It would be hard to think of someone who isn’t benefiting from their social circles and social interactions within them. The many and varied social interactions we all experience are intrinsic to nurturing and maintaining our social connections, which are arguably one of the core capabilities to which we can attribute our dominance as a species. In parallel, we have our capacity to develop technologies. Which goes from the first tools and deliberately making of fire to antibiotics and the world wide web. All of which undoubtedly elevated our quality of life in general.Still, in spite of all these advancements, we seem to struggle with the pursuit of well-being - to achieve a balance between our capacities and the challenges we face. To be in a state of satisfaction while still driven and stimulated. And to flourish.One can say that today we are more connected to one another than ever before, with hundreds of people one touch away in our powerful smartphones and computers. Yet we seem to feel more isolated than ever (Coombs, 2020). Even more now with the challenges imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, literally isolating us even more.It shows that simply having the means to connect isn’t enough. It is necessary to understand what motivates us on a behavioural level, what makes us engage and maintain quality social interactions?This graduation project sets out to explore the experience of university students, in the Netherlands, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Aiming to be informed by the unique set of circumstances we face today, in the hope to design better digital solutions for our future. The project has the goal of assisting students in a remote study situation to be able to build and nourish their networks and personal relationships. The project’s approach is focused on qualitative data gathered in context mapping activities (Sanders & Stappers, 2012), combined with literature studies and fitting within a double diamond approach(TU Delft, 2019). In order to design for sustained well-being, the project follows the multi-stage framework for sustained wellbeing promoted by technology proposed by Wiese, Pohlmeyer & Hekkert,(2020).In order to understand the target group’s experiences, we have looked into their routines during the lockdown and collected their recollections of their previous university experiences. With the insights from the research, a problem statement was formed, leading to a design direction.The design direction was focused on stimulating and facilitating the engagement with positive activities related to the nurturing of personal relationships (Wiese, Pohlmeyer & Hekkert, 2020), exploring how to reinstate the drivers of behaviour necessary for the engagement with such activities in a virtual scenario.The ideation phase explored 10 different ways of virtual social interactions, which were later exposed to the target group for feedback and combined into one final concept: Atrium, a close-knit environment to feel connected and interact with your peers in digital university life.Atrium is a well-being informed digital platform. Designed to lower the friction in initiating social interactions between university peers. It creates an environment that conveys belonging and keeps you connected to the community, motivating students in their daily work and enabling moments for spontaneous and more natural online social interactions. Atrium means a communal space to be together and naturally connect, not only for tech-savvy and extroverted personalities but for all students.

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) brought rapid developments in generating synthetic images by mimicking structures in the training data. With the list of application of GANs growing drastically, it has lately become an exciting technology to explore for designers to communicate their ideas and arts through technology and create engaging experiences for humans. Nevertheless, translating human experiences to artificial intelligence and creating visually pleasant imagery is a challenging task due to complex semantics of human perception. To address this issue, we introduce an iterative training approach in which the generated images are curated by humans and the most pleasing ones are fed back into the network to retrain. Additionally, we do a factorial analysis to investigate how the aesthetic quality and the diversity are affected by the size of training data and training length. In experiments, we validate that this method can significantly improve the aesthetic quality of generated images regardless of the dataset size and training length, however the use of smaller datasets comes with a cost of reduction in the image diversity and novelty in the output images. The aesthetic bias towards certain contexts can also deteriorate the diversity and affect the model evaluations. On the other hand, no significant relationship has been found regarding the training length, however this could possibly be due to instabilities that happen during the model convergence progress.

This project presents the study of flow (perfect focus) as a possible solution to the modern decrease in attention span, especially in young professionals. Two separate tests were conducted to study the possibility of measuring productivity as a correlation of focus levels. These led to the creation of a software capable of tracking work efficiency in front of the computer, nevertheless, it lacked an interface or interaction with the user. To solve this, an app was created, FlowTrain, which learns from the user’s productivity patterns and advises on the ideal moments to work on tasks to maximize flow output. The result is integrated into the window UI and is focused around the creation of a conditioning ritual to reduce phone use and the limitation of distractors during working moments.

The goal of this project was to find a way to improve digital well-being in family life through design for the startup Unpluq. In this thesis, the designer combined a design approach called Value Sensitive Design with the list of requirements methodology taught at Industrial Design Engineering. This resulted in a new methodology that allowed the designer to develop a concrete list of requirements and wishes for improving well-being through design. To establish this list of requirements, the design student performed a detailed literature review on positive psychology, behavioural economics and digital parenting literature. In addition to this, he interviewed both parents and children to empathise with their world views. Lastly, he performed a market analysis to understand how the context and available resources could affect Unpluq’s capacity to take up a role in this new market. Based on this research, the answer found is that improving digital well-being in the family life requires the design of a choice architecture that helps parents and children take more conscious control of their time and attention (both transactional values). Doing so should allow them to spend these transactional values on activities that align with things they intrinsically value. This choice architecture should help rearrange actors, artefacts, and stimuli within the family home environment so that time is less easily spent without intentional consent. Based on this list of requirements, the design student initiated a design process to translate these insights into a physical design concept that Unpluq could bring to the market to help families rearrange this choice architecture. This design process was executed by iteratively evaluating design concepts with both the client, potential end-users, experts, and professionals from different psychology and pedagogics fields. In the end, the designer delivered a concept that stimulates reflective thinking about what users find intrinsically valuable and provides tips, tools and challenges that push them to try and change habits. This is done by focusing on conversations that help raise awareness of the critical issues and stimulating the iterative goal setting that the family should engage in to start solving these issues for themselves. The way that time can and should be allocated for intrinsically valued activities was so unique for each individual and family that it is hard to find one solution to help everyone. Therefore, the core insight of this project for Unpluq is that if they would be interested in entering this market, their focus should be on helping families reimagine the way they use their environments within their own family homes. This should be done both individually and together through reflection and iteration and supported in that journey by scientific and expert information.

Smartphones have revolutionized the way we live, giving us instant access to countless tools and apps (replacing dozens of single-function products), and this has made us more and more dependent on them. But there is another side, they are taking a heavy toll on our time and attention. Unpluq is a startup that aims to help people reclaim their time and attention from their smartphones and improve people's digital wellbeing. It was started by Jorn Rigter and Tim Smits (author of this graduation project). Unpluq’s first product is a physical key that users need to plug into their phone to access distracting apps. This physical distraction barrier changes using distracting apps from a mindless habit into a conscious choice. While the key acts as a successful hardware-based barrier, it is also a limiting factor in the growth of Unpluq, because of distribution and scaling. To overcome these problems this graduation project explores the development of a new software-only version of Unpluq as this opens up easy online distribution. Smartphones have taken over control of our time and attention. It details how social media is hacking our primal brain because the business model behind the attention economy is driven to optimize for engagement, their advanced algorithms are designed to keep users scrolling. The reality is that the majority of the population has become addicted to their smartphone, with screen time reaching a 6-hour average each day in 2022. This leads to negative side effects like decreased mental wellbeing, attention span, self-reported life satisfaction, sleep quality, personal connection, productivity and more. The project then shows the consumers' need for digital wellbeing and how this need can be addressed through the use of tools that leverage behavioural change theories through interaction design. It explores how through the “rational override” behavioural theory it is possible to break the normal flow of smartphone usage, prompting the user to reflect and take conscious action. Although 82% of people aspire to reduce their screen time, they’re struggling to do so. The built-in screen time features are too easy to circumvent, don’t change habits and miss a balance between giving up and having control. From all the gathered quantitive and qualitative research, the graduation project establishes a list of principles of “interaction design for digital wellbeing”. The principles aim to guide interaction designers on designing for healthy digital behaviour by making users conscious, providing tools, setting intentions and finding the right balance between restoration and access to digital distractions. The design process is further guided by the insights from the research phase and follows an iterative process called the “Lean startup method” in which the designer goes through 7 Build /Measure / Learn cycles. The main concept of the app is based on 6 distraction barriers (shaking your phone, tapping buttons and more), which have been carefully designed to find a balance between blocking access to digital distractions, while still allowing access with the right amount of conscious effort. The barriers work in combination with schedules, which let users select what apps are distracting at what time. To access the app within this time frame the user has to go through the “distraction barrier”. The distraction barrier acts as the rational override and helps the user to make a conscious choice: “Is this time well spent?”. The distraction barriers integrate the principles of interaction design for digital wellbeing. It helps the user to make a conscious decision, balances restricting access and control and nudging towards healthier digital behaviour. The app also will include other features that are based on the principles like setting intentions, showing average screen time, time saved by unpluq, nudging notifications and suggested distracting apps. In this graduation project, it has been established that digital wellbeing tools are necessary for overall human wellbeing as we increasingly spend our time in digital environments. Products like Unpluq can help people to improve their digital wellbeing and feel in control of their devices, making sure their time is well spent. This trend will continue to grow over the coming years, when the next major personal computer innovations like VR and AR become mainstream the necessity for digital well-being will only grow.

