Company X is a renowned engineering and technology corporation based in Germany that has established a prominent presence in China for over a century. Company X is actively promoting and leading the way in adopting environmentally friendly technological projects in response to the green energy trend worldwide. A significant step in this direction is introducing their new air-sourced heat pump product line in their Chinese HVAC department, specifically designed to cater to the unique requirements of the local environment and market.
This study aims to assist Company X in its transition towards green technology by developing a strategic plan for introducing its new product in the Chinese market. Upon joining Company X, the author assumed the role of an external observer and started the research by reviewing internal documents to understand the company’s current situation and the product itself. The author concludes that a go-to-market strategy is an essential bridge for its product launch since it can help to meet the company’s transitioning from product-driven to emphasising meeting market demands and enhancing user experience.
Since this study focuses on developing a go-to-market plan for Company X, highlighting the product’s unique selling point is critical to differentiate from intense market competition. To achieve this goal, the author conducted thorough market and consