The process of physical rehabilitation in most cases consists of visits to a physical therapist and exercises the patient is expected to perform at home. To increase or maintain strength or flexibility these exercises need to be performed regularly. Practice teaches us that not all patients succeed here. In this project, we look into what is keeping them from succeeding and how we can support this process.

In literature, four categories of barriers are described, from which the psychological barriers are most interesting to investigate further within this project. Motivation plays a big part within this category.

The Fogg model gives structure to the different components of motivation and different factors influencing the execution of preferred behavior. It shows us triggers will fail if motivation is low or the task takes too much effort to complete.

In a lot of the cases, the intention to complete the exercises is present with the client, but the behavior does not reflect this intention. The intention-behavior gap can be bridged the same way the fogg model suggests triggers to be efficient, by motivating the user or making the task take less effort.

By providing support during the exercise - providing both motivation and decreasing effort - and giving the patient the opportunity to track their progress after doing the exercises for a longer amount of time we can increase the exercise adherence.

To provide support, we need to gather data on the movements that are made during the exercise. We developed a textile stitched strain sensor that tracks the angle of a joint. The sensor has conductive thread stitched in a tight zigzag pattern onto Kinesio tape. Since the tape is adhered to the skin, the sensor experiences minimal hysteresis.

Using the data gathered by the stitched strain sensor, we tested giving back different kinds of feedback using two different actuators. We found that giving the test subjects more precise data on their movement made them more accurate, but at the same time, made them experience their movement as less accurate. This on the one hand, gave them more motivation to improve, but also made them less confident in performing the exercise.

The project proves that using the real time data gathered by the stitched strain sensor can add to better executing of on exercise and has potential to with that data also contribute to long term exercise-adherence.

This Master’s thesis report contains research about applying textile to the outer housing surface of products. The research was conducted in collaboration with Signify, a company that creates smart home luminaires for the brand Philips Hue. The goal of the project was to create design guidelines which the designers of Signify can use to create textile building blocks for their luminaires.

The project explores suitable textiles, shaping possibilities and fastening methods. The most relevant insights are summarized on “Design Guidelines” pages. A “Design Decision Tree” (DDT) was created to navigate through the Design Guidelines. The DDT can be used by designers who have a housing shape in mind to learn about the relevant insights for applying textile to their specific surface.

Suitable textiles for surface application are researched. It was determined that knitted and woven fabrics are suitable for surface coverage. Non-woven fabrics are not because of their undesired appearance and minimal required thickness which impedes mechanical fastening.

Shaping possibilities were explored for covering surfaces with flat sheets of fabric as well as covering continuous surfaces with tubular textiles. Depending on the properties of a surface, certain fabrics and fastening methods can or cannot be used. The design limitations per surface category are summarized in the Design Guidelines.

Most current textile housings are fabricated by gluing or welding the textiles to the outer surface and inner edges of the part. This method obstructs easy disassembly. An alternative method was created. This “clamping” fastening method is considered more sustainable because it allows the housing to be disassembled with ease and therefor repaired or recycled more efficiently. A clear use cue was added to the inside of the clamping mechanism to inform the user about its disassembly potential.

In addition to the gluing and clamping method, creating a separate sleeve was explored. To fabricate such a sleeve, 3D-knitting can be used. Literature research was conducted to explore the possibilities of knitting three-dimensional shapes on flatbed and circular knitting machines to cover product housings.

A novel product concept for Philips Hue was created. A prototype of the concept was made to demonstrate textile building blocks in the context of a luminaire. This product concept is called the “Rotation Lamp” and it is used as a tool throughout the report for experimenting and validating. The Rotation Lamp is inviting to touch because of its textile parts. It is intended to be kept close to the user and to enhance their well-being by providing them with a lamp that suits their need for ambience and functional light. Three sets of textile housings were created for the prototype to observe the different product aesthetics that these could create.

This project focussed on the use of smart textiles for full body posture monitoring and exploring the potential of a tight fitting catsuit to measure posture close to the body. A full body monitoring system (FBMS) that is wearable and easy to use, was found to be most relevant in the domain of first line care physical therapy(PT). As the form of the product was set in the beginning of the project, the ViP analysis was used to gain insight in the Domain of physical therapy, the context the FBMS is used, the qualities of the interactions users have with the FBMS and the features of the product. A fully textile based wearable system for monitoring postures is complex but not impossible. In terms of research in the field of wearable textiles, recent developments has shown a surge in possibilities and posture sensing abilities. The identified target users are female physical therapy patients with a young family who experience lower back pain. Prevalence of lower back issues are highest among musculoskeletal conditions and issues related to lower back pain have a large influence on the rest of the body. Here the posture changes due to poor posture behaviour, creating deformities in the body. These deformities can be measured by adapting strain resistive sensors to textile based sensors and integrated them in a tight fitting bodysuit. For this purpose, the zigzag stitch, shieldex 2-ply silvercoated yarn and 85% lycra proved most successful in obtaining a useful sensor signal. Here, posture and change in posture could be measured and provide the user with direct haptic feedback on their posture with vibration motors.

