"uuid","repository link","title","author","contributor","publication year","abstract","subject topic","language","publication type","publisher","isbn","issn","patent","patent status","bibliographic note","access restriction","embargo date","faculty","department","research group","programme","project","coordinates"
"uuid:09a0ef1d-9c35-4817-b515-e025a9ab837f","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:09a0ef1d-9c35-4817-b515-e025a9ab837f","Design for Togetherness at Home: Integrating Technology to Bond Children and Grandparents Through Shared Experiences","Xu, Hongxin (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)","van der Vegte, Wilhelm Frederik (mentor); Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)","2024","Strong intergenerational relationships can provide emotional support and stability for both grandparents and grandchildren. Technology tools have been proven to be beneficial in connecting grandchildren and grandparents. Prior work mainly examined how to use technology to connect children and their grandparents over a distance. Those collocated grandparents and grandchildren who keep regular physical contact are often neglected in the research.It is essential to understand technology’s potential in bonding them in physical meet ups considering the trending of multigenerational families.
This graduation project aims to foster connectedness between children aged 8 to 12 and their collocated grandparents in the Netherlands through physical interactions. Adopting a holistic approach, we explored moments of togetherness, identifying desired qualities of these interactions and defining promising shared experiences for the future.
The research involves three phases of empirical investigations. This research begins by examining how technology could positively impact their bond. Using participatory cards during interviews, this phase captures participants' perspectives, employing mixed methods including sentiment analysis, group clustering, and thematic coding to identify key elements in shared activities that promote or impede intergenerational connectivity. This analysis informs a framework to guide the development of technology aimed at supporting connectivity. Next, the second phase, insights from two design workshops are synthesized into a series of design concepts, which are then visualized through storyboards. The final phase involves evaluating these concepts by presenting the storyboards to both experts and child-grandparent pairs. This step is intended to refine our understanding of how these technological solutions can be leveraged to strengthen family bonds.","Intergenerational Relationships; Child-Grandparent Connection; Technology in Family Bonding; Design and Family Dynamics","en","master thesis","","","","","","","","","","","","Design for Interaction","",""
"uuid:c79da186-c746-4061-853b-e0de3dc88b58","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:c79da186-c746-4061-853b-e0de3dc88b58","De Voelvlek: Stimulating inclusivity through parental contact","van Kampen, Kimberley (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Dekker, M.C. (graduation committee); Bloemen, M. (graduation committee); Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)","2024","Children with disabilities (CwD) experience many barriers decreasing their quality of life and hindering their development. Child therapists support CwD and parents of children with disabilities (PCwD) to participate in daily activities. However, the child therapists indicated to be missing the practical tools to also facilitate inclusive outdoor play. For this reason, the HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht (HU) set up the Samen spelen project. The Samen spelen project found that PCwD and parents of children with typical development (PCwTD) play a role in the barriers CwD experience as there is a knowledge gap between them. This thesis was set up in collaboration with the HU to further explore the knowledge gap and the role increased parental contact can play in decreasing the barriers CwD experience.
It was found that PCwTD rarely come into contact with CwD and therefore lack the knowledge and skills to treat CwD properly and teach children with typical development (CwTD) about CwD. Additionally, mainly the differences between CwTD and CwD are perceived, preventing the normalisation of CwD.
Based on these findings, the design vision is formulated. The vision focuses on stimulating direct contact between CwD, PCwD, CwTD and PCwTD by guiding the parents to provide input for inclusive play. Followed by stimulating PCwD to help PCwTD correct the children during inclusive play and highlighting the similarities between the children.
Based on this vision, de Voelvlek is designed. The Voelvlek consists of a sensory rug, abstractly shaped balls called ‘monstertjes’ and play cards. The monstertjes are dynamic objects that stimulate spontaneous interaction between PCwD and PCwTD and stimulate bystanders to join the play. The parents can mix and match the play cards to facilitate inclusive play ideas for their children. By discussing the common interests of the children for the play, PCwTD learn about the similarities between CwD and CwTD. When the children are playing the PCwTD can continue this learning process through observation and the questions on the play cards. The play cards use different kinds of questions to stimulate parental interaction and help PCwTD reflect on their behaviour towards CwD and PCwTD.","Inclusive design; Parents of children with special needs; Barriers","en","master thesis","","","","","","","","","","","","Integrated Product Design | Medisign","",""
"uuid:a9f3ac01-edfb-4c07-bcfe-4998aeaa3aed","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a9f3ac01-edfb-4c07-bcfe-4998aeaa3aed","Brainwise with the Self-portrait app: Providing child patients with a meaningful translation of their test-results","Plat, Benthe (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Melles, M. (mentor); van Veelen, M.L. (graduation committee); Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)","2023","This report delves into the challenging process of translating complex tests from the Child Brain Lab into a design that is both accessible and engaging for children. The Child Brain Lab, part of the Erasmus MC Sophia Children’s Hospital, conducts research on brain development to gain a better understanding of the course of brain disorders and improve treatments for children with brain disorders. In return for children’s participation in the lab, the hospital aims to provide them with a child-friendly patient dossier: The Self-portrait. The goal of this project is:
To design a digital solution that translates the results from a selection of tests that are performed in the Child Brain Lab, into a meaningful contribution for children (developmental age 6-12 years old) with brain disorders, that will increase their participation in their care path, and positively support their developing self-image.
To design a solution that caters to the needs of the child patients, first the problem space was explored, through literature research and interviews with stakeholders. Within the age range of the target audience, children develop their language skills and transition from imaginative thinking to more logical reasoning. These cognitive abilities influence the formation of their self-image, which led to the framework for contributing to self-image: ‘Look what I did’ - ‘Look how I did it’ - ‘Look how I did it and what I learned from it.’ This framework was used to adapt the app to the needs of the target audience. In addition, the participants’ brain disorders present additional challenges, such as poor eyesight and a need for predictability.
The tests for which a translation is being made in the app are the EEG, IQ test, and walking mat. Each of these tests comes with its own set of challenges. For example, the data from the EEG test is complex and elusive for children, and the analysis is quite intricate for physicians. The results of the IQ test are highly valued.
The discovery phase revealed five trade-offs, such as the balance between providing honest information or protecting a child by sharing only positive information. The insights led to the design goal:
Create a personally rewarding visualization of the test-data of the EEG, IQ-test and walking mat for each child that visits the CBL, by highlighting their personal achievements and empowering children to become aware of and accept who they are, in a form that is integrated in the clinical workflow of the Pediatric Brain Centre, and supportive during the full care journey, so that HCPs see the Self-portrait as an enrichment to their work.
The result is an interactive prototype of The Self-portrait, inviting children to explore the world of their own brains. Each test is developed with its own character. For instance in the case of the walking mat, animals are used to give children insights into their walking patterns, envisioning enriched dialogues between children and physiotherapists, potentially leading to improvements.
Throughout the app’s development, all stakeholders have been involved multiple times, ensuring the right balance is struck in the design between presenting accurate information aligned with clinical practice while also appealing to children.
Through this endeavor, the project aims to bridge the gap between complex medical data and child-friendly interpretations, fostering a better understanding and engagement with one’s health metrics.
As CB frequently visit the hospital and are familiar with the medical setting, a CBL visit does not trigger much stress. So, it became clear that the main challenge was not solely to reduce stress but to empower these children to share their experiences, gain control, and connect with their peers. The CBL provided an ideal opportunity to address these needs as it aims to test hundreds of CB annually. CB did express a desire to be informed about procedures and often felt alone during hospital visits.
Several key findings were established from this research. Firstly, it became clear that children with brain conditions (CB) have unique knowledge from their personal experiences and are therefore experts in the area of their condition. Secondly, these children have a strong desire to help others and to learn new things. In addition, a number of barriers were recognised that CB often face, including limited information and empathy that does not meet their needs. To address these challenges, the approach focuses on creating a safe and supportive environment for peer interaction, bridging information gaps and simplifying complex medical language, by equal communication.
As a result, the design goal is to empower participants of the CBL to recognise their expertise and support them to express their experiences and share them with their peers.
These findings led to Lab Maatjes, a peer-sharing app tailored to the CBL journey. It was designed around the principles of self-determination theory. For autonomy, the app allows users to explore what CBL involves and why it is important. It also offers guidance and support to navigate the app and express themselves independently. It promotes competence by allowing them to share their stories, feel heard and seen, and gather the information they want to know. Finally, it provides relatedness by creating a trusted environment where they can connect with peers and gain insight into their experiences and how they relate to their views. Lab Maatjes creates an engaging preparation process that puts participants in control, makes them feel valued for their contributions to the CBL and ensures that they do not feel alone as they connect with peers.
This thesis concludes with an evaluation of the app, using the feedback of the CBL participants for quick iterations. The final sections of this report identify areas for improvement and recommendations for implementing the design, including creating two versions of the app for different age groups, implementing advanced features such as audio recording, and doing more research on the sharing behaviours of the participants.","Child Brain Lab; Human-centred design; Co-design; Patient Experience; Peer-sharing","en","master thesis","","","","","","","","","","","","Design for Interaction","",""
"uuid:93eb6a09-4896-4a65-b3a1-1d9e5bebbf4b","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:93eb6a09-4896-4a65-b3a1-1d9e5bebbf4b","Diversity in Outdoor play","Magnano, Lea (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering; TU Delft Human-Centered Design)","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Stappers, P.J. (mentor); Bouman, Marlies (graduation committee); Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)","2023","Outdoor play among children of the new generations is shifting, and not necessarily for the better. A considerable number of kids are missing out on spending their free time outdoors, and those who do engage often lack diversity. For instance, in the Netherlands, only about one-third of children playing outdoors are girls. These observations have prompted numerous studies aimed at observing and understanding children’s play behaviors and preferences in outdoor environments. However, these studies often overlook an important group – the children who are not outside.
This graduation project focuses on children aged 8 to 11 who are currently less engaged in outdoor play. A specific approach is used in analyzing children’s play preferences, which is to examine the link that exists between outdoor play and their personalities.
The project involves several research activities: literature research on outdoor play and personality models, consultation of experts, direct observations of children, and contextmapping sessions with outdoor play stakeholders. By combining the results of the research, a design framework for outdoor play emerges. The framework features five distinct characters, each representing a different type of child who is often overlooked when designing outdoor play spaces.
Leveraging this framework, a series of design concepts is developed to cater to these five character profiles. These concepts are presented in a booklet, which aims to inspire designers, urban planners, and decision-makers in the field of outdoor play to create more inclusive and engaging play environments for all children.","Outdoor play; Diversity; Children; Personality","en","master thesis","","","","","","","","","","","","Design for Interaction","",""
"uuid:1ae4d876-f80e-4a9d-9cc8-8eaf13b7d2cb","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:1ae4d876-f80e-4a9d-9cc8-8eaf13b7d2cb","Geotricity: an interactive installation to playfully foster awareness around renewable energy at the Green Kids' Museum Kenya","van Grinsven, Marit (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Vermeeren, A.P.O.S. (graduation committee); Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)","2022","This project is in collaboration with the Green Kids’ Museum Kenya, which will be the first interactive children museum in East Africa. The museum will become a place for children of age 6 to 14 to learn, inspire and explore, with sustainability at its core.
The purpose of the project is to propose an interactive design to playfully foster awareness around renewable energy at the Green Kids' Museum Kenya, in specific for children aged 9 to 11 living in the Nairobi metropolitan area.
An effective and engaging way to educate children is by providing a play-based learning experience as it capitalises on the motivational abilities and engagement of play. In order to provide such an experience the target group first needs to be triggered to engage with the installation. Once the children are interested in the installation they need to be able to playfully explore, experiment and reflect on the implementation of renewable energy. After which the children will leave the installation with a sense of pride, due to the gained learning experience.
To support the play-based learning journey and to ensure that an exhibition is engaging for children, 12 guidelines have been developed, based on a creative session with children, interviews with stakeholders, museum visits and literature review. Each guideline corresponds with an underlying need of children: support children with different interests, give children the feeling that they are in control, allow children to take a break to reflect on their experience, enable discovery, emphasise the feeling of fellowship, challenge the abilities of the children, provide a clear and simple introduction, allow children to take risks, trigger their senses, reflect everyday life within the installation, utilise humour and create an aesthetically pleasing experience.
