Overview 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 practice’. It aims to explicitly integrate two opposing processes of cognition that are central to the mechanism of insight: “scaling down” and “scaling up”, which are isolated in traditional meditation and contemplation practices, respectively (Vervaeke and Ferraro, 2016). Design outcome The course to teach designers this exercise was embodied as an online podcast, The mindful designer. It first introduces the relevance of mindfulness for designers and then moves to separate exercises that tackle several aspects of closure practice. The goal of the podcast is to teach the listener to perform closure practice in absence of the podcast with the use of an auxiliary bracelet, similar to the traditional use of the rosary, tasbih, and mala. Key findings The podcast was evaluated with a mixed-methods approach with respect to the design goals. Participants (n = 3) filled in online questionnaires. They agreed that mindfulness is useful during creative problem solving, to a greater degree post-study, than they did pre-study. Feedback suggested that ideas and insights occurred as an effect of the exercises, although the guidance of the narrations was problematic at times should be improved to suit design projects better. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) analysis on the response texts also indicated that the practice had cognitive effects in line with the design intent. Recommendation Feedback throughout the project strongly suggested that experienced mindfulness practitioners found utility in closure practice, but that less experienced or naive practitioners did not, because they lacked the skills necessary to derive the benefits from the practice. I recommend the development of a course to teach design students or professionals the basic skills of mindfulness spanning several months and eventually the performance of closure practice, which might be recognised as more valuable by then. Broader implications were also discussed. Vervaeke, J., and Ferraro, L. (2016). Reformulating the mindfulness construct: The cognitive processes at work in mindfulness, hypnosis, and mystical states. In Hypnosis and meditation: Towards an integrative science of conscious planes (1st ed., pp. 241–268). Oxford University Press. ISBN: 978-0-19-875910-2

We live inan increasinglycomplex andinterconnected world, were severaldevelopments likeshiftingpolitical power,blurry physical and conceptual frontiers, andrecentlytheCOVID-19 pandemic, test theresilience of organizations andindividuals.Thehumanitarian system and its financingstructures are under greatpressure asseveralprotracted crises affect over 2 billion peopleliving incountries byfragility, conflict andviolence. Despite the efforts ofgovernments,INGOs, andother allies to address some of thelong-lasting fundingand efficiencyproblems;the gap between needs and aid continue togrow.For thisreason, severalorganizations areexploring Innovative Finance ; a wider rangeoffinancingstructures and sources that have thepotential of increasing funding,improvingtheefficiency and effectiveness of processes, andcrowding in newactors.The aimof this graduation project was toinvestigate how could theNetherlands RedCross(NLRC) seize the potential of theseinnovative financingmechanisms to increasetheimpact of their humanitarian activities.The first partof this projectcontemplatedresearch involving three spheres of knowledge:thehumanitarianlandscape, innovativefinance, and the NLRC as an organization,whichlead to therealization that the entitiesinvolved in this topic are connectingto eachotherto increase their resources and knowhow.However, this ‘EmergentEcosystemforInnovative Finance’ is facing some barriersto their success,namely,cumbersomecollaboration, reluctance & hesitation ofexternal actorstoengage, and unfit processesfor addressing uncertainty andcomplexity.Luckily,research also offeredrecommendations on how to tacklethesedifficulties, whichare collected in threecategories. The first one is tobuild and nurturesocialnetworks, the second one to articulateproblem field andshared visions;finally, toadapt individual’s and organization’smindsets,processes &structuresThe NLRC, as a key player in thehumanitarianlandscape could benefitfrom working withthese novel financialmechanisms, and couldoffer importantassets and expertise to thisecosystem.However, they are still hesitantaboutadopting a more proactive stance.With theaim of helping the members oftheInternational Assistance Department of theNLRCto articulate their visionand exploreways to overcome their barriers fortakingpart in these innovations;the outcome of thisproject is a dialogic toolin the form of alarge-scalevisualization of the key findings of theresearch.This object hasthe double purposeof increasing awareness on the topic,andfacilitatingdialogue between members of theNLRC or other stakeholders.It’splayful andcolorful visual language aimsto be attractive and engaging. And it’ssizeandmaterial provides flexibility of use; it could beshowcased as stand-aloneposter,or be theanchor piece of a workshop.   