People are actively looking to pursue happiness by spending their precious time on meaningful experiences, which are often sought for in media entertainment as it is people’s most engaged in leisure activity today. However, current services fail to support them or even counter them, with their manipulative media-platforms in favor of their goals often at the cost of people’s goals. This creates a world of regret instead of happiness. The student of this graduation project claims that media entertainment designers should feel responsible to design services that respect and allow people to pursue their goals in finding happiness through it. This project can be considered an example, or even proof that there is indeed a manner to realize that and that, as company, it is crucial to do so as people are starting to reject services that are threatening their happiness. APPROACH This graduation project first investigated what happiness consisted of, and how media entertainment could contribute to that. The conclusion was that people need to engage in mindful, intentional, intrinsically motivated media-experiences which well-balances short-term pleasure (Hedonia) with long-term happiness (Eudaimonia). Then, current platforms were analysed to understand why they exist and why they are currently designed the way they are and how this affects well- being. The conclusion was that current streaming-platforms are being created to maximize media-consumption which resulted in an over-focus on hedonia at the cost of eudaimonia and therefore people’s long-term happiness. As ViP focuses on re-framing and reinvention by creating future opportunities, instead of solving the present-day problems, a future context of 2020 had been outlined through an extensive analysis using academic literature, trend reports- and sites and interviews. The result was three meta-factors that described the world of 2020 as “embracing the mindful pursuit of meaningfulness’. SOLUTION ViP states that as a designer, you should take a position in this future vision. The goal of this project is to design a new streaming-platform that improves people’s well- being through media-entertainment, which resulted in the following statement: I want to empower people to experience media-entertainment meaningfully, by guiding them in articulating their intentions through trusted others. DESIGN The new concept considers media-entertaiment as meaningfull experience packages and facilites people in finding these packages through the suggestions of trusted others, such as people close to the user (like family and friends) but also famous people/accounts (like inspirational influencers or design blogs). Plus it empowers people to experience these entertainment-packages meaningfully by increasing their mindfulness through 6 steps. The concept contributes to well-being by focussing on improving both the hedonic and the eudaimonic experience by increasing people’s autonomy, competence and relatedness, focussing on personal growth, achieving goals, finding meaning in life and improving people’s vitalty by better self-regulating their media-behavior.