The guidelines formed the basis for developing the design Geotricity. Geotricity consists of a table with an interactive landscape projected on it. The challenge for the children is to provide energy to the houses on the table. To accomplish this, the children can place elements that represent renewable energy power plants. Placing an element causes the projection to change accordingly. If a power plant is placed in a correct position, the lights in the corresponding houses are turned on. Through exploration, experimentation and reflection the child will learn about the implementation of the different renewable energy power plants.
Based on an evaluation test with Dutch children at the age of 10, it appears that the concept is experienced as engaging and provides children the opportunity to playfully explore and experiment with the applicability of power plants. Once they properly positioned an element and made a house light up, the children felt a sense of pride.
Further research needs to be conducted to establish if the design has the same impact on the target group of children aged 9 to 11 living in the Nairobi metropolitan area and to determine whether the experience has the desired educational impact.","Play-based learning; Renewable energy; Play; Experiential learning; Interactive exhibition; Sustainability; Museum","en","master thesis","","","","","","","","","","","","Design for Interaction","","-1.312666, 36.753549"
"uuid:b595b04c-6c08-4775-b74d-fb4250a273f2","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:b595b04c-6c08-4775-b74d-fb4250a273f2","Sharing the personal art experience: A family visit to Kunstmuseum Den Haag","de Jong, Kati (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering; TU Delft Human-Centered Design)","Vermeeren, A.P.O.S. (mentor); Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Benliyan, Irma (graduation committee); Berkhout, Kyra (graduation committee); Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)","2022","This report describes the process of designing a shared family experience for Kunstmuseum Den Haag that encourages visitors to explore and discuss the personal art experience together.
Kunstmuseum Den Haag is an art museum with a large variation of art pieces. They would like to see more families visiting the museum.
Their vision is ‘Getting closer to art’, meaning they wish to offer visitors a personal connection with art.
The personal art experience is anything someone thinks, feels or perceives about art that is unique to that person. It is interesting to help families explore and discuss this experience, because children might have trouble identifying them and have trouble putting them into words. In turn, adults might underestimate their children and never try, or they don’t know how to talk about it.
By discussing the experience, you can not only learn about art, but more about yourself and your family members as well.
To have a shared experience that successfully enhanced the personal experience, it is important that all family members are equally engaged. During this project, I identified four design principles of creating engagement in museums and four ways towards enhancing the personal art experience.
The four ways to engagement are:
- Role-play and autonomy
- Anticipation and reward
- Appropriate novelty and challenge
- Facilitation of varied energy levels
The four ways to enhancing the personal experience are:
- Pushing and challenging behaviour
- Novelty and weirdness
- Asking the right questions
- Relatability to one’s own life
The final product consists of six role-booklets that each use different questions and exercises to explore and discuss the personal art experience. With the roles, one can move, be creative, search for details, experiment physically, fantasize, fabricate, change, feel and share opinions. Every player answers one question per artwork.
Additional to these booklets, there is the wayfinding board. The wayfinding boards helps with choosing an artwork to explore and discuss with your family. The family is still in charge of choosing their own artworks, but they are challenged to choose art they might otherwise not. It also makes for variation in activities during the interaction.
With this game, families are able to direct their own visit, but be supported in their journey toward a more personal experience.","Personal experience; Family; Museum experience; Engagement; Shared experience; Art museum","en","master thesis","","","","","","","","","","","","Design for Interaction","",""
"uuid:63357de5-23e5-4816-9e21-8ac07ba746d7","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:63357de5-23e5-4816-9e21-8ac07ba746d7","A mobile interactive exhibition about sustainability for children","Imhoff, Thomas (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Vermeeren, A.P.O.S. (graduation committee); Visser, Friso (graduation committee); Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)","2021","Project goal
The goal of this project is to design an immersive interactive experience inside an electric truck for Museon for pop-up locations at schools aimed at preteenagers to inspire, activate, and make them care about nature and sustainability. The experience should be made accessible to children from disadvantaged neighbourhoods.
The project consists of 2 phases, a research phase and design phase.
Research phase
During the research phase, two user research has been done. The first a context mapping session is done to understand how preteenagers perceive sustainability. It was discovered that their focus is mostly on nature, and they know the basic principles if a behaviour is good or bad for the environment. Often when asked for reasoning it is missing or wrong. The second were expert interviews, with the goal to learn more about how to design for children in the museum setting. Museum educators at Museon were interviewed. Information transfer is important when designing for children, they should enjoy the experience and therefor the experience should be designed to fit their identity needs. A design framework consisting of design principles, personas, design goal, interaction vision, and creative vision has been made using the information of the user research.
Literature research has been conducted to understand how to educate children about sustainability. According to Janssen et al. (2019) an approach to educate children about wicked problems is providing them with the perspectives of different stakeholders which should improve their systematic thinking and is necessary to solve complex issues. Literature research also has been done to better understand how to design for museum experiences. According to Bär and Boshouwers (2018) it is essential to design a story which the visitors can go through. The 9 experience journey steps have been adopted as blueprints for the final design to create a good story.
Design phase
The second phase is the design phase, creative sessions has been done to design a theme, exhibits, camper layout, and thematic objects. The final concept is a campervan experience in which the visitors make a journey along the Rijn. The camper is relevant to preteenagers as it reminds them of holiday and adventure. The experience consists of introductions using iconic objects of traveling to immerse the visitor, exhibits designed to fit the identity needs of the different personas to make the experience enjoyable, and an educational message with the educational approach of Janssen et al. (2019) where the children make sustainable choices after every exhibit and revealing how this affected their environment in the end of the experience.
The design phase ends with an evaluation done with preteenagers visiting Museon. A paper prototype has been used to walk the visitors through the exhibition and using the PrEmo tool (2007) as a discussion tool to understand how they feel about the exhibits. The exhibits were rated positive, and the educational message was seen as insightful for the children. Making their own choices and seeing how it effects the environment made it easy to understand the bigger system connected to the chosen sustainable behaviour.","Experience design; Exhibition; Children; Sustainabilty","en","master thesis","","","","","","","","","","","","Design for Interaction","",""
"uuid:a1ff05ca-67a5-49d6-8ed3-8314b7c284c1","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a1ff05ca-67a5-49d6-8ed3-8314b7c284c1","PREQUEL: A tangible storytelling tool for building a family culture","Mooij, Jeanine (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)","van Boeijen, A.G.C. (graduation committee); Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)","2021","This report describes the development of the tool PREQUEL, a tangible storytelling tool to build a family culture. The tool is intended to support meaningful conversations between two parents. Through conversation and storytelling, the tool encourages them to explore the world of parenting and everything that comes with that.
Parenting always comes with challenges. However, intercultural parents experience added stressors. Being raised in different cultural groups, intercultural parents will probably hold diverse values, beliefs, and attitudes. The more opposing the values are, the greater the likelihood of the parents encountering problems. Values translate into practices which are particular ways of doing something. The challenge for these parents is to reconcile different childrearing practices that have these contradictory aims and goals.
The goal that guided the project is “to support new intercultural parents, in the safe context of their home, in building a family culture that both can rely on and are comfortable with by teaching them to reflect and communicate so that they can create a stable and consistent environment for themselves and their child(ren)”.
PREQUEL is based on a framework comprising of six steps: awareness, understanding, evaluation, appreciation, adjustment, and execution. The framework is a way for parents to work through their experiences and evaluate their behaviour. They are supported in going through the steps, which concludes with them planning how to approach future parenting situations. They do this by identifying shared values and use them as a strength in their daily lives. This will lead to both parents and child(ren) being able to cherish the richness that sharing multiple cultures can bring.","intercultural; parenting; tool; communication; reflection","en","master thesis","","","","","","","","","","","","Design for Interaction","",""
"uuid:771ca29e-dc4d-49f0-a439-2b956adaff65","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:771ca29e-dc4d-49f0-a439-2b956adaff65","Improving patient wellbeing in the Wilhelmina Children’s hospital through a design concept for the activity room","de Zeeuw, Emma (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Stappers, P.J. (mentor); Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)","2021","Yearly, roughly 350.000 child hospitalizations take place in the Netherlands and 27% of Dutch children had a chronic disease in 2019, varying from frequently occurring diagnoses like asthma to rare and progressive diseases. However, the life expectancy for children who suffer from a chronic illness continues to increase considerably. This results in a focus on long-term effects of disease and the quality of life for diagnosed children (Van de Putte, E. M., & Van der Ent, C. K., 2019).This project is a collaboration with the Wilhelmina Children’s hospital in Utrecht. In this thesis, the meaning of wellbeing in a pediatric hospital is explored and defined through literature studies and generative sessions with patients, family members and staff in the WKZ. The aim was to implement the insights from the research in a redesign for the activity room in the hospital. The design goal derived from the research outcomes was to give patients of the Wilhelmina Children’s hospital the tools and empowerment to create control over their environment and autonomy over their activities in the hospital, which will be enhanced by stimulation of social involvement among patients within the hospital. Using a participatory approach, patients and former patients of the WKZ were involved in concept development through an idea generation session. Two initial concepts were tested in the WKZ, which led to the establishment of the final concept. The final concept is a spatial design for the activity room focused on the free, independent exploration and play of children. The design gives children the opportunity to control their own playing environment with geometric lightweight blocks or to find a place of their own in cavities in the wall. It stimulates social interaction among children through a semi-transparent playing wall and allows them to express and leave their personal creativity. The results from the final concept test in the WKZ were used to establish a Vision for future designers who work in a similar context. In this vision, the insights from the research and testing sessions of this project are stated as design opportunities with possible solution areas that can improve patient wellbeing in a pediatric hospital.","Patient wellbeing; Pediatric hospital; Design for children; Playing interactions","en","master thesis","","","","","","","","","","","","Design for Interaction","",""
"uuid:8ae09e82-28bb-4000-b7da-0613b1e3d0a2","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:8ae09e82-28bb-4000-b7da-0613b1e3d0a2","Playful learning through designing toys: Developing a design education toolkit for a non-profit organisation in rural Kenya","Westerhof, Marten (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)","van Boeijen, A.G.C. (graduation committee); Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)","2021","Sustainable Rural Initiatives (SRI) is a non-profit organisation in Okana, a rural community in West Kenya. SRI provides the community members of Okana with opportunities to develop practical skills such as carpentry and tailoring. SRI also works with international partners with specific expertise to give local community members opportunities to develop skills they would otherwise not have had. In all these efforts, there is a strong focus on reflecting the culture, surroundings, and values of the community. Play is an important aspect of how children develop and make sense of their surroundings. Toys are tools through which play is facilitated, but making toys itself is a common form of play too. The literature on play suggests that by providing kids with joyful, engaging, iterative and socially interactive play experiences, adults can guide children’s play to help children develop skills directly involved with that play experience, but also more general learning-to-learn skills. My project had two goals; the first was to give children the opportunity to develop design skills in a fun and playful way. Design is an exciting medium for kids to develop several valuable design skills, that are broadly applicable. The second was to give SRI the tools and practical knowledge to provide children with design activities through which they can develop those skills, both now and in the future. To reach these goals I designed a toolkit, consisting of a manual and several videos, that allows SRI to organise playful design workshops for kids to help the children develop these design skills. In the workshops, the children design toys from materials such as clay and wood, that are available around SRI’s community centre. In the workshops the design process is structured in three phases. In the first phase, a topic is introduced through a video, that then poses several questions to help the kids discuss that topic. These discussions help them to make their goal concrete, as they practise working together. In the second phase they build and test their idea. The kids first gather materials, and then use those materials to prototype their toy. They practise making their ideas tangible and learn from making mistakes. Finally they present their designs to each other, allowing the others to ask questions and give feedback. In doing so, they practise their communication skills and their capacity to reflect. From the third workshop onward, the facilitator has to introduce the topic and questions to the children himself, replacing the video. The facilitator can find suggestions for topics and stories in the manual to help him come up with other challenges for the kids. This toolkit gives children in Okana a fun pastime through which they are introduced to the design process, and can develop valuable design skills. This toolkit has given SRI the knowledge and tools to host those workshops. It has also given SRI a model they can use to effectively transfer knowledge from external partners to the local community.","design education; learning through play; playful education; non-profit organisation; sustainable development; toy designs; children; Kenya; toolkit","en","master thesis","","","","","","","","","","","","Design for Interaction","","-0.14595490998160826, 34.8732468153794"
"uuid:7bfcf41b-68fe-4aa8-90f2-7894b3fcaf82","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:7bfcf41b-68fe-4aa8-90f2-7894b3fcaf82","Let's walk! Design the gait test station for children","Xu, Chenye (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Weerdesteijn, J.M.W. (mentor); Roebroeck, M.E. (mentor); Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)","2020","This project aims at designing a gait test station for children. The gait test station tests children’s walking in Child Brain Lab at Sophia Children’s hospital. The children in this project are at the age of 4-10 with different capacities.