The development of Fully Autonomous Vehicles would fundamentally change the nature of user interactions, behaviors, needs, and activities within vehicles. Passengers who are free from driving would expect to undertake diverse in-vehicle Non-Driving-Related Tasks (NDRTs) to keep themselves occupied and free from boredom. Conversational Artificial Intelligence with its ability to have free-flowing conversations could offer a solution to improve in-vehicle user experience. To explore design innovation opportunities that Conversational AI may offer within Fully Autonomous Vehicles, this work first researches what roles and relationships can Conversational AI play towards users of fully Autonomous Vehicles. These are investigated by conducting qualitative interviews of end-users and subject matter experts, and analyzing these interviews using the Thematic Analysis method. Second, this work examines how end-users qualitatively assess the embodied user experience provided by Conversational AI roles and relationships designed for Fully Autonomous Vehicles through the means of user-technology interaction experiments. These are conducted by employing a combination of participant role enactment method and a Wizard of Oz experimental setup with a mock Conversational AI operated within a prototyped Autonomous Vehicle under laboratory conditions. Ensuing these interaction experiments, the qualitative assessment of these in-vehicle Conversational AI roles and relationships was done by conducting guided brainstorming sessions using the parameters outlined in the Subjective Assessment of Speech System Interfaces (SASSI) questionnaire along with two free-from questions. Results from both phases are presented in the form of user-desired in-vehicle Conversational AI roles, aspects that would enable the forming of Human-Autonomous Vehicle relationships mediated by Conversational AI, and user experience evaluation of the embodied idea. Based on these results, design guidelines are articulated that are aimed to inform design professionals as well as internal design strategies of Autonomous Mobility and Artificial Intelligence companies looking to innovate. Finally, we reflect on our methodological approach to indicate directions for future studies on similar lines and discuss our research’s implications for professional practice.

In this project, I research how to unveil the hidden curriculum in Design Education. The hidden curriculum is the curriculum that students develop tacitly during their studies. It is also defined as tacit knowledge developed in education. tacit knowledge is a part of knowledge that everybody takes for granted without being fully aware of its influence on perceptions and actions. Unveiling tacit knowledge by design students has been considered by several authors a source for students to support awareness in judgments and decision making (Grey, 2018; Vakantesh & Ma, 2019; Wang, 2010; Whelan et al, 2017) because it allows students to become more aware of their perspectives when learning. However, tacit knowledge, as well as the hidden curriculum, are difficult to make explicit (Grey, 2018), because they are hidden in ourselves and our culture (Mareis, 2012). In the course, IDE Academy, a first-year master course in the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering of the Technical University of Delft, the hidden curriculum plays an important role for students. The course set up allows students to choose skills to learn in a free-fail environment, thus, the curriculum of the course is highly dependent on the students and their decision making. This means that the hidden curriculum of the students becomes the curriculum of IDE Academy.The aim of this project was to find ways to make the hidden curriculum more explicit in IDE Academy and to contribute knowledge of how to unveil the hidden curriculum in design education.

We live in an increasingly complex world in which policy regulations and system development must balance technology, existing regulations and all the people participating in the system. Currently, digital identities facilitate multiple verification processes in multiple contexts. For example, to give the ability to prove their own identity to buy alcohol or verify within the work environment, for as a healthcare practitioner. Experts and the EU Commission see unmet needs and problems within the digital identity field, which led to the revision process of eIDAS 2.0 to include the missed objectives of the present regulation on electronic identification and trust services, creating the rules for electronic transactions in the internal market. For example, identity theft rises, privacy concerns towards big tech grow, and there is little to no interoperability between sectors and borders (European Commission, 2021). This thesis explored the ongoing development process through a systemic approach and the lens of Value Sensitive Design (VSD) (Van Den Hoven et.al., 2015). A research-by-design approach uncovers the values and uniqueness of multiple stakeholders and provides new perspectives on the emergent system dynamics of digital identity. The EU Commission Vision on the EUDI Wallet was used as starting point to explore stakeholder values (Users¹, Relying Parties², Experts / Oversight Perspective³) and engage them in the future by still acting as the experts of their own experiences. Value tensions and risks are mapped to showcase the future implications of wrongly managed decisions in the process from a system perspective. Based on the systemic approach, a vision for all coming verification processes is created as the development is just a starting process for what is coming next within the wallet development field. The vision aims to help facilitate a way to include the values and mental models of different parties in the creation process of digital identity verification experiences. “Creating respectful transaction mechanisms that include the values of all participants by integrating a trusted relationship in the layers behind the app” The design provides a new value-finding method created in the interview process, and a structure for strategic dialogues (Talking Across The Divide, n.d.). The strategic dialogue set up with the name “Welcome to the Common Ground” can be seen as a transition design towards ‘Design for Behaviour Change’ (Irwin, 2018), as part of an intervention to solve wicket problems (Dorst, 2015). I saw that multiple stakeholders with opposing opinions have to come together to formulate goals towards future practices in which stakeholders’ values need to be balanced by having moral values as the foundation and creating an understanding of each other’s needs for different verification experiences. Therefore the final designs can empower INNOPAY to establish ethical technology design in consultancy practices. Because: “If values can be imparted to technology and shape the space of actions of human beings, then we need to learn to incorporate and express shared values in the things we design and make.” (Van Den Hoven et al., 2015).

