Sounds that satisfy:: Describing the relationship between sound and need fulfilment

Psychological needs of users as a basis for design are at the core of design practice, yet the importance of fundamental human needs when designing soundscapes has not been studied specifically. This paper investigates the relationship between nine fundamental human needs and the affective qualities and categories of soundscapes. In a free...

Exploring profiling and personalisation in sleep music design: Towards conceptualising musical sleep aids for hospital use

Music as a low-cost sleep aid is a promising way to improve the sleep quality of people. However, most available sleep music playlists are limited to generic, soothing songs, which do not take in account personalisation. In collaboration with the Neurology Department of the Reinier de Graaf hospital (Delft, The Netherlands), we explored a...

Quantum Mechanics, Ambiguity and Design: Towards a Framework

Quantum Mechanics could have fundamental impact on design models and measurement. Quantum mechanics allows us to fill in the blanks of classical models of design, through its ability to explain ambiguous states of design. An ambiguous state is where design exists in between two binary states, as a superposition. Designers are most likely to...

Doplor Sleep: Monitoring Hospital Soundscapes for Better Sleep Hygiene

Good sleep is conducive to the recovery process of hospital patients - and yet, in many wards, sleep duration and quality can often be suboptimal, in part due to modifiable hospital-related sounds and noises. At the neurological ward of the Reinier de Graaf hospital in Delft, the Netherlands, we developed and evaluated a prototype information...

Conceptualising sound-driven design: An exploratory discourse analysis

Sound-driven design is an emerging, human-centered design practice informed by technology and listening in the multisensory dimension of interaction. In this paper we present a discourse analysis approach aimed at qualitatively understanding the constituent concepts of such a practice, by means of semi-structured interviews with sound...

Design Guidelines for Light and Noise Management in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU) are environments with a high level of sensory stress. Medical advances and technology have contributed to increase the ratio of survival of premature infants but some devices and practices expose these babies to excessive noise and toxic sensory stimuli for which they are not prepared. This is related to...

Alarm compliance in healthcare: Design considerations for actionable alarms (in intensive care units)

Intensive care units are technologically advanced environments that are designed to safeguard the patient while their vitals are stabilized for further treatment. Audible and visual alarms are part of the healthcare ecology. However, these alarms are so many that clinicians suffer from a syndrome called 'alarm fatigue' and often do not comply...

Capturing conflict experiences: Five methods for identifying intra-personal concern conflicts

This paper starts from the proposition that concern conflicts can be powerful starting points for user-centered design processes. Our focus is on the challenge to identify conflicting concerns that are both inspiring and relevant in the context of use, or in the user’s general context of life. First, three main ingredients of concern conflict...

Beyond metaphor in product use and interaction

The overall aim of this paper is to demonstrate that there is a need for supplementing the theory of product metaphor with a more elaborate theory of product meaning. More speci!cally, we argue that the notion of product metaphor neglects three critically important aspects of meaning making in product use. First, the notion of product metaphor...