There are two scopes in this project, the service scope of the gait test and the experience scope of children. The service scope is to define the current procedure of the gait test. The procedure includes the gait test device, the gait test process, and the test conductor’s working experience. A service blueprint specifies the entire procedure. Another research with physical therapists, child experts, and parents by questionnaire is conducted in the service scope. With those experts’ experiences, I understand children’s related capacities to follow and finish a gait test; some design opportunities also are found. Regarding the scope of children’s experience, as the gait test station has not been set up at the hospital, the research with children is conducted at home, based on the defined service blueprint. In the Covid-19 situation, the children are researched remotely or at the family home with permission. With the research results, children’s current situations are defined and depicted in the experience maps. The current situations are four different typical situations at the gait test station. After the series of research activities, children’s current problems at the gait test station are defined. I formulate my design goal as Design an experience journey for children’s (aged 4-10) gait test to induce their natural walking, make them motivated and fun, or learn about the walking. A shortlist of design requirements is also concluded in the service scope. Before the design phase, there is a project phase of design sprints. I test and iterate different interventions in this phase for several rounds. With the intervention iterations, I can emphasize more on children to better design for them. With the iteration results, the design patterns are concluded on children’s experience maps. A list of design elements is also concluded from the iteration interventions. In the design phase, concepts have been generated with the combination of all the design patterns. As these are the combined concepts, I first evaluate if the concept includes all the design elements in different design patterns. The concepts are also evaluated with the hospital in the service scope. With these two evaluations, one concept has been selected. This concept contains three different tasks for different types of children. The three tasks are exploring walking knowledge, imitating animal walking, and sending animals to the jungle. Children can have one task during the gait test to achieve the envisioned experience. In the final concept, the technology tool is changed from the previous concept to enhance the walking experience. With the final concept, a new service blueprint and a technology roadmap are made as final deliverables. Considering a long-term implementation, I also implemented the concept into the interactive videos for short term use. The interactive videos can directly work at the gait test station, also as a final deliverable.","Value-based healthcare; Experience design; Design for children","en","master thesis","","","","","","","","","","","","","",""
"uuid:24afa347-8868-41ee-ac6f-a1bec0b09449","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:24afa347-8868-41ee-ac6f-a1bec0b09449","Identifying Children's Activities: Development of a wearable to assess theactivities performed by free-living children","Rijnders, Karen (TU Delft Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering)","Veeger, H.E.J. (mentor); Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)","2020","Dutch children achieve an insufficient amount of physical activity. For that reason, Delft University of Technology is looking to develop a wearable that contributes to motivating children to move more frequently and more intensely while collecting data on the movements made by its wearer. In this thesis it was investigated whether it would be possible to identify the activities performed by free-living children and what type of data from which body placement should be obtained in order to do so. Due to restrictions resulting from COVID-19, triaxial accelerometer- and gyroscope measurements of typical child play activities were carried out on various body parts of eight adults. A Long-Short Term Memory algorithm was applied to short sequential sections of summarized accelerometer data. This algorithm gives a prediction of the activity executed by the wearer of a triaxial accelerometer for every 10 seconds in time. The effects of the wear-site (left wrist, right wrist, right hip, left ankle or right ankle), type of accelerometer (low noise or wide range) and epoch length (0.25, 0.33, 0.5 or 1 second) were studied. The shortest epoch length was found to result in the most precise predictions per activity and the highest overall accuracy for classifying the activities. The hip and right wrist placement perform better than the other locations. A wrist placement is favored over the hip because a heart rate sensor can be added to the former. Measuring the heart rate in combination with classifying the activities performed gives insight in both intensity and variety of movements made by children. To further increase the performance of these classifications, predictions made with a score below a certain threshold, 0.775 in this thesis, can be excluded. This will decrease the amount of classifications made but it improves the accuracy as well as causing the precision with which each activity is recognized to rise. Without excluding results with a score below this threshold value, classifications of low noise 0.25 second epoch data from the right wrists have an accuracy of 74.8% and a precision per activity of 54.5% - 82.1%. Removing the more uncertain predictions yields an accuracy of 84.0% and a precision between 57.8% - 91.5%. Clustering specific activities, such as sitting and lying down, increases the precision considerably. The accuracy and precisions when applying sitting and lying down as one cluster in combination with removing the uncertain predictions for the low noise sensor become 85.4% and 70.1% - 92.2%. Before this algorithm can be successfully implemented in combination with the intended wearable, the precision with which each individual activity is identified should be <90%. To transfer the collected accelerometer- and heart rate data to a smartphone, it is recommended to use NFC technology. Through a smartphone application it can then be made available for research purposes and the children can get feedback on the variety and quantity of their physical activity of the past two days. A battery that is appropriately sized for a child's wrist wearable will only be able to power the wearable for a few days. This is an insufficient battery life for the intended use, so the battery has to be charged. NFC technology additionally offers energy harvesting capabilities, making it possible to wirelessly charge the wearable via a smartphone. From this exploratory research it can be concluded that it will be challenging to develop a low-cost wearable that can identify activities and measure how frequently free-living children are physically active. This is the case for both software, the algorithm that predicts which activities were performed, and hardware, where the most pressing challenge is the battery life. However, it is believed that with more extensive research it is possible to create a fully operational wearable.","Activity recognition; Children; Free-living; Wearable; Physical Activity","en","master thesis","","","","","","","","","","","","Biomedical Engineering | Sports Engineering","",""
"uuid:fe02007d-9afa-42a3-9ec7-9afe8093cc7d","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:fe02007d-9afa-42a3-9ec7-9afe8093cc7d","Edutainment for toddlers: designing an episode builder for triggering response moments when watching TV","Franx, Tjitske (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Beets, M.F. (mentor); Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)","2020","The aim of this thesis was to design an ‘Episode Builder’ toolkit which facilitates filmmakers to easily create a wide variety of episodes that all contain at least one educational response moment for 1.5-3-years-olds while meeting parents’ concerns. Additionally, four different response moments were designed which trigger the child to actively engage with the content. These response moments were integrated within the toolkit’s concept.
During the analysis phase, extensive literature studies and an interview with a pedagogue resulted in an overview of context-dependent design opportunities and threats that would affect the educational value of watching television, spread over the six core elements of the framework. Context mapping research with Dutch families found that it was most common that parents let their toddler watch TV when the parent requires his full attention on another activity during the day. However, parents are bothered that their child wasn’t actively thinking about the presented content on television. Therefore, a design goal, an interaction vision and 18 design guidelines were formulated for creating educational and actively engaging episodes, which resulted in the design of four different response moments which a toddler can safely perform without the parent’s supervision.
When evaluating Pixifox Animation’s first storyboards, it was found that filmmakers integrated too many features within their storyboards which are too complicated for the viewer. Two design principles were formulated in which the toolkit should 1) facilitate filmmakers to explore essential features around a central theme, and integrate these features within their storyboard, and 2) fit the filmmaker’s creative process. These design guidelines, and the integration of the response moments, resulted in the toolkit’s final concept, consisting of five templates.
A validation study with 6 participants was set up to clarify whether the toolkit is able to facilitate filmmakers to create a great variety of educational storyboards around different central themes. In pairs of two, participants worked with five laminated paper templates to create an educational storyboard containing one response moment around a chosen theme.
The Episode Builder found to be able to facilitate filmmakers to create various educational storyboards which all include one response moment around different central themes. Participants had a clear idea about what the story’s essence and learning goal should be, which a toddler can comprehend. However, some educational value was lost, since the toolkit failed to facilitate the participants to translate these features into visual shots which aren’t overwhelming for the viewer. The activity was reviewed as insightful, probably easy to use after the first use, and somewhat repetitive.
Future tests should involve participants who are willing to the toolkit several times for four hours to validate if a 3-5 minute storyboard can be created within this timeframe and gain insight which types of themes can be explored with the toolkit.
Design explorations are recommended about how the toolkit can be introduced more efficiently, be more efficient in use when creativity isn’t required, and how parent and child could reflect on the episode’s content in other activities to elevate the educational value.","","en","master thesis","","","","","","","","","","","","Design for Interaction","",""
"uuid:08fa3e3c-2726-4537-884a-9079cf508367","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:08fa3e3c-2726-4537-884a-9079cf508367","Empowering young change-makers: A tool that enables children activation in their community through a child-led approach","Miccolis, S. (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Calderon Gonzalez, A. (graduation committee); Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)","2020","Children's participation in society is still limited without the establishment of appropriate areas, and the possibility to access the spheres of urban activism, children risks to remain invisible citizens. While children don't get the chance to unleash their creative talents in the innovation playground society is turning into, society lacks their contribution as playful and constructive disorganizers of the world. Based on those background premises, the current project focuses on exploring how children can participate in society without a top-down involvement and how they can be supported in the process of empowerment as active agents in their social and urban context. The opportunity for the project inquiry was found in collaboration with a children center in the outskirt of Bari (Italy), a frontrunner of the Urban civic networks project aimed at promoting urban and human regeneration in a neglected context, where the sense of powerlessness over positive transformations is handed down to children. A research through design approach was utilized to achieve the project goal: design a tool that enables 6 to 12 years old children to undertake an activation journey to take action towards prosocial challenges meaningful for themselves and their community. In the initial research cycle, desk research and comparative analysis of 6 different case studies of toolkit and programs were performed to unveil how children's empowerment could be supported by design. The resulting map of ideal empowering strategies allowed to identify some pillars of children activation process to inform the following cycles. Among those, the community perception, the unlocking of I can mindset and opportunities for action were the object of the research through design interventions, together with the open endedness of the activation process disclosed along with the two iterations. The insights collected converged into children's intuitive, creative activation journey, including gaps, enablers, and needs they experienced along it. They also contributed to enriching the requirements list for the tool's design. During the ideation the leading research outcomes were embodied in the final tool proposal ""Il Priscio"", activities set for young positive change-makers, that propose them a child-led activation through 5 main steps: raising I can, finding relevance in opportunities for change, becoming protagonists, powers-driven ideation and practicing courage. The tool suitcase board contains 14 activity cards with open-ended steps to perform and additional materials to support the experience, such as a platform to practice courage by sharing the results of the powers-driven ideation. The partial test of the tool in the context of the Urban civic network, set up as a third design intervention, acted as a launchpad for children self-activation. Although the implementation in the context of civic associations is envisioned, the tool opened up further research direction about children's self-esteem, the communicative potential of their imaginative interventions, constructive communication with policymakers, and the addition of levels of ambiguity to the tool journey.","Play Well Lab; Participatory City Making; Delft Design Labs; Children empowerment; Urban civic networks; Child-led approach; Tool kit; change-makers","en","master thesis","","","","","","","","","","","","","",""
"uuid:fb198be3-48d5-4ae0-96ef-bf478167bb0a","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:fb198be3-48d5-4ae0-96ef-bf478167bb0a","Enhancing Curiosity to Create a Child-Centered EEG Experience","Ekhtiar, T. (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Goto, L. (mentor); de Wit, Marie-Claire (mentor); Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)","2020","This project focuses on designing a new EEG experience for children visiting the Child Brain Lab at the Sophia Children’s Hospital. The Child Brain Lab will be a new space to do pediatric research for different neurological and psychological disorders. In this space there will be stations where children will do different brain tests, and one which is the EEG station. The initial goal of this project was to improve experience for children 6-12 years old by enhancing curiosity when going to the EEG station, to allow them to learn more about the EEG on their own terms. Literature and observational research was done to learn more about the different stakeholders and the context of the EEG, focusing on identifying moments of boredom, anxiety, and curiosity for the children visiting the EEG space. In addition, the moments of interaction between the child-patient and the parent and lab technician were looked at in relation to these emotions. The observational research led to detailed patient journey maps to be created for four patients who were doing an EEG test regarding the three emotions identified and the interactions between the users. The main insights found were that patients are usually prepared for the procedural side of the appointment but not really about what the EEG test does. This is due to the EEG test being difficult to understand, even for parents, and it becomes assumed that it is too abstract for children to grasp. Factors for how to spark curiosity were also identified through literature research: creating a safe space, building up anticipation, allowing children to predict what will happen, and integrating novel colors, sounds, or other effects. The insights from the research lead to many ideas through sketches and low fidelity prototypes to be developed during and after the research process. Different feedback sessions with patients, parents, and healthcare providers help define the concept direction: an interactive experience that children can play during the EEG to help them learn about what the EEG does on their own terms. The final design is Wavy, an interactive experience that utilizes projected images that interact with physical pieces to create a virtual and physical environment for children to explore ‘What an EEG does’ and to introduce parts of the procedure for children. Wavy shows how doing different activities affects the EEG reading. By placing electrodes pieces, children find brain waves and an activity knob allows children to change the activity, changing the brain waves patterns. The design has been evaluated through interviews with child-patients, their parents, lab technicians, and neurologists (n=14). A virtual interactive prototype was created to test with the child-patients and parents. Lab technicians and neurologists appreciate that the game helps engage children to be more actively a part of the EEG appointment. During the prototype evaluation, children were able to relate the Wavy experience to their own EEG experience and asked exploratory questions to their parents about the game and EEG.","EEG; Children; Play; interactive; Child Brain Lab; Value-based healthcare; Play Well Labs; Design","en","master thesis","","","","","","","","","","","","Integrated Product Design","",""
"uuid:c22b4cfe-d288-4092-b142-e4cc4d30c781","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:c22b4cfe-d288-4092-b142-e4cc4d30c781","Developing a tested vision for the design of a child participation toolkit for the SWKGroep","Welling, M. (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Stappers, P.J. (mentor); Hopmans, Manja (mentor); Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)","2020","This report describes my graduation report for the Master Design for Interaction, part of Industrial Design Engineering at the technical University Delft. The project is in collaboration with both the Play Well Lab and the SWKGroep.