Organisations have a lot of trouble with managing their portfolio. The portfolio is the set of projects the company is currently running. The consultancy Jigseye provides tools for that purpose called Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM). They created tools to support organisations in creating that overview and the next step to manage it as a process. Currently, the SPM tools implemented by Jigseye work in practice. They notice that orgnizations still face challenges reaching successful SPM execution. Jigseye wants to improve and extend this set of tools. The goal of my project is to gain an understanding of the SPM tools and design for the new tools with orientation on useability and ease of use. In the research phase, I did extensive user research analysing the SPM tool resulting in user needs for functionality accessibility and the new purpose of creating strategic awareness. Leading to the following vision; the vision is laid out in the form of a journey, leading to new opportunities. This will increase both the effectiveness and efficiency of the SPM tools. Resulting in the New SPM Identity model and New SPM App design with Mobile version; with these tools, designing for a new way of working in the SPM journey leading to new service opportunities for Jigseye.

The COVID-19 health crisis at the beginning of 2020 saw a dramatic number of adaptations to health systems around the world. One of these adaptations was the accelerated shift towards e-health solutions. This rise happened because of the inability of the medical system to serve patients of non-respiratory related illnesses during the pandemic. This was experienced as a rise from 1% to 70% of remote general practitioners consultations in the early months of 2020(Mueller, 2020). Key to these consultations is the use of medical devices to gather information relating to the patient's state. New medical device categories now allow people with little or no training to collect accurate information (European Commission, 2017), including by using wearables first intended for tracking activity-related metrics that are currently being fitted with state-of-the-art sensors that allow them to become a realistic alternative to strict medical devices (Raja et al., 2019). Despite this, several key issues impede their use in standard medical practice and are more commonly used as informational tools only (Raja et al., 2019). The use of wearables as informational tools has the potential to increase the awareness of people of the effect of the things they do on their wellbeing, an essential part of the concept of preventative medicine. A concept that aims to enhance wellbeing is wellness, with health being a state of being and a goal to achieve (Stoewen, 2015). Wellness is also a concept that is well entrenched on the product lines of the brands of Arçelik, and is seen as an important opportunity to grow medical capabilities in the products they already dominate. This thesis project presents a service design concept that aims to help people create their own wellness journey by passively tracking habits and receiving advice based on this information. The concept is based around the gathering of information through smart home appliances, focused around four modules: nutrition, activity, sleep and vitals. The project concludes that the proposed service solution brings the possibility to integrate the capabilities that Arçelik needs to enter the larger healthcare market while staying in the product categories that it dominates.

Design approaches are increasingly being employed by governments worldwide to address public service and policy issues. This book explores the evolution of these design practices within the context of local government, shedding light on the value they can create and how they become stabilized in six local government organizations. @en

Emerging practices of using ‘off the shelf’ AI as a creative partner in design processes are receiving increasing attention in design research. This paper takes the well-known concept of ‘framing’ in design, along with the Schönian concept of ‘surprise’ to explore how a human-AI dialogue could work. The approach taken is practice-based, with the human designer documenting her process of inquiry and decision making. We show how artificial creativity is expressed through misfiring object detection algorithms, and further how these ‘mistakes’ can be perceived and interpreted by the human designer. The contribution of the research is in laying the foundations for a novel human-AI dialogic practice.@en