The brain is the foundation of human experience. Our sensory and emotional perceptions of the world around us are all based in neural activity. But does physical brain activity correspond with subjective aesthetic experience? Is it possible to optimise for both? My project seeks to answer this question by framing brain response and aesthetic experience as forms of resonance. The brain functions through oscillation (commonly known as ‘brainwaves’) and as such produces measurable resonance phenomena. Aesthetic resonance is a far more metaphorical concept, but has been explored in design literature as a model of enjoyable and meaningful aesthetic experiences, in which a person feels connected to the aesthetic properties of their environment. In my work, I explore how design might produce experiences that are optimised for both forms of resonance. In doing so, I aim to contribute knowledge that furthers scientifically informed interaction design and enables the design of effective, enjoyable and personalised brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and neurotherapeutics. My findings are expressed through an audiovisual installation that uses a feedback loop between participant and designer to co-compose a data-driven resonant experience. The installation gathers synchronised, labelled EEG and multi-sensory stimulation data, enabling future research in the joint optimisation of neural response and aesthetic experience.

Artificial Intelligence can extend human frontiers and complement our capabilities. This project presents AI-powered smart glasses that empower visually impaired people to achieve greater independence and social integration. Since AI is a developing discipline, we enhance reliability by providing the opportunity for reciprocal learning between AI and its users.

During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, students are having difficulties with working from home. Particularly those living in a single-room-home, where they have to find ways to separate work and private life, while signals from different activities are mixed in a single room. This thesis focussed on helping TU Delft students quickly, as 82% of the participants in the research of this thesis have a (much) lower satisfaction of working from home, compared to working at the university. And 59% of participants were dealing with a (very) poor ability to separate work and private life. As such, there was a significant need of students to help them through the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout this thesis, tips and inspiration for home-work environment modifications were gathered and form the main content of this thesis. This content was distributed and evaluated with an iterative approach. With a focus on improving work-related wellbeing by creating the perception of a second room to work from at home. The content can be divided into; physical barrier, visual division, and ergonomic setup. And tackle the different aspects of a second room; creating separation within the room, creating a different vibe to a part of the room, and the setup within the room. This content was implemented in four ways; A booklet, an Instagram campaign, an article in TU Delft Delta, and a website. Combined they reached almost 4.000 views and was considered a success. An Instagram evaluation showed 54% implemented some form of a modification. The modifications were evaluated on the change in satisfaction of working from home, and the ability to separate work from private life. In total, 77% of the participants showed an increase in at least one of the two areas, with 23% experiencing an increase in both areas. This thesis shows the importance of our surrounding environment on our wellbeing, the impact the context in designing for wellbeing, and the impact a design intervention can generate.

Escape the Smart City is a critical pervasive game for creating awareness about the implications of AI-surveillance technology in the smart city. It responds to growing concerns over the mass deployment of surveillance cameras that are enhanced with artificial intelligence (AI) which are turning the cities into digital panopticons (Sadowski & Pasquale, 2015). Such concerns are amplified by the central role played by multinational corporations in developing the technologies that are said to render the city “smart”. The technologies behind AI-surveillance are proprietary and the nature of it is inherently a “black-box” which inhibits public from understanding it and having a say in its deployment. Due to this reason, the citizens that live in the cities with smart surveillance are often left behind not informed enough about the consequences of the pervasive technology in their environment. This research addresses this lack of awareness by creating an escape room like experience around the city where players locate hidden surveillance cameras, discover algorithmic biases, and try to fool facial detection algorithm in order to go against a fictional all-seeing AI-surveillance system. Consistent with Flanagan’s (2009) critical play model, the 8 problems of AI-surveillance defined in the research are communicated by the game’s procedural rhetoric (Bogost, 2007). It also questions whether critical pervasive games — which are the combination of critical design (Dunne & Raby, 2013) and pervasive games (Montola et al., 2009) — is possible of merging the ordinary world with the fictional game world to create a safe space to explore complex socio-technical problems in compelling, relatable ways.  Through the play-test, it was made clear that by providing the players with interactive feedback on how AI-surveillance would perceive the world, the players were able to get a sense of the black boxed nature of AI and ask critical questions about their necessity and consequences. Also, the in-situ experience outside created a heightened awareness of existing surveillance infrastructures.

The role that smart technologies play and the data they generate is becoming central in cities; cities are adopting technologies as a new way of governance and making policies based on data. Increasingly, governments and companies implement data-driven strategies, and the number of sensors in the public space is increasing. This translates into abysmal amounts of data about people, their behavior and habits. While the use of smart technologies in cities and specifically in Amsterdam has many potential benefits—from improving local economy and transportation to quality of life and e-governance—there is a growing concern about the ethical risks. Martinez-Balleste et al. (2013) identify that their use in cities jeopardize citizens’ privacy. Moreover, one of the main problems of smart technologies in the public realm is that they are often placed without users’ consent and without providing any notice of their presence. At the same time, the attitude of smart city residents towards this new paradigm — along with the ethical, social and privacy implications that derive from it — is one of indifference. The misalignment between smart city residents attitudes and privacy behaviour is what motivates this project. This project aims to engage smart city residents with smart technologies in order to create awareness, better understanding of the privacy implications and build a democratic process for smart cities. The design solution focuses on empowering smart city users by making smart technologies, its privacy implications and data insights legible for users. By building this knowledge and making privacy implications more visible, users will be able to notice smart technologies in the public realm and spread awareness. Moreover, they will be better equipped to make inform decisions about smart city projects and co-shape the city they envision.

The fundamental problem to this study is the fact that after the so-called honeymoon phase of a relationship (the beginning of a new relationship where everything feels carefree and passionate) sexual desire between partners often decreases. A large scale survey conducted amongst 920 people in long-term relationships showed that 65% of the participants thought they were having sex too infrequent. Stress, tiredness and the perceived pressure of other duties like taking the children to bed were the most common reasons for people to not engage in sexual activity with their partner anymore. Therefore the following design goal was formulated: “To come up with a viable concept that is meant to allow long-term couples get intimate in a way that does not cause the feeling of pressure that any kind of sexual activity should be a follow up step. The concept focuses on helping couples to relax together mentally as well as physically, to inspire them to explore a new way of intimacy. This should be done by means of a physical product which fits the brand portfolio.” A context mapping study was conducted with six heterosexual couples in long-term relationships to explore the solution space by answering the question: “What product or activity or a combination thereof can help couples get in the mood for intimate activity, when they are typically not aroused?” The results of the study showed that body massage, in combination with creating an ambience were for a multitude of reasons the most effective elements to achieve this goal. Therefore making and taking time together, creating an ambience and physical touch through massage are the fundaments for the concept: the Ignite. The Ignite is categorized as a “sense toy” instead of a sex toy. It is a metal couples massager which is able to warm up and vibrate, in combination with a mood light which is integrated in the charging station. Because it is a mood light, the Ignite is continuously visible in the bedroom, in either its discrete (when the massager is hidden inside) or its non-discrete (where the massager is displayed) state. It is meant to inspire couples to take time for explorative physical intimacy, without the pressure of having to have genital focused sex. The Ignite has been evaluated in multiple ways in terms of desirability, viability and feasibility. Concluded is that the design goal has been achieved, for as far as the research done within the time frame of this project can tell. Further research should be conducted in order to optimize the concept technically. Mainly the context mapping study, in combination with the participants’ evaluation of the Ignite showed how promising the concept is. Five out of five were positive towards the concept, and all also believed that the Ignite would cause them to integrate massage more in their intimate life because of its constant presence in the bedroom. Therefore the overall conclusion is that the Ignite has a positive influence on the intimate life of people in long-term relationships.