The SWKGroep asked for a child participation toolkit which would help them discover the latent knowledge of the children. In order to be able to go into depth while designing this toolkit, the project is split up into two individual graduation projects. This report describes the first project.
“My design goal is to develop a substantiated and partly tested vision for the development of a child participation Toolkit, which is suitable within the context of the SWKGroep facilities and based on the expectations, wishes, needs and capacity of both the staff members as well as the children.”
The first chapter will introduce the different stakeholders involved in the project. These are the SWKGroep and the Play Well Lab. The chapter will conclude with the relevance of this project for both stakeholders.
The second chapter will describe the research phase, including different interviews, a generative session and an analysis of the results. The chapter will conclude with the discovered problem area and my design focus within this project.
Within the third chapter, an approach for this defined problem area will be defined. The chosen approach will be explained and the chapter concludes with an explanation on why this approach would fit the defined problem area.
After describing this approach, the approach will be elaborated into ideas. This is done in chapter 4, which includes the ideation phase. This chapter will end with a set of 23 ideas/tools which could be used for child participation at the BSO.
The next step, described in chapter 5, is validation of the approach. This is done by testing a selection of the ideas at the BSO to see what the obstacles and enablers are when doing child participation at the BSO. The insights from the user-tests are discussed and this chapter will conclude with a validation of the approach including conditions to be met and an overview of opportunities which were found during the tests.
Chapter 6 will conclude this report with recommendations for the follow-up project and a reflection on this project.","Child participation; After school daycare; Participation toolkit","en","master thesis","","","","","","","","","","","","Design for Interaction","",""
"uuid:005b8667-f314-4c34-beee-4ce57c497e26","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:005b8667-f314-4c34-beee-4ce57c497e26","Designing an entertaining game for children that measures their social/emotional development","Pieters, M.S. (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Vegt, N.J.H. (mentor); Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)","2020","In order to support the development of children, they are continuously monitored at all types of care they go to. The goal of SWKGroep is to improve this support of the development. In order to do this, and enrich their portfolio, they want to know the possibilities of measuring the development with the use of a physical game.
This report describes the design process of this game and the research to the possibilities of implementing the measurement in this game. Research, interviews and observations have shown that the social and emotional development domain at 6-8 year old children shows the most potential for a development measuring game, both because of the large changes in this domain for this age and the fit with the values of SWKGroep.
In current monitoring systems for the social and emotional development, supervisors observe children and score them on a list of statements. However, the supervisors do not always have time to monitor each child individually. Because of the role of the supervisor, this can also create subjective outcomes. Therefore, it is concluded that the game must measure independently.
By combining two current social and emotional measurement systems, a full understanding of the social and emotional spectrum was created. With this, a list of 23 categories was setup which the game must include to measure.
By performing brainstorm sessions, current game analyses and collaborating with experts, a variety of game ideas have been created. After testing, improving and combining those, three concepts were created. By testing these with the target group, the most promising concept was selected.
After this, through a process of testing with the target group and iteration, the game was improved to be an entertaining and understandable game. In the game, teQ’s adventure, the players have to work together and execute assignments. Each assignment requires skill points, which each player has assigned to himself, to fit him best. The game can both be played on a board as in a ‘life size’ version.
After the entertainment level and understandability were confirmed, the focus shifted to the measurement. Throughout the entire design process, the 23 social and emotional categories were taken into account, but could now be improved further. The categories are implemented in the assignments. The decisions that the players make and the answers that they give to questions, create the data for the measurement. During the game, the players use an app to log their process and insert their answer and decisions. These are then used to transfer into measurement scores. The supervisor can now process them in the same way they do with the current system.
After the design of the game was completed, the game was evaluated. Because in the game the data is collected in a consistent way, through the app, the results have a high reliability. However, because this way of measuring is new and the implementations were created by a non pedagogical expert, the validity has to be assured through further research.
It focuses on the not yet existing (July 2020) context of the Child Brain Lab, a clinical research project that is being set up at the Sophia Children’s Hospital. Here, child patients will undergo a wide variety of tests related to their brain that will take up several hours of their time. Their test results will then be discussed by the clinician and the child-patient family. Without the right supporting design, the Child Brain Lab (CBL) is subject to many of the issues that child patients generally face: Not being able to comprehend the conversations between parents and doctors, not getting the chance to voice their own needs and opinions and suffering anxiety about if, how and why clinical tests will be conducted. This project started with a broad context analysis. This included reviewing the literature, observing consultations, and interviewing a variety of healthcare professionals and child patients. This analysis revealed many possible reasons why child involvement is often limited. For example, it was found that by default, the child patients themselves typically take a rather passive role in discussing their care. These insights were then translated into design drivers that inspired several iterations of design ideas. Consequently, these ideas were used to learn from by discussing them with all main stakeholders of this project. This sparked a second iteration of design drivers that ultimately lead to the brain puzzle concept.
The brain puzzle concept is a collection of avatar-based, personalized puzzle pieces the child patient collects as it goes through the CBL. Each piece comes with a different function and serves a different phase of the CBL experience: The first type of pieces shows the sequence of tests that will be conducted while the second type shows which brain functions those tests investigate. Before the consultation, the child patients also receive an indication of their test results in the form of stickers, which can be placed on the corresponding puzzle piece. With these stickers, both the clinicians and the children can indicate which part they want to discuss. These pieces are then brought to the consultation as a discussion tool and to structure the conversation with more regard for the child’s perspective. To evaluate this concept, a prototype was made and evaluated with child-patients, their parents, and their clinicians in over 17 interviews. The results show that the participants were unanimously positive about the overall design and they would like to see it being implemented. Especially parents and clinicians indicated that the concept would playfully guide the children through the CBL and enable them to discuss what they want to discuss. This thesis concludes by listing areas for improvement of the concept and discusses those in the broader context of informing children about their test results.","Design for healthcare; Value based health care; Child involvement in healthcare; Playful Interactions; patient experience","en","master thesis","","","","","","","","","","","","Design for Interaction","",""
"uuid:60e27c80-e71f-4941-b048-9b22f593b675","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:60e27c80-e71f-4941-b048-9b22f593b675","Co-Designing a children’s garments for surgery","Latcham, T.","van Doorn, F.A.P. (mentor); Gielen, M.A. (mentor)","2017","This report is an account of the graduation project executed by Thomas Latcham for the Wilhelmina Kinderziekenhuis (WKZ) in Utrecht, concluding his master degree in Design for Interaction at the Delft University of Technology. The goal of the project was to design a new garment for the pediatric patients in the hospital to wear when undergoing surgery by involving these patients throughout the design process. The initial design goal was to design a new garment that was comfortable, fashionable and privacy-respecting, while remaining functionally operable for the hospital staff, in occurrence with all the stakeholders demands and wishes. Internal and external analyses were done to identify the trends in the domain of healthcare, the legal aspects relating to the matter, the current garments and the competitors and alternatives, and the strengths and weaknesses of the WKZ. These analyses showed that designing a new product for the field was indeed viable. A stakeholder analysis within the hospital showed the complexity of the domain and confirmed two user groups: the patients: wearing the garments, and the staff: confronted with the garments. In observations and interviews, the staff’s functional requirements were pinpointed. In a first generative session with children, an elaborate patient journey and a clear problem statement regarding the current garments were formulated. Furthermore, most importantly, the patients’ emotional needs were identified, resulting in a more specific design goal: design an outfit that gives the patients a sense of control, ownership, safety and assurance, while meeting the staff’s functional requirements. In a second round of generative sessions, children in and outside of the hospital were asked to make garments in 2D and 3D to meet this new design goal. The output of this session served as input for the first sketches. These sketches were combined and clustered resulting in three concepts, which were evaluated by the patients in a third generative session. The three concepts were attempts to answer the emotional needs of the patients, and they were combined to form a new concept after the third session. There was however no physical design of a garment yet to underline the concepts. Therefore, the staff was involved in a series of feedback sessions, in which they were shown early prototypes and ideas for garments and asked to provide feedback. This resulted in a design matching the staff’s functional requirements as well as the combined concept, that answered the patients’ emotional needs. In a fourth round of generative sessions, the combined concept and an early prototype of the physical design were evaluated by the patients. The outcomes of this round of sessions provided input for the modification and detailing of the concept as a whole, resulting in the final design. This final design was user tested in a fifth round of user involvement, in which the final design was evaluated on the patients’ emotional needs as well as the staff’s functional requirements. In a final, sixth session, all identified stakeholders were invited to a presentation of the new design in the WKZ. The outcomes of the fifth and sixth sessions were used to evaluate the final design and the co-design process and to formulate recommendations for the final design, towards implementation in the future.","Co-Design; Participatory Design; Children; Hospital; Clothing","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","","Industrial Design Engineering","Industrial Design","","Design Conceptualization and Communication","",""
"uuid:ea79f276-53e0-44d5-adcb-ef7a2c7f8824","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:ea79f276-53e0-44d5-adcb-ef7a2c7f8824","The building experience of a balance bike","Bloemers, W.E.","Brand, D.I. (mentor); Gielen, M.A. (mentor)","2016","The thesis is concerned with the development of the building kit (the building experience) for a bamboo balance bike. It starts with research on the company and target group. The research is based on several sources: literature, observations, interviews, generative research (workbook) and a questionnaire. The company of the KaboogaBike is a start-up that aims to make socially responsible and sustainable products. The company aims to involve the users in the building process and stimulate the parent-child bonding by offering a building kit for the bike. The target group for the building kit consists open minded, experience driven adults, and their toddlers (age 1½-2 year). The research showed that the child is in the middle of an internal struggle “the creation of the own identity”. Parents have a strong influence on the child, the child’s development and character. The parents feel socially responsible and are interested in sustainable products. In their daily interactions with the child they take a caring, teaching, observing and supporting role. Participants in the questionnaire showed an interest in the building kit because they expect that building the bike will be a fun activity. Parents who are not interested see their limited technological skills and the young age of the child as a problem. The research also made clear that the product should shift the parents’ mindset from a goal-oriented mindset towards a more exploring and playful mindset, in order to design a building kit that provides a positive experience for both parents as child. The parents also have to allow the child to engage more into the process instead of only asking the child to give the components. Finally, the parents need to release some control. This thesis describes the design process of the building experience in five iterations. The first idea of the product comes from an advent calendar: to obtain the bike components gradually. Later on it is decided to divide the product in five steps. The steps are called “adventures”. In every adventure, about 2 to 3 small activities are suggested to explore and play with the components. The activities are small, and focus on exploration by the senses (they are adapted to the child’s interest and capabilities). A story about ”Wanda de panda” and her parents is used to guide the user. This story is integrated in the packaging. Parent and child can build a part of the bike after every adventure. It was decided that the product could look standard from the outside, but it should have interesting interactions (surprising elements) and look less standard from the inside. Moreover, every user should obtain the components in the right order, even if they do not read the instructions. This resulted into a product that only shows the door to the next components after the previous door is opened. The hidden parts trigger curiosity and together with the green lines, holes, the story and images of Wanda de panda, users are activated to open the next door and to do the activities. The product is made from recycled corrugated cardboard. It has an optimal size for transport and the sustainability and sustainable image of the product are hereby taken into account. The packaging consists of 7 parts: the outer box, the outer frame of layer 1, door 1, door 2, a sheet between layer 1 and 2, the outer frame of layer 2, and door 3. The outer box and sheet between layer 1 and 2 can be re-used by shaping it into a bike stand. A prototype of the product is developed and tested with actual users. This user test made clear the product fits the design goals: the parents are activated to explore and play and to take the time for it. Moreover, they also engage the child into the process. Compared to a regular building setting, the parents release control, but they are more goal-oriented as with regular play. The product also fits the qualities of the interaction vision: everybody enjoyed using the product, believed the product was easy to use, worked together, and was positively surprised. The parents appreciate the guidance and they think it offers them enough freedom and/or inspiration to explore by themselves. Finally, the thesis provides recommendations for the production and suggestions to improve and develop the product further.","experience; building kit; toddler; sustainable; bike","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","","Industrial Design Engineering","Design for Interaction","","","",""
"uuid:0d228cb9-f5f1-4704-b6c1-d72723bcdcf0","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:0d228cb9-f5f1-4704-b6c1-d72723bcdcf0","Smash to rebuild: An innovative toy balancing rebellion and conformism in play by using 3d printing techniques","Ma, J.","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Wormgoor, R. (mentor)","2016","Three dimensional printing (3D Printing) is an additive manufacturing method. The current applications of 3D printing are rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing. As a new technology, it shows a promising opportunity to balance the conflict between rebellion and conformism, a basic principle in play. However there is a knowledge gap when it comes to filling in that opportunity, applying their knowledge of 3D printing techniques. The goal of this design project is to bridge that gap and connect the principles of play to the possibilities of 3D printing. Approaching to this assignment, three phases are applied, namely, research, design and evaluation. First part indicates 3D printing general opportunities for balancing the rebellion and conformism in play. Then in the second stage, specific ideas and concepts are generated to make the opportunity feasible. At last, there comes up with an evaluation to assess final concept with project goal.","Balance rebellion and conformism in play; 3D printing","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","","Industrial Design Engineering","Industrial Design","","Design Conceptualization and Communication","",""
"uuid:86efd810-e2c2-4755-a59f-9b0a5326cb19","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:86efd810-e2c2-4755-a59f-9b0a5326cb19","Introducing a social-emotional journey in the world of theme parks ""An attempt to solve the revisit problem""","Schade, V.P.H.","Schifferstein, H.N.J. (mentor); Gielen, M.A. (mentor)","2014","Research shows that current new attractions only have an effect for approximately two years on the visitor numbers of a park . In this project a new type of attraction was created, namely social-emotional journeys. Social-emotional journeys aim to be more sustainable and retain revisit attractiveness. The project tried to push the boundaries of the emotions that attractions can communicate.","industrial design; experience design; theme park; emotions; leisure; emotional journey; social; entertainment; amusement park","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","","Industrial Design Engineering","Industrial Design ID - Design Aesthetics (DA) - Design Communication & Conceptualization (DCC)","","","",""
"uuid:d7edda4e-b9c9-4156-83a3-fb416177a5e7","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:d7edda4e-b9c9-4156-83a3-fb416177a5e7","Rebels at play: Exploring co-research to design a rebellious playground","Luijpers, B.J.M.","Van Doorn, F.A.P. (mentor); Gielen, M.A. (mentor)","2014","For this project the goal was to obtain user insights about the perspectives of children about rebellion in play. After conducting a literature study it was found that being rebellious is beneficial for children, because it allows them to escape from the adult world. This leads to developing multiple capabilities like self-reliance, co-operation, problem solving and interpersonal skills (Gielen and van Leeuwen, 2013). The literature review ended with two research questions about rebellion in play and multiple sub research questions. The main questions are: How do children perceive rebellion and rebellion in play? How do children perceive rules and rules within play? Research method: Co-research To obtain user insights, a novel method called co-research was used. Co-research is a method in which the user takes the role of researcher, researching his or her peers. This might lead to rich contextual insights (van Doorn, 2013). The previous described research questions were translated to interview questions for children, in order to obtain insights about rebellion in play. After, co-research was conducted with two groups of five children. During three sessions, the children were trained in conducting interviews and conducted the actual interviews with their peers. The co-research sessions also served as a case study to evaluate provisional guidelines about conducting research. This can be found at the end of the report. All the sessions and interviews were transcribed and analyzed. Interesting quotes were selected and interpreted by a group of five industrial design students. This led to the following insights about rebellion in play. The transcripts of the co-research sessions and the interviews were taken to the next phase of the project: Analysis Analysis It was found that children have clear motivations to act rebellious. The rebellious acts have certain consequences, but children tend to avoid these consequences. In general they try to seek their personal limit of acting rebellious, without having to deal with the consequences. Motivation to act rebellious Children have several motivations to act rebellious: personal reputation, competition, revenge and inner urge. Different types of rebellious children could be identified, which have different motivations to act rebellious or not (personal reputation). For instance, The little shy girl, would not act rebellious on a regular base, because she is scared of the consequences. If she acts rebellious, she would do it to experience how it feels so she can talk along with her friends. The popular guy acts rebellious, to maintain his popular reputation. He will make fun of others and pretend to be the best in everything. The bad boy wants to look tough and therefore acts rebellious openly. The second motivation is about competition: they rebel because they want to win a game. The third motivation: inner urges, is about feeling the urge to act rebellious, just because a certain act is forbidden. Sometimes children act rebellious just for fun or for example after a long time of conforming behavior. The last motivation is about revenge: you act rebellious because you are angry with someone. What is rebellion? During the co-research sessions it was found that children perceive rebellion as fun. Rebellious behavior can be divided in different categories: doing bad things secretly, bullying, cheating, demolishing and physically hurting. Rebellion was perceived as something nice, especially when they are able to avoid the consequences like punishment. Consequences of rebellious behavior While being rebellious in the attendance of some adult, you will get punished for your behavior, while in the attendance of other children; there are multiple possible reactions, depending on the character of the child. Some children get angry, some children have to cry while get cheated on, because they find it unfair and other children have to laugh when someone cheats. It seems that cheating is not a big issue, because after some minutes the game continues again. There is interplay between rebellious behavior and the consequences: avoiding the consequences of rebellious behavior. This friction field seems to be the most interesting for the children. They want to act rebellious, find their personal limit of rebellious behavior, but avoid the consequences. Limits of rebellion This leads to the limit of rebellious behavior; you should not hurt others, force others, or demolish others’ properties. There is a rule, which all the children agreed on: Treat others the way you want to be treated yourself. In general, children like to play without parents, because this enables them to do what they want. The rules of behavior are clear between peers. If there are problems, mostly they are able to solve these themselves. The research findings were represented in a research scheme (figure 2 in this report). This scheme together with the interaction vision could be used as the starting point for designing. Applying the research scheme (figure 2 in this report). Several categories of rebellious behavior were described in the scheme with corresponding rebellious actions. These actions can be used as the starting point of a brainstorm session, because those are the things that children perceive as rebellious. When an idea is born, it is important to look at the motivations in the scheme. Children have different motivations to act rebellious. These motivations could be used as user cues in your design in order to trigger the children to act rebellious. The rebellious actions lead to several consequences, which children tend to avoid. It is important to look at the consequences of your design: what are the consequences of being rebellious and which of the consequences should be removed/remained? Rebellious behavior leads to four kinds of consequences: 1. A conflict with your inner self: the dilemma to act rebellious or not. 2. A conflict with a peer - When being rebellious against a person, a conflict between those two might arise. 3. A group conflict - when being rebellious and the group results suffer from it, a group conflict might arise. 4. A conflict with the outer world - another possibility is that people who are not directly participating in your environment, get in a conflict with you about your behaviour. For example: parents, teachers or a different group of children not participating the game. When designing, it is important to question yourself what kind of conflict you want to trigger with your design. Based on this scheme, multiple ideas and three concepts were generated. The concept serve as an illustration of how to use the research scheme and as an inspiration to designers. Example of concept As an illustration of how to use this scheme, three concepts were generated. One of the concepts will shortly be described below. Moving base: Moving base is a concept based on the conventional game “hide and seek”. In hide and seek there is a base, where the seeker has to tag someone he/she found or were the hiders can set themselves free. In this concept there are five bases instead of one. During the game, the hiders can change the location of the active base. In the conventional game “hide and seek” it was perceived as cheating to hide close to the base or when the seeker was staying close to the base. By playing ‘moving base’, children are being rebellious against the rules of the conventional game. The value of this game lies in the fact that children can use certain strategies to win the game, for example by moving the base closer to them. Also they can betray their opponents by revealing their spot or ruining their strategy. Children are being rebellious against their peers, which might result in conflicts with peers or group conflicts. Evaluation of designing for rebellion in play After using the scheme to generate concepts, an evaluation of designing for rebellion in play was done. Is it possible to design rebellious games or playgrounds? Once you design something, that facilitates rebellious behaviour, it might not be rebellious anymore, because you approve it. On the other hand, when forbidding things and setting up clear rules which children might break, it becomes too obvious and becomes conforming soon enough as well. On conclusion, when designing for rebellion, try to design subtle cues that provide children with the opportunity to rebel. The value of rebellious behaviour might lie in the interaction between children, which is the result of rebellious behaviour. This interaction has to do with the four types of conflict described earlier (Confict with inner self, with a peer, group conflict and with the outer world). When designing, try to trigger these kinds of conflicts, based on the motivations named in the scheme. Use the acts of rebellious behaviour as an inspiration of what kind of rebellious things to design, but try to not literally translate them into ideas. After the research phase, it was concluded that there is a friction field for children in the scheme: seeking their personal limit of rebellious behaviour without having to deal with the consequences. At the end of this project, it can be concluded that the designer should not focus on this friction field, because when focusing on removing the consequences the rebellious feeling might vanish. Therefore, the designer should focus on the friction field: Consequences and avoiding the consequences. New vision This lead to a new vision for designing for rebel in play: “The playground should trigger conflicts by giving children options to experience the dilemma between being rebellious and conform.”","co-research; rebellion in play; children; play; child participation","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","","Industrial Design Engineering","Industrial Design","","Master of Science Strategic Product Design","",""
"uuid:c09cd30c-b4ef-4d29-80ca-bf901721acc6","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:c09cd30c-b4ef-4d29-80ca-bf901721acc6","Uniekies game: Changing a child's mindset towards children with disabilities","Innemee, J.X.","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Ozkaramanli, D. (mentor); Swaak, J. (mentor); Griffioen, I. (mentor)","2014","The main goal of this graduation project is to positively change the mindset of children towards children with (physical) disabilities through an empiric game. It uses an emotion-driven design approach in which two interesting conflicting concerns of able-bodied children are used as inspiration to find a meaningful and innovative design solution: ‘I should let everyone play along, although they are not competent in the game’ vs. ‘I want to be challenged during play’. Furthermore it addresses the concern conflict between user groups, in which able-bodied children have the need to take the lead and helping function in an interaction, causing them to see the physically limited child as a ‘need-help-kid’. In my research I found that children with physical disabilities have unique abilities due to their disability! For example, children with a visual impairment hear very well and children with tubes or prostheses can shoot very hard. Using these characteristics I designed a game in which children with physical disabilities are positively presented as superheroes: the uniekies game. They have started a secret club in which all superheroes can train their superpowers. The Uniekies game is a role playing game in which all children (age 6-11) can become superheroes by putting on special suits. These suits will be made with materials that can be found at home, such as aluminum foil. The suits give children a disability and a unique power. It consists of 5 steps: 1. Watching introduction movie and read information on www.uniekiesclub.nl. 2. Collecting game materials (printing and searching for required home materials) 3. Choosing superheroes 4. Making superhero suits 5. Training superpowers with mini-games Children can pick from 6 superheroes, all representative for the 6 groups of children with disabilities I used as guidance in my research: (1) visual impairment, (2) hearing impairment, (3) hand, arm function impairment, (4) walking function impairment, (5) use of splint, tubes or prostheses and (6) dependent on a wheelchair, walker, etc for moving. The Uniekies game is a first step towards a more positive interaction of children with and without disabilities. It reverses the mindset of children towards children with disabilities by shifting their disability-focus to an ability-focus. The experienced feeling of solidarity through empathy makes physically limited children be viewed as equal play partners. Because the game is a lot of fun, children will share their experiences with others and spread the game.","emotion; disabilities; mindset","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","","Industrial Design Engineering","Industrial Design","","Master of Science Design for Interaction","",""