Electrochromic materials exhibit a reversible color change that is triggered by an applied voltage. Controlled color change, low voltage operation and the memory effect are three unique material properties defining electrochromic materials. As a result of an electron transfer or redox reaction, the material is able to switch between its bleached (transparent) and colored state. As this color change is a chemical reaction, it only requires an applied voltage to trigger and complete the electron transfer, thus afterwards the applied potential can be removed and the material will stay in its current state; i.e. the memory effect. Electrochromic materials are processed into a sandwich structure of thin layers that enable it to change color when a voltage is applied to it; i.e. an electrochromic device (ECD). An ECD operates through two electrodes that are connected to both the positive and negative of the voltage-source, and the two electrochromic layers. These electrochromic layers are separated by an electrolyte, that allows ion transfer, enabling change of color. Optimizing this layer structure, results into the definition of four stacking sequences, based on their vertical or co-planar stacking sequence (i.e. vertical stacking of the EC layers or merging of both EC layers in the same layer with separated electrodes) combined with the substrate used; conductive and insulating. These four stacking sequences are characterized on their transparency, shape/pattern changing abilities, coloring, design of the images displayed and interaction between the two EC layers; i.e. technical characterization. As result of this material characterization, ‘the puzzle of electrochromism’ is designed. ‘The puzzle of electrochromism is an edge-matching puzzle, with as goal to puzzle four geometric shapes by matching the sides of the adjacent puzzle pieces. Solving this puzzle communicates the goal of the demonstrator (i.e. the technical and experiential characterizations) to the puzzler, while emphasizing the simplicity and possibilities of integrating electrochromic materials in design. The ultimate goal is to inspire the puzzle to make use of electrochromic materials in their product designs, through exiting creativity and curiosity. When a puzzle piece is connected to the framework, a closed loop circuit is created between the voltage source and the coin cell battery, thus the puzzle piece will change its color. When the polarity is reversed (i.e. the puzzle piece is turned 180 degrees within the horizontal plane), it immediately switches from its primary EC layer to its secondary EC layer or vice versa. All primary EC layers will form the first puzzle to be created and all secondary EC layers the secondary puzzle. Meaning, ‘the puzzle of electrochromism’ is not just one puzzle, but includes two different puzzles. Besides the controlled color change, the other unique material properties it demonstrates are: low voltage operation, memory effect, simplicity and transparency. All individual puzzle pieces represent a different stacking sequence, through which the shape/pattern change (i.e. single and double image display), coloring (i.e. immediate and color flow), design of the images displayed (i.e. isolated and linked) and interaction between the two EC layers (i.e. overlap, connection and separation) are demonstrated. In the end, ‘the puzzle of electrochromism’ is a demonstrator making electrochromism easy understood, explainable and approachable for designers to use within their product designs; i.e. the aim of this thesis. On top of this, it is not only a good demonstrator but also a good puzzle according to the ten puzzle principles of Shell (2008).

How do we express and experience body language, and how can we translate that into an application of Techno-Fashion that is desirable and understandable, for the wearer and his/her environment? How can this application provide an alternative for the current use of regular clothing? Through research about current expressive behaviour through clothing, it was found that there is a desire for an outfit that can dynamically change according to ones mood. Through the Vision in Product Design method, a future context has been created: In a world where technology enables clothing to be dynamically expressive, an application of Techno-Fashion makes people feel more comfortable when expressing themselves, offline, and helps with the human value in interacting. The designed garment is a dress that is able to change its aesthetics according to the expressive desire of its wearer. When the user finds herself in a social setting with a moderate expressive atmosphere, she can choose to change the expressive aesthetics of the dress to being subtle. When being in a more outgoing atmosphere, she can change the dress aesthetics to expressive. The dress makes use of fiber optic wires, LED’s and miniature motors to change the hues and silhouette of the dress. In the end the design proves to be a credible alternative for current expressive behaviour through clothing, and it provides a design that creates a deeper connection with its wearer.

This project is an initiative of the Department of Surgery in Maasstad Ziekenhuis. In the department, two types of patients undergo abdominal surgery: 1) mobile obese patients and, 2) patients with cancer. These types of patients need personal contact and guidance, especially patients with cancer. However, nurses are overwhelmed with work and utilize a great amount of their time to manually measure the vital signs of patients three times a day. These vital signs are heart rate, blood oxygen level, respiration rate, tympanic temperature, and blood pressure. The current method of measuring vital signs is highly inefficient and prone to error. Additionally, there is also a lack of an alarming system that can notify nurses when patients’ health condition deteriorates. Due to this, patient deterioration cannot be detected in time and complications cannot be avoided. When manual measurement of vital signs is digitalized, patients can be continuously monitored. Due to this, small changes in the patient’s health condition can
be detected and nurses can intervene immediately. Current wearable devices in the market do not meet the needs and wishes of the user group. Therefore, the initial goal was to design a wearable device that is able to continuously and noninvasively measure vital signs of patients, taking into account the level of comfort for patients and level of user-friendliness for nurses. After extensive research, conceptualization, and testing, one final proposal is presented: Omnivisi Earable, a compact and lightweight wearable device that can measure all aforementioned vital signs in a continuous and non-invasive way. Due to its small form, it does not limit patients from performing their daily activities. It is also user-friendly for nurses due to the lack of wires and extra modules. This makes it easy for nurses to attach the product on the patient's body.