Comparison of the indoor performance of 12 commercial PV products by a simple model

This article presents a simple comparative model which has been developed for the estimation of the performance of photovoltaic (PV) products' cells in indoor environments. The model predicts the performance of PV solar cells, as a function of the distance from a spectrum of artificial (fluorescent light, halogen light, and light-emitting diodes...

Communicating Sustainable Shoes to Mainstream Consumers: The Impact of Advertisement Design on Buying Intention

Traditionally, marketing of sustainable products addresses green buyers, thus missing out on the mainstream consumers and volume necessary to cover the potentially higher cost of more sustainable materials. However, how to effectively communicate more sustainable products to mainstream consumers and to increase their buying intention is still...

New Product Ideas to Support Macro Breaks in Computer Work

A healthy work-to-rest ratio during computer work can be an important part of successful preventive workrelated upper limb disorders (WRULD) intervention. Existing break software applications designed to realise such a work-to-rest ratio often possess product features that limit their functionality. Most applications focus on physical relaxation...

Patterns of Discomfort

A review of literature on comfort and discomfort indicates an increase in physical discomfort during the workday. In this paper, three different types of occupations were studied to identify whether a similar discomfort pattern exists in these occupations while participants perform work throughout the work day and workweek. Results are that...

From designing to co-designing to collective dreaming: Three slices in time

Over the past three decades we have witnessed shifts, connections, and reframings in just about every area of design: how design is done, who is doing it, for what goals, and what its results are. These changes show a move from the designing of things to interactions to systems, and from designing for people to designing with people and by...

Human-centered incubator: Beyond a design concept

We read with interest the paper by Ferris and Shepley1 on a human-centered design project with university students on neonatal incubators. It is interesting to see that in the design solutions and concepts as presented by Ferris and Shepley,1 human-centered design played an important role. In 2005, a master thesis project was carried out in the...

Eco-efficient Value Creation: An Alternative Perspective on Packaging and Sustainability

The classical sustainability perspective on packaging is to reduce the environmental impact or eco burden of the packaging, using life cycle assessment to evaluate different design alternatives. Simultaneously, the classical marketing perspective on packaging is to generate value through differentiation, for instance, by providing additional...

A Friendly Rest Room: Developing Toilets of the Future for Disabled and Elderly People

This book addresses the topic of toilet design, but instead of focusing on the typical able bodied user, it takes the various needs and limited abilities of older and/or disabled people as its starting point (human centered design). This follows the principles of ‘Inclusive Design’: designs taking into account the needs of the most challenged,...

Discrepant perceptions of communication, teamwork and situation awareness among surgical team members

Objective To assess surgical team members’ differences in perception of non-technical skills. Design Questionnaire design. Setting Operating theatres (OTs) at one university hospital, three teaching hospitals and one general hospital in the Netherlands. Participants Sixty-six surgeons, 97 OT nurses, 18 anaesthetists and 40 nurse anaesthetists....