"uuid:211b13f1-675b-4851-898f-432fb552fb24","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:211b13f1-675b-4851-898f-432fb552fb24","Development of a modular weather station","Rodewijk, N.H.N.","Ruiter, I.A. (mentor); Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Hut, R.W. (mentor); Van de Giesen, N.C. (mentor)","2013","The TransAfrican Hydro Meteorological Observatory aims to create a dense weather station network in sub-Sahara Africa in order to obtain accurate climate data for a wide range of applications. Existing high-quality weather stations are very expensive and unaffordable for the African government or private parties. Therefore innovative sensors and ICT are developed by TAHMO which can reduce the costs tremendously. The weather stations will be placed at schools for safety reasons and to improve the science education. Within this project the weather station has been developed using the next problem statement: “Develop a modular weather station for integration in sub-Saharan African Junior High School education with the purpose of both acquiring high qualitative data and adding educational value.” The results of the analysis show that there are a lot of different weather stations on the market in different prices, but they do not meet the requirements of being high qualitative and inexpensive. Furthermore, the existing weather stations have no focus on educational purposes. However, there is quite a lot of experience with weather stations at schools which are all connected to a platform, named GLOBE. It is notable that the success of a weather station integrated in the educational program depends on the effort and enthusiasm of the responsible teacher. Additionally, students and teachers who are experienced with it see the weather station as a fun and effective way to teach science. In the ideation phase, several ideas have been created and discussed. The presented ideas are evaluated in the subsequent field research. Different methods are used to discuss the ideas with the target group and to learn more about the feasibility of the project. The general conclusion of the field research was that all the participants were really enthusiastic about the integration of a weather station at their school. They think it is important that it is accessible for all and that it should attract students, especially the ideas with interaction are therefore preferred. However, most of the teachers also mentioned that they would like to place a fence around the station, which would not do justice to the interaction. Based on these findings, the final design of the weather station has been created, which consists of a modular weather station and an interactive fence. The fence consists of three panels, all with a different theme: read, play and test. The weather station itself is designed in such a way that one can easily add, replace or remove a sensor and that the wires are completely tucked away. In order to convince potential investors a prototype has been made. Another purpose of the prototype was to get new insights about the production process. Making the prototype has eventually led to an optimization of various connection parts. TAHMO had already set up a business plan, in which they describe how western schools will be connected with African schools and how the owner of the weather station can earn money by ‘selling’ the data of the weather station. Since this would encourage the owners to repair the station when it is out of order, it is reviewed as a very feasible idea. The report concludes with an evaluation of the product and the project itself. It is expected that the weather station meets most requirements, but further optimization is recommended in order to reduce costs and to verify some assumptions about the use of the weather station.","weather station; Africa","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","","Industrial Design Engineering","Integrated Product Design","","","",""
"uuid:71af5e48-2514-419d-adc7-8eb80e799d9b","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:71af5e48-2514-419d-adc7-8eb80e799d9b","Play on Your Way: Researching and developing play route concepts for children in the public space","Bouman, M.","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Van Doorn, F.A.P. (mentor); Van Gaal, R. (mentor)","2013","This thesis presents the graduation project ‘Play on Your Way’, in which play route concepts have been researched and designed by using child participation. The project was committed by the National Youth Fund Jantje Beton, who aims to create and retain a public space where children (age 6-12) feel free and encouraged to play and be active in. They do this by devising, financing and organizing projects that contribute to reaching this goal. Project scope: A problem with current projects is that most ideas are generated from an adults point of view, and therefore do not meet with the wishes of children. The project’s scope is to design play concepts for the public space, starting with thoroughly researching what the target group wants and needs and including them in the process. This way, an example can be set for the approach of generating solutions for play opportunities in the future. Play routes were chosen as an example case. Shortly put, a play route is a route with play elements, enabling children to play (safely) on their way from point A to B. Analysis: First of all, the project scope was specified further by researching for which age group and type of location the public space is least accessible and encouraging for play. It was found that children in grade 3-5 (about 6-8 years old) and living in urban areas face the most restrictions when it comes down to playing in the public space or getting somewhere. Next, a short literature study on the target group’s characteristics and behaviour was done, giving some insight in what the target group is like and how to execute research with them. The target location was analysed further as well, which made clear that the most urban areas of the 5 most urbanized municipalities of the Netherlands mainly exist of ‘urban, stacked residential streets’. This concluded in a list (and examples) of characteristics of this type of street that could be important in the design phase. Finally, the rules and regulations for play elements were analysed to get familiar with the basic restrictions for designs. Research: The research phase was where the child participation mainly took place. To find out what the experiences and wishes of the target group are concerning the public space (focussing on routes and playing), contextmapping and co-research was executed. During the contextmapping, 20 children of the target group filled in a sensitizing booklet with short assignments about routes and playing, and 15 children (groups of 3) participated in generative sessions about these topics. Five couples participated in the co-research, where the children walked a route of their choice and made assignments on their way. General conclusions about playing were for example that the target group likes competition/challenges, climbing/clambering, games like tag, hide and seek and hopscotch, and playing together. The most common route is from home to school and back, followed by routes to friends, sports, music lessons, playgrounds/parks and the swimming pool. Nature and art is liked on a route, and traffic and vehicles are associated most often with negative experiences. Some children already play along these routes (for example by doing a bicycle race). The specific examples that came out of the research were clustered into inspiration sheets. These quotes, drawings or pictures appeal to one’s imagination much stronger than a general list of conclusions, and make child participation such a powerful method. Design: In the design phase, ideas were generated from the inspiration sheets (backed up by the general conclusions and findings of the analysis phase). Since the inspiration data was not clustered yet when the very first ideas were generated, these ideas were more often based on general conclusions than on unique remarks of children. It became very clear that the remarks gave much more inspiration than the general conclusions, and thus what the use of child participation can be. In the end, about 25 ideas were documented as examples of the project’s output. A range of the ideas was evaluated by a group of the children that participated in the research, and some adults. This showed that the children felt connected with the ideas and both the children as the adults were enthusiast about most of them. The evaluation also resulted in some suggestions concerning function, safety, appearance and maintenance that should be taken into account when developing the ideas further. Tool: To make sure that Jantje Beton can communicate the process and results of this project as an example of why child participation should be used more often, a tool was made. The tool is a fan with 17 sheets, summarizing the process step by step. A general explanation is presented on the front side of each sheet, with a specific example of this project on the back. The tool is mainly meant to inspire and enthuse municipalities to apply child participation more often. An evaluation took place with two adults with little to no experience of child participation. It showed that the information was clearly put and the fan inspired and enthused the readers with the presented examples and possibilities of child participation. Recommendations: The tool that resulted of this project is a way to make municipalities enthused about child participation, but more information and training should be provided before they can actually get busy. It is recommended that the tool is completed with a range of workshops, or a program for setting up and executing child participation. Additionally, the tool is now based on only one example project. For the tool itself this is not necessarily a problem, but more examples should be documented to show in general that child participation works. Lastly, testing the ideas in practice will give additional insights in the results of using child participation, and shows where this method still needs improvement.","contextmapping; co-research; child participation; design; play; children","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","","Industrial Design Engineering","Industrial Design","","Master of Science Design for Interaction","",""
"uuid:e335e569-9cf2-4374-b53e-5d5d71d4042f","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:e335e569-9cf2-4374-b53e-5d5d71d4042f","MyRo: Children's Robotic Companion","Düzenli, A.","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Özcan Vieira, E. (mentor)","2012","The purpose of this 28 week research and design project, was to design a series of interactions (suitable for children aged 4 -6) that together formed the behaviour of MyRo. These interactions consist of a relationship between the available input and output possibilities; predetermined by the technology in the MyRo prototype developed thus far by WittyWorX. The input possibilities of MyRo were: detection of movements, sounds and touch. The output possibilities of MyRo were: dynamic eye animations, sounds, and body movements. The designed interactions based on this input/output relationship, were aimed to stimulate the emergence of an intuitive and natural relationship between users and MyRo and to provide possibilities for open ended play. My aim was to provide children the freedom to create their own games revolving around the behavioural characteristics of MyRo. The overall structure of this project followed a ‘design for research’ process. Research questions were formulated, tested and evaluated with over 30 participants along 4 user studies (De School Met De Bijbel, Benthuizen and Korein Kinderplein, Eindhoven), each with a dedicated protoype design. The designs of the interactions evolved along design cycles on basis of the results derived from the dedicated user studies that preceded. Initially a thorough analysis was made to form the basis of this design project. The findings in this analysis covered; MyRo’s purpose, technical aspects, interactive properties, consumers, competitors, current trends, and the user, which together formed the basis of the design goal and design direction that were formulated. The design direction focused on providing and stimulating open ended as well as child directed play between user and MyRo; more specifically Free Play and Guided Play. This direction was narrowed down to focus only on the Free Play aspect of MyRo. Based on this direction, conceptualizations were initiated along 4 design cycles to design and improve a Free Play framework with focus on Free Play and open ended play. A Free Play framework was designed that consisted of nine unique and distinguishable emotions/ states that together formed the behaviour of MyRo. The emotions and states included in this framework were: Idle, Bored, Sleep, Loving, Fearful, Frustrated, Grudge, Sad and Excited. This framework was tested on participants in both virtual and tangible prototypes. The findings in this research were distributed amongst 4 areas; (1) Gameplay possibilities and social interaction patterns (2) Learning perspectives (3) Fun factor (4) Users’ understanding of the designed dynamics. Each of these categories had their own dedicated research questions and were used to guide user study setups and the evaluations made thereafter. Results from user studies indicate that the interactivity provided is generally enjoyed, and easily understood by participants. Out of the available input possibilities in the Free Play framework, participants enjoy ’teasing’ MyRo the most. On the other hand, MyRo has shown to stimulate both violent behaviour and nurturance between various participants and MyRo. This conflict between participants’ interests generates minor conflicts and a possibility for children to become more aware of their actions and consider other’s perspectives over time. The Free Play framework provides various game play patterns such as Multiple individuals vs. game, cooperative play and team competition and indicates that more game play and interaction patterns are likely to emerge over time. MyRo is currently a concept that is under development by WittyWorX. Until the beginning of this project, little design and development had been achieved in forming its behaviour. The significance of the completed research is to convince WittyWorX of the relevance of implementing natural and meaningful interactivity that promotes Free Play interaction and open ended gameplay possibilities.","Interactive; Robot; Open ended Play; Free Play; Guided Play","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","2013-10-17","Industrial Design Engineering","Conceptualization and Communication","","","",""
"uuid:a4c6d38b-e040-4479-9b63-2b50b2d67c77","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a4c6d38b-e040-4479-9b63-2b50b2d67c77","Band: A social music player for children in middle childhood","Overkamp, T.W.J.","Mulder, I.J. (mentor); Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Kock, J. (mentor)","2012","Band is a product service system which has a physical music player and an online music service as core components. It allows children to listen to music alone and with friends. The songs are provided by a streaming music service and can be shared online and offline. When children are about 8 years old, they enter a new phase in their development, the so-called operational phase. This phase is characterised by a number of changes. Firstly, friendships and relationships with peers begin to take a more prominent place. Belonging to a group becomes more important. Secondly, children start to share objects and stories with their peers. The fact that their senses mature and their increased focus on detail help them to assess the value of these objects and the equality of these exchanges. Another effect of the increased focus on detail is the desire of children to have more complex and real toys. Finally, the formation of their personality becomes more concrete when children are between 8 and 10 years of age. Children form and can communicate their preferences. Their music preference changes rapidly and is often decided upon within a group of friends. Current music players do not offer a combination of a detailed, mature appearance and the possibility to stay in contact with friends, aspects that are important to children between 8 and 10. The Band ecosystem takes these elements of child development and product desires into account and allows children to listen to music both alone and with friends. Firstly a player that can be used to by children to play their favorite music at home. The songs that are played are the songs they have stored in their account of the music service. Apart from listening to songs on their own, they can invite friends who also have Band to listen along. Secondly a music service where children can search for new songs, manage their current songs and see what music their friends have in their account. Behind this service is a database of streaming music. In order to be able to see what music friends have in their account of the service, children can exchange avatars that come with the player. This exchange connects the accounts online. Avatars can only be exchanged when children meet in person, which limits the risk of children connecting to strangers. Finally, children can also share music using so-called mixtapes. On these mixtapes they can store links to songs in the database of streaming music. By exchanging these mixtapes they can introduce new songs to their friends.","product service system; social; music; children","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","","Industrial Design Engineering","Industrial Design","","Master of Science Design for Interaction","",""
"uuid:97ee2e9e-9c0b-40f2-8865-b8f477ffa80a","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:97ee2e9e-9c0b-40f2-8865-b8f477ffa80a","Play like Messi; design of a product for making ball mastery exercises more fun.","Geerts, E.","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Vegt, M.J.H. (mentor); Bartholomeus, E.J.C. (mentor); De Graaf, M. (mentor)","2012","Almost every youth football player dreams about being as good as very technical skilled football players, like Messi. Coaches often believe that these great players are simply gifted and that their skills are beyond the average player. Wiel Coerver, a Dutch football manager, analyzed these great players in slow motion video and came to the conclusion that many of their skills could be broken down and taught to most players, regardless of age or experience. Aiming to improve individual football skills and produce better attacking players and teams, Coerver developed a way to teach football. The foundation of the Coerver method is ball mastery. Ball mastery exercises are designed to get a feeling with the ball and to use all parts of the feet. His method is worldwide the most used skill teaching program and a lot of famous clubs like Arsenal, AC Milan and Real Madrid use his method in their academy programs. The philosophy behind the method is that a youth player can develop his technique only if he has come sufficiently enough in contact with the ball during his football education. But the amount of contacts with the ball during football matches and football practices doesn’t suffice. To become a better player they need to practice at home. At the most youth players train two hours a week and play one short match in the weekend. Naturally there are children who apart from this kick a ball now and then. But children nowadays have less free time and spend their time on other activities than sport, like watching television. Most young football players nowadays are not motivated to do ball mastery exercises on a regular base. Repeating the same exercise over and over again requires a lot of effort and is not fun. And fun is the single most important element in developing a football player. First the Coerver method was analyzed. The analysis showed what really was important about the exercises. The analysis showed what real ball control is and what it takes to become as skilled as Messi. Next a literature study of several motivational theories was performed. Children have different motivations for participating in sports. The study was performed in order to know how to motivate children to do ball mastery exercises. The analysis showed the different components of motivation and how theses can be applied in the project. The next phase was the idea generation phase. I came up with several ideas. The two best ideas were chosen to develop further into concepts. Two prototypes of the concepts were developed to test the concepts. Based on these tests a decission was made to develop one concept further into a detailed product design. The detailing phase embodies the final product design. The concept was optimalized and detailed. A prototype of the concept was developed to perform a user test. The last part of the project embodies the marketing strategy of the product. A business case was written in which the market is explained and how the product will be positioned within this market.","design; play; football","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","","Industrial Design Engineering","Industrial Design","","Integrated Product Design","",""
"uuid:6dba3b72-4e20-4db9-8f35-a8dbc844c80d","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:6dba3b72-4e20-4db9-8f35-a8dbc844c80d","Designing a new interactive exhibit","Meeldijk, M.","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Van der Helm, A.J.C. (mentor)","2012","Design for Interaction graduation thesis describing the design and fabrication process of a new interactive exhibit, educating visitors of science centers on the subject of space and the solar system.","exhibit; space; education","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","","Industrial Design Engineering","Industrial Design","","Master of Science Design for Interaction","",""
"uuid:b70b161d-761c-4bf5-bde6-9f549d23ec30","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:b70b161d-761c-4bf5-bde6-9f549d23ec30","Stimulating the physical activity of children","Van Haneghem, R.","Jacobs, J.J. (mentor); Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Lieveld, W.O. (mentor)","2011","Obesity is a growing problem among children. They seem to eat less healthy and live a sedentary lifestyle. Children who are overweight have troubles during sport, can get depressed and suffer more consequences. But are they really to blame? The parents of these children have the responsibly of keeping their children healthy. However some parents need a little help, preventing their children to get obese. By making them aware of the lifestyle of their children, they can support their children to be more physically active. The aim was to accomplish this, with the idea of monitoring the physical activity and use this to motivate children and the family to get even more active. The function of the Sensi will be to monitor the movement and activity of children and other family members during the day and motivate them to be more active. For this concept to be effective, the children and parents need to wear it as often as possible. Therefore the Sensi should be comfortable in use and wearable during several activities. The project focuses on the needs of children and their perception of the world: What they would want from a Motion Monitor. It included a lot of parts concerning the life of a child, like social elements, personal preferences, school and the home of children. The goal of the project was to design a product that reaches children and motivates them to get physically active and stay physically active. The design should encourage children to use it and become aware of the fun of physical activity. One condition was that the design should include the motion tracking of children for obtaining insight in the behaviour of physical activity of children. The result will contain a solution, meant to be on the national market in 5 years.","children; sensor; obesity","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","2012-10-21","Industrial Design Engineering","Industrial Design","","","",""
"uuid:0d7c854d-0869-4582-a6b3-9736b7b25d9a","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:0d7c854d-0869-4582-a6b3-9736b7b25d9a","The mobile fieldlab: Communication of the added value of a fieldlab for sport innovation and stimulation","Bouwens, J.M.A.","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); De Voogd-Claessen, H. (mentor); Van Bladel, C. (mentor); Van Boxmeer, J. (mentor)","2011","A fieldlab sport innovation and stimulation offers a physical place in where knowledge institutes, business and users (city councils) cooperate to improve and develop recreational sport related products. This ‘mobile’ fieldlab should communicate and enthuse potential cities about the added value of the fieldlab sport innovation and stimulation. The heart of the design is an interactive standing table that inform interested persons and provoke conversation with the ProFit promotion crew.","sport; innovation; stimulation; ProFit; communication; exhibition; European","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","","Industrial Design Engineering","Design Aesthetics","","Interreg IVB NWE ProFit","",""
"uuid:387e6c7d-d727-4644-926c-a6007c1f76be","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:387e6c7d-d727-4644-926c-a6007c1f76be","Contextmapping an abstract future with children","Van Dorp, E.","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Boess, S.U. (mentor)","2010","Getting insight in a child’s world is important to be able to create valuable products for children. Contextmapping could be well suited to gain an empathic understanding of children, but little is known about how the underdeveloped abstract thinking abilities of children influence the results of a contextmapping session. Contextmapping is aimed at getting rich information from participants. This research investigates the influence of the abstract thinking abilities of children on the setup and richness of the results of a contextmapping session. Young children of six years old and older children of eleven years old participated in the contextmapping sessions that were part of this research. In this research, abstract thinking and richness of results are made measurable. The abstractness of statements children make is measured by two methods. The first method qualifies the statement on the micro-thinking level the child expresses. The second method relates the statement to an abstract thinking skill that is used by the child to make the statement. Richness is measured by counting the times a child shares a personal experience or memory. The richness of the reactions of a child is related to the measured abstract thinking level of a child in order to determine if there is any influence. In case the reached abstraction level during the session influences the amount of shared rich information, it is interesting to know how children can reach the desired abstraction level during a session. This research investigates which other factors influence the general abstraction level the participant is able to show. It was also investigated whether these factors influence how many rich information the participant shares. The investigated factors are the effort a participant has put into the sensitising package, the influence of peers that are in the same session, verbal guidance given by the researcher and the providing of ambiguous and non-ambiguous images. From this research is concluded that no relation between the shown abstract thinking level and the amount of shared rich information was found for the older children. Young children that show a higher general abstraction level during the session, also share more rich information. The cause for this relation is most probably the language development of these young children. Children that just mastered language are eager to use this new tool. These same children started to develop abstract thinking skills, since language is thought to be strongly related to the development of abstract thinking. Therefore, language development most likely influences both the sharing of a lot of rich information and the general abstraction level of the child. None of the factors that were investigated on their influence on the general abstract thinking level actually had this influence. These factors did not have a clear influence on the amount of shared rich experiences either. This research shows that contextmapping is suited for use with children that are verbally capable. Since the shown abstract thinking level is not directly influencing the richness of the results of a session, the setup of a session should not be aimed at getting children to reach a high abstract thinking level. When setting up a contextmapping session, the differences between children and adults should be taken into account. Furthermore, sensitising is recommended to create a bond between the child and the researcher and let the child look forward to the session.","contextmapping; children; abstract thinking","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","","Industrial Design Engineering","Industrial Design","","Master of Science Design for Interaction","",""
"uuid:822781e0-a3cb-4345-95fe-bf08b333055d","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:822781e0-a3cb-4345-95fe-bf08b333055d","Challenging children to choose a book in the library","Van Doorn, F.","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Sleeswijk Visser, F. (mentor)","2010","To become the most modern library of the world, DOK is developing new concepts to adapt to the needs of their visitors. The public library branch is going through a renewal to withstand the decrease of library use. Less people, including children, are visiting the library since the nineties. Needs and expectations of customers have been changing and the library services should adapt to these changes. DOK wants to stimulate children, especially boys, to read. By making the searching process more appealing, DOK wants to make it nice and easy for children to find a book. The assignment for this master thesis was: Investigate the needs of the target group and based on that; design a product, service or combination that enables children aged between 9-12 to: Find a book they like, when they don’t know exactly what to read and enjoy the searching process. During the analysis, the information gathered through literature and experts raised questions. These research questions were answered in the user research phase through contextmapping sessions, video reports and class visits. The insights gathered in the user research phase functioned as input for the design phase in the form of design insights. The product, developed in the design phase, is finally evaluated and recommendations for DOK to further implement the design were made. The final design is a new system for children to return books. When children return a book they record a short video message with their opinion about the book. After taping the video the child places the book in one of the categories in the delivery box. On the children’s department a video closet is placed with the same categories as on the delivery box. In the video closet the librarian places the delivered books. On screens in the back of the closet the movies accompanying the books are played. The video closet and the delivery point are tested with prototypes in DOK. The insights from these tests were incorporated in the design. Overall the reactions of the children were very enthusiastic.","children; library; choices; design","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","","Industrial Design Engineering","Industrial Design","","Design for Interaction","",""
"uuid:5d4a3059-63dd-485e-991f-5b9a44f181db","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:5d4a3059-63dd-485e-991f-5b9a44f181db","Design of an Environmentally Friendly Bamboo Toy","Nachmany, G.","Brezet, J.C. (mentor); Gielen, M.A. (mentor)","2010","Since the dawn of time, play has been a joyful and experience-oriented method of acquiring knowledge and skills. Toys and games have been an essential part of each and every human culture around the globe, accompanying us from birth to old-age, fulfilling different roles over the course of human life. In the same way, toys have had great effect on the development of individuals and consequently of cultures; since the emergence of the industrial revolution, play has left its sign on the ecosystem. This can be attested by the fact that the world toy market valued at $78 billion in 2008. Hence, this graduation assignment aims to focus on the exploration of ways to address the challenge of elevating the sustainable aspect of products and services in the field of joyful and experiential means of knowledge acquisition, in order to design market-leader solutions based in social responsibility. Technologically, the focus would be on bamboo, as an environmentally friendly renewable material. The aim of this graduation assignment is twofold, Technological and Substantial (that is, pertaining to Content). The goal is to develop a sustainable toy, product, system or service-oriented solution, as an environmentally friendly means for joyful and experiential knowledge and skill acquisition, while the sustainable values of playing correspond to contextual, technological and commercial environmental measures. This, with the intention of elaborating the WBCSD approach of ""creating more with less impact ""toward ""creating more value with less (environmental) impact1"". The goals of the sustainable toy design are a design of a bamboo toy within a context which creates a balanced blend of the following: Substance - Commitment to social responsibility today and for the coming generations. Technology - Implementation of technology-based ecological considerations. Economy - Reliance on profit-based market appeal upon market forces. The parameter for successful merger of these three would be, in the words of the WCED, ""development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs2”. - Can toys leave behind a positive footprint on our environment, just as they left in our minds? - 1. WBCSD (2000), Eco-efficiency - Creating more with less impact, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Geneva, Switzerland. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development. 2000. Eco-efficiency . Creating More with Less Impact, www.wbcsd.org 2. NGO Committee on Education, comp. Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future. Rep. 42nd ed. Vol. A. Ser. 427. Geneva: UN Documents: Gathering a Body of Global Agreements, 1987.","toy; sustainability; bamboo","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","2011-08-23","Industrial Design Engineering","Integrated Product Design","","Design for Sustainability","",""
"uuid:8f88505e-c872-45ce-9514-c9682354f66d","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:8f88505e-c872-45ce-9514-c9682354f66d","Outdoor play in public space","Vermeulen, H.P.","Creusen, M.E.H. (mentor); Gielen, M.A. (mentor)","2010","In our society the health, education and lifestyle of children are societal issues. Outside play is one of the aspects that government institutions want to stimulate among children, because playing outdoors helps in their development and is good for their health. My graduation project is in cooperation with the municipality of Delft. The municipality of Delft is a government institution at city level. The municipality want to improve the outside play experience for children in Delft. This graduation project will give insides in outdoor play of children in the public space and this will result in a concept design of a solution to improve the outdoor play experience of children.","outdoor play; game","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","","Industrial Design Engineering","Product Innovation Management","","Master of Science Strategic Product Design","",""
"uuid:b9192e63-f91e-403c-8423-f7c22983c934","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:b9192e63-f91e-403c-8423-f7c22983c934","Banjy, made to move: The design of a children's toy vehicle","Karreman, D.E.","Christiaans, H.H.C.M. (mentor); Gielen, M.A. (mentor); De Voogd-Claessen, H. (mentor)","2010","Study shows that children like to play active, but are playing more and more physically inactive (by means of computer and television). Creazi, the company in this assignment, aims to change this and wants to have a product for children that is fun to play with, and also helps to achieve a healthy lifestyle. From earlier design they had a vehicle for adults, which might interest children as well. The Banjy a vehicle that is driven by the movement like made on an elliptical trainer. This was the starting point for this graduation project. Four identical (red) test models of the Banjy were provided to test and adjusted later in the project. In order to find out what children’s preferences are and whether they like to play with the Banjy, an interaction research was started. In this research several smaller studies were performed. First of all children playing with the Banjy’s, which were provided at a playground, were observed and interviewed. Then some families got a Banjy for two weeks and were interviewed afterwards about it. Thirdly, children of five classes at primary schools were asked to design a vehicle based on the movement made on an elliptical trainer. A Banjy-hyves was made to keep in contact with the children and discuss with them. Finally, literature was consulted to support all gathered information. The main result of this research was that children do like to play with the Banjy, because they like the movement with both arms and legs. Also the way of steering is liked. The main negative aspect of the Banjy was the size. It made the vehicle difficult to store at home. Based on the results some decisions about the new design were made. It would be a children’s toy vehicle, targeting at children in the age between 8-12 years. Because the vehicle is for private use, the Banjy needs to be small, so a total redesign for a smaller version is needed. During the idea generation some interesting options were found, that remarkably all used the movement of an elliptical trainer. These ideas lead to four promising concepts. From these concepts the Banjy STUNT was chosen as the basis for further design, with the remark that options for playing together needed to be optimised. The Banjy STUNT is totally different from the previous test models, both in form and in function. The Banjy STUNT has the levers bend backwards, has the ability to drive in two directions, and has a higher learning curve which challenges children for a longer time span. Children have a lot of options on how to use the Banjy Stunt. They can stand and drive forward, even with someone sitting in the front and they can stand or sit to ride backwards. Because of the large differences with the red model, the size of the Banjy STUNT and placing of the pivot points were optimised first. Two (blue) adjustable test models were made to test the most optimal levels for the ergonomics. Next to the pivot points the steering mechanism, form of pedals and form of the levers were optimised. These blue models were tested by children, also to check how they experienced the new vehicle. Most striking was the design of the form of the levers. The form and motion of the lever influence the posture and the movement of the user. The posture and motion are very important factors of riding convenience. The children all had their own preferences as a result of their length differences. In order to offer all children in the age-group of 8 to 12 years old the possibility to find a pleasant posture, the levers will be made adjustable. The information gathered form the test was used to improve the size, form and placing of pivot points for the final model. Also the name Banjy STUNT was changed to Banjy Play, because children did not manage to stunt with the vehicle within a short time. With having the ergonomics right, the design for the Banjy Play was completed. However some details are recommended to be improved, to make the design safer and stronger, before production. To conclude, this graduation project has resulted in a redesign of the Banjy, the Banjy Play; a vehicle that is demonstrated to attract children and their parents, in form, in playing abilities and in storage options.","children; toy vehicle; play","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","","Industrial Design Engineering","Industrial Design","","Master of Science Integrated Product Design and Master of Science Design for Interaction","",""
"uuid:0599eac5-a769-4865-953e-e516d81ef7ba","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:0599eac5-a769-4865-953e-e516d81ef7ba","Nature experience of children with physical dissabilities","Ooms, E.M.","Van Rijn, H. (mentor); Teeuwsen, H.J.L.C. (mentor); Gielen, M.A. (mentor)","2010","This report describes a graduation report for Stichting Bio kinderrevalidatie on the nature experience of children with physical disabilities. It starts with a contextmapping research into the nature experience of children at the terrain of bio and concludes with a design to improve the nature experience of the children. Assignment The terrain of Bio in Arnhem is being redeveloped as a holiday location. Currently the surroundings of the premises are being adapted to facilitate play. The terrain is surrounded by a forest, which is not used much at the moment. Bio wonders how the nature experience of the children that stay at the resort can be improved. Therefore they would like to have an object to be placed on their terrain which lets the children experience nature in a playful way. Analysis To gain insight in the group of users at the Bio terrain and their view on nature and playing outdoors a contextmapping study was set up. Several user groups were involved in this study. The study aimed at answering research questions that were set up in order to come to a valuable design direction. From the research could be concluded that To the participating children nature is virtually everything that is outside. The children do not know much about nature itself, but enjoys being taught on the subject. Some of the children only get in contact with nature when their teachers take them. The children have different attitudes towards nature. While one can see the beauty of things and talks about nature in that way, others just see play possibilities in digging holes and biking on difficult paths. Outdoors most of the children enjoy being active: riding a bike, go-kart or playing games like hide-and-seek or tag. Children in wheelchairs can not always participate, but the children that express they want to participate are helped as much as possible. Jumping on the trampoline is something all children can and like to do. The children who are in a wheelchair lie down on the trampoline to feel the movement of the others. The children always need supervision at the activities they do outside and there is always a caregiver present. The children enjoy playing together. This usually goes well depending on the personalities of the children. Generally children of the same intellectual level bond and will play together. Design From the analysis was concluded that a design that offers play possibilities for all children on the terrain would be designed. The group of children at the Bio terrain was based on the analysis phase divided into three groups. The division of these groups was based on cognitive abilities. With these three groups in mind idea sketches were made. From these sketches 3 ideas were chosen to be developed into concepts. One of these concepts was chosen to be developed into the final design; het Bio Belevingen Bos (The Bio experience forest). The design of the Belevingen Bos consists of different elements or experiencing and doing. The elements are grouped in the forest to provide nature experiences to all children. The Belevingen bos has a central space with a bench from where the parents can watch their children. From the bench there are routes to the other elements in the forest. There are trays in which children can collect and play with natural materials they find in the forest. With bigger materials the children can build their own natural landscape in the ‘build’ area. Three cabins across the terrain offer sensorial experiences like vision and sound, and can get the children in contact with nature by watching birds.","Children; Contextmapping; Nature experience","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","","Industrial Design Engineering","Industrial Design","","Master of Science Design for Interaction","",""
"uuid:4dde81f1-d597-422e-928b-517247ae7b5f","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:4dde81f1-d597-422e-928b-517247ae7b5f","Active Play: New concepts for the kid's play market","Lauwerier, P.E.L.","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Snelders, H.M.J.J. (mentor)","2009","Childhood obesity is a global health concern. Numerous societal changes have dramatically reduced the amount of energy children burn, while expanding the number of calories they consume. Childhood obesity is increasingly recognized as a global health problem and measures are being taken throughout the world. An important direction for preventive measures is to encourage a physically more active lifestyle.This report describes an effective way specifically aimed at children: Active Play. The project aimed at developing play concepts engaging children in physical activity. After a literature study focusing on markets and trends, and children and play, a context study was conducted. A process of concept development finally resulted in 4 concepts, presented in the report as well.","children; play; concept development; obesity; physical activity","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","2010-12-04","Industrial Design Engineering","Product Innovation Management","","Master of Science Strategic Product Design","",""
"uuid:ff5ad4e7-eeb4-4eb1-957c-36d5ecb7d79c","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:ff5ad4e7-eeb4-4eb1-957c-36d5ecb7d79c","Tangible Interactions for Playing: Explorations on seamless integration of physical and virtual play elements","Van de Schepop, B.","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Van Beek, H. (mentor); Stappers, P.J. (mentor)","2009","Next to a great physical experience with the world famous blocks, there is a push to explore new ways of integrate a virtual play experience with LEGO building activity. Tangible Interaction for Playing (TiP) explores possibilities for a search initiated by LEGO Concept Lab. The project aims to find a new play experience able to integrate seamlessly: the traditional LEGO play with virtual elements. To assess the play value – the worth of a play experience in the opinion of the child – the designer approaches the assignment with a Human-Centred Design mind-set, sustaining close contact with children from start to end. At first, the designer builds an emphatic understanding of children’s play and context by means a Contextmapping done with parents as co-researchers. The research resulted on a set of Personal Cards, reporting children’s play, their family and their social contexts. In a second moment, the designer involved children to play with prototypes, in a sequence of short iterative cycles. By receiving children in regular basis, the designer could adjust key ingredients of the experience until the toy was considered to offer a coherent set of tools that facilitates a worthy play. At last, an experiential prototype simulating the complete experience was introduced to children in a final iteration. An evaluation on this last session led to considerations and recommendations regarding the play experience created for LEGO. RESULTS: AugmentedCity is a concept that brings augmented reality technology into the LEGO play. By using augmented realty, the designer was able to create a new layer of meaning and interactions without loosing the original qualities of the building blocks. By adjusting the scale and iconicity of the models, and by offering a viewer as tool for playing, the concept brings a small interactive world to the children’s hand. All ingredients together prove to support children to move seamlessly between physical and virtual play. Above all, the play felicitated by those ingredients offered a respectful interaction – respect towards children’s as the one in control of the play. AugmentedCity offers a play experience that kept spatial reasoning and all qualities present in the traditionally LEGO building system, while integrating it with a new virtual layer. The final experiential prototype confirmed the value of the experience that is now been taken further by other designers in LEGO Concept Lab.","toys; human-centred design; contextmapping; informant-based design; children & technology","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","2010-10-27","Industrial Design Engineering","Industrial Design","","","",""
"uuid:0e845f87-0ebd-42b8-9e4e-3edb1397f0ae","http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:0e845f87-0ebd-42b8-9e4e-3edb1397f0ae","Design of a Physically Interactive Game device","Van Schijndel, T.G.J.","Gielen, M.A. (mentor); Jansen, A.J. (mentor)","2009","This project describes the development of a handheld, stand-alone game for a target group of people between 12 and 28 years of age. The product contains games that are based on movement of the arm and reactive power of the user. The product is designed to stimulate physical activity in a playful way. Such a product has an innovative character which design agency ‘Pilots Product Design’ can use to expand its portfolio. The game functions by measuring movements of the player, to compare with predefined data, to give feedback on correct or incorrect execution of the game commando. Comparison of the player’s movement with predefined data is done by the ‘pattern recognition’ principle. To design the described product, a design approach is used consisting out of an analysis-, synthesis,- simulation- and evaluation phase. The purpose of the analysis was to explore the project’s topic as well as to create ‘design guidelines’ to direct the rest of the design process. The synthesis phase contains ideas which, after evaluation, have led to three game concepts. One of these concepts has led to the previously described product. During simulation and evaluation, all aspects of the game have been elaborated on and a proof of principle has been conducted. All predefined criteria, in combination with the information out of the synthesis and simulation, have led to one final product design.","Design; Physical activity; Play; Game; Interactive","en","master thesis","","","","","","","Campus only","2010-10-02","Industrial Design Engineering","Design Engineering","","","",""