more set in their ways. The results of this experimental study indicate that there may particularly be opportunities for interface applications which are able to function interactively, offering individual designers -as well as others involved in evaluating design proposals- a variety of tools with which to approach specific design artefacts in their changing contexts. Virtual models can play not only an important role as a 'reminder' for the designer but also to other parties playing an active role in the design and implementation processes. Interactive environment models are not only promising as exploration tools for existing sites, but could be valuable to test the impact of a design on its location. This could be especially interesting if the site is difficult or impossible to visit or as yet a virtual construction. In addition such an approach might be beneficial for objective comparison and evaluation of design proposals in competitions and in education as well as in on-line collaborative design projects where the context is still in the process of being developed.

This project started with a visit to Xtenders where a tough model of a new concept came to my attention. This sketch looked different from at the time produced by Xtenders models and evoked some curiosity that emerged into the graduation thesis. Xtender is a Dutch brand that builds yacht tenders. The main advantage of the product has been defined by the used production technology. Carbon pre-preg laminate was used in combination with special curing system called Autoclave to produce the most parts of the tenders. Further, all tenders were custom built and required a modular approach to optimise the production costs. Back then Xtenders were only RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boats) tenders in their portfolio and we looking ahead to expand their portfolio. The idea came due to the high investment costs for new moulds to research the possibilities within the existing 12.3m RIB hull by extending it upwards. This way a new type of the boat would be created called Solid-Hulled boat. In order to realize significant results in the given time, a boundary has been set. Following constructives of the product design received the main attention: 1. First, strategical decisions had to be made to define the main aesthetic and functional qualities of the new tender. Extensive analysis of the brand, market of superyachting/tenders and defining the target group was performed to define the most opportune direction and attitude towards the technical and aesthetical approach. Main factors that influenced the choice of design direction were the dominance of the superyachts within the range between 50 and 80 meters that often need a multipurpose tender. This tender should be able to facilitate transportation during hospitality events and for leisure purposes such as day cruising and watersports. The same functionality package appeared to be missing on the market. Therefore the decision was made to pursue with this direction. In order to compose the design brief scenario mapping, based on the chosen design direction, was used. different user scenario’s were generated with the help of specialists from each field. Defining the user situations narrowed down the list of demands and provided accurate input for design. Despite clear focus, the design process had so many questions and challenges that they could hardly be addressed all at once. Muller’s “Fish-trap model” was used for the set-up of synthesis (Muller, 2002). Process included several ideation stages where choices were made to narrow down the design field. As the design brief defined a clear package of demands, first a “Structural concept” was created. It means that a global lay-out consisting of a certain amount of structural elements was defined by building a modular cardboard model and idea sketching to experiment and visualize the concepts. Multiple combinations were photographed and compared. Three main lay-out combinations appeared to cover the most combinations. These were weighed against each other to make the choice. Finally the lay-out to work with was placing an open roofed area above the engines in the back of the boat. The driver would be in the middle of the tender for the best overview and control and in front of the tender the toilette and main roofed guest area wold be arranged. After the lay-out was chosen, a new ideation phase addressed the partial problems and exterior. Choosing one concept was split into multiple stages due to the large scale of the project. After making the choices a Formal Concept was defined. In this concept the main guidelines for the lay-out, formgiving and dimensions received the most attention. Instead of the materialization of multiple concepts, the discission was made to choose one and apply two materialization rounds to it. At this stage ergonomics and definition of geometry were the main field of attention. Manufacturing, assembly, specification of materials, finishing, texture and colours were considered too. The material concept was worked out in 3D and presented to the company. Mi features of the tender were high freeboard, retractable roof and hinging transom. Modelling is the key to understand the design and detect pros and cons. To obtain the needed insights for the next materialization round and evaluate the concept, a 1:1 wooden mock-up was built. Ex,- and interior were simulated. Building the mock-up and seeing it grow provided important insights in the structure and flaws of the design. Afterwards an evaluation session with Xtenders was organized. During evaluating the tender some major changes were discussed. The lay-out had to be slightly changed b removing the toilette from the bow to the centre part of the tender. Further, multiple improvements of almost each part were revealed. Finally, the redesign was made using gathered feedback. A shorter yet in depth iteration for the structural and material conceptualizing was performed. The second materialization round delivered an impressive result. Not only the ergonomics improved, aesthetics and usability of the tender received attention too. The redesign is more dynamic and refined. Improvement by iteration in design has been acknowledged by all the stakeholders of this project.

For Wacom, a tablet manufacturing company, an application for children between 8 and 12 years of age was designed to be used with their consumer line, the Bamboo Tablet, and their software platform, Bamboo Dock. Upon exploring the target group on the topic of drawing, it was found that children between 8 and 12 typically lose interest in drawing. Based on a literature study, it was found that the cause of this phenomenon is a desire to achieve realism in drawing that is never achieved. The goal of the project became maintaining the motivation in drawing by enabling children to learn to draw more realistically. Using existing theories, the terms ‘drawing realistically’, ‘learning’ and ‘motivation’ were operationalized. By comparing the explained drawing procedures of the most successful books on learning to draw with the drawing procedure of 5 children, the drawing problems were found to be originating from 5 common mistakes: not using reference images, failing to see the image as a collection of shapes, not paying attention to line details, neglecting proportions, and not seeing the shades. Using a context mapping activity with 6 children, the reason behind the drop of motivation was found to be the sense of a mistake in the drawing without the knowledge to fix it. To find a means to teach the children to learn to draw, literature on learning was consulted. At the intersection between learning and motivation, a common activity among children was found: video games. Using the combined guidelines of motivation, learning and gaming, an application was designed, to teach the desired drawing practice while pointing out that the common mistakes do not work. The application would provide a series of activities, consisting of supported drawing assignments that gradually increase in difficulty and complexity. With seven children, the target group’s pen accuracy, drawing topic preferences and the usability of the design were researched and specified. For the usability test, a prototype was created to simulate one drawing assignment. Based on the test results, the design was further developed, and a research setup for the verification of effectiveness of the application was proposed.