What In this project, a workflow method integrating generative AI has been developed. This versatile approach can be applied to a variety of body shape-related design tasks. For instance, designers can leverage this method effectively to generate design inspirations, enabling them to establish detailed design themes and goals more efficiently. Building upon this workflow, a new tool named DINED AI has been specifically designed to offer a more user-friendly and guided approach to accomplish these tasks. Although DINED AI is currently in the form of functional prototypes, both the user interface and back-end technology have been individually crafted to provide a realistic demonstration of its capabilities. Why With the rapid advancements in large language models, integrating AI technologies has emerged as the prevailing trend in product development. The aim of this project is to explore the potential of creating an AI-powered platform for DINED. DINED is renowned for its specialized expertise in anthropometry, which allows for the generation of realistic data models to aid in the design of ergonomic products. Leveraging this distinctive capability of DINED, and under the guidance of the mentors, this project focuses on the design of clothing, a widely recognized product that is intimately connected to the human body shape's form. Additionally, a streamlined workflow method will be developed to facilitate the design process. How The project is centered around leveraging technological advancements by implementing Stable Diffusion, LoRA, and ControlNet as crucial components. Stable Diffusion is a well-established text-to-image algorithm, while the LoRA model effectively refines Stable Diffusion using a limited number of images in the training dataset. On the other hand, ControlNet possesses the unique capability to extract specific control elements from the 3D mannequin generated by DINED, thereby enabling enhanced control over the resulting images. In order to ensure a seamless user experience, the project integrates these aforementioned technologies into a cohesive and streamlined workflow. Each step of the process is accompanied by comprehensive guidance, empowering users to effortlessly navigate the system and fostering a coherent user experience. Furthermore, the project underwent evaluation through expert interviews, further validating its effectiveness and potential impact.

Due to COVID-19 the overall wellbeing worldwide decreased. Assessing and improving wellbeing became a more important subject. This article describes the design research that uses the My Wellness Check survey created by the Delft University for Technology and aims to create a dashboard for wellbeing. That includes a way of authenticating users to very sensitive data. Also, finding ways how to improve personal wellbeing by using a recommendation system based on different types of filtering and the additional elements that are needed for a recommendation system.

The evolution of higher education and technological advancements has transformed the accessibility and understanding of complex subjects, such as quantum computing. Traditionally, higher education has focused on specialized knowledge, making it challenging for individuals to explore diverse fields beyond their expertise. However, modern technologies have democratized access to information, enabling non-experts to engage with complex topics. Quantum computing, grounded in the principles of quantum mechanics, is notoriously complex and has historically been accessible only to a select few. This exclusivity presents a challenge for those outside the field who wish to explore the possibilities of quantum technologies. Recognizing this gap, the potential of ChatGPT to make quantum computing more approachable and understandable to non-experts can be explored. This exploration is not just about enhancing the functionality of ChatGPT but about envisioning a future where quantum computing is accessible to all, transforming the landscape of computation and innovation. This research serves as an initial validation of the potential for large language models to act as an accessibility layer to quantum computing, having as a design tool the newly created Quantum Buddy 2.0, a custom GPT-4, fine-tuned through iterative feedback and testing. A key part of the study is the development of a set of tasks designed to serve as benchmarks for evaluating the performance of large language models. Among these, one task was designed to enable those without a background in quantum mechanics to solve quantum encryption problems. Another task involved a test comparing Quantum Buddy in its previous versions with the standard model of ChatGPT. This comparison not only highlights the capabilities of these models but also provides insight for future evaluations. By utilizing these models, non-expert participants can now design and create with quantum computing, suggesting a future where quantum development moves forward rapidly. The research thus demonstrates that ChatGPT significantly simplifies the process of programming quantum computers, facilitating learning and performance across a broad spectrum of abilities. It enables novices to engage in creative coding, allows coders to gain insights into quantum mechanics, and enhances the efficiency of quantum experts. This variety in application underscores ChatGPT’s role in democratizing access to quantum computing. However, it is important to recognize that these findings represent the beginning of a much larger exploration. The evidence provided by the study points to a future where ChatGPT and similar large language models significantly enhance the non-expert's access to quantum computing. Despite the progress made, the journey is not without its challenges. The evolving capabilities of ChatGPT, along with the dynamic nature of programming languages and quantum computing itself, require ongoing adaptation and enhancement. Overall, the research contributes to a foundational understanding of how large language models like ChatGPT can make quantum computing more accessible. This work lays the groundwork for further studies and developments, signaling a promising direction for the broader application and understanding of quantum computing technologies.