Empowerment Through Customization: System of Tools to Present NAVii® Protective Cover to Users and CPOs

Prosthetic limbs are devices that change users’ lives in every aspect. They allow the wearer to live and be independent again. Nevertheless, despite the numerous benefits, they carry cultural stigmas, as well as physical and mental discomfort, along with various daily challenges. While the functionality and physical comfort of these devices can...

Gardening together: Enhancing the shared experience of gardening through designing with dilemmas

Within this report, we explore the opportunities of the enhancement of well-being among hobby gardeners in the Netherlands using the principles of Positive Design realized through the methodology of Dilemma-Driven Design. Data was collected through qualitative in-depth interviews involving 12 participants who all engaged in either home,...

Mindful Music Listening: Fostering Wellbeing on Music Streaming Platforms through Positive AI

Recommender systems have become a core strategy of countless online sites and platforms including music streaming services like Spotify. These recommender systems are associated with limiting our exposure to a narrower range of content, this is even the case for features designed to promote discovery like Spotify’s Discover Weekly. Discover...

Designing for responsible practice in introspective design studies

Introspective methods are gaining momentum within the design field. They add a subjective dimension to the existing body of research, enriching our understanding of complex phenomena, human experiences, and psychological processes. The personal, revealing nature of introspection is what gives this method its unique...

Why Do You Buy: Reducing Fashion Consumption Together through Reflection

Climate change has made us all aware of the urgent need for change. We know that governments, companies, and even us have a role to play in countering its effects. Sustainable consumer behavior usually involves things like eating less meat and cutting down on single-use plastics. However, what many people don’t realize is that the stuff we own,...

Reimagining the work break through play: Exploring active play to energise workers at the office

Most people are familiar with play as entertainment in the form of toys and games for children, but the same cannot be said for play as a means to energise for adults. And taking breaks to refresh during work is not something that we are generally good at, as was reflected in the results of various interviews which can be found in this thesis....

A mindfulness toolkit for designers to enhance insight: The development and evaluation of The mindful designer

<b>Overview</b><br/>This project describes the development and evaluation of a mindfulness course for enabling design practitioners to develop enhanced creative insight possible, both in a moment of practice during daily design work and in the long-term development of character. The course is centred around a novel mindfulness exercise: ‘closure...

A shin guard to boost my confidence and protect your legs: Positive design for child amputees’ sports performance

Children living with lower limb differences can utilize prostheses for mobility and conformity. However, children’s prostheses is a small market where development happens slowly, with a very small selection of products.<br/>Products in the children’s prosthetics market prioritize providing mobility and tackling mechanical challenges, but amputee...

Constructing Fidgeting: Integrating Extended Cognition, Mind Wandering, and Mindless Interaction in Pursuit of a Productive Mood State

Object-mediated fidgeting (pen clicking, ring spinning, paper folding, etc.) is a pervasive and often unaware human behavior. Despite its prevalence, fidgeting has no consensus cause or effect in existing scientific literature. This graduation project seeks to operationalize fidgeting through and with design to enable affect self-regulation, or...

Relieving gloominess through non-verbal communication and social support from loved ones at a distance

Loved ones play a crucial role in people’s happiness by regulating interpersonal affect to maintain and build relationships (Niven et al., 2012). Something existing services and mediated technologies do not cover as desired: leaving out the more subtle and often non-verbal communication qualities that bring warmth and positive mood-regulating...

Graduation Letter from My Dog: A conversation tool to provide appropriate guidance and support for pet loss

Coping with pet loss will be difficult for these pet owners without support or guidance. <br/>The pet market has seen increased prosperity as people’s living conditions have improved. Taking the Chinese market as an example, by the end of 2018, the number of pets had surpassed 100 million (Chen, 2019). Approximately 10 million pets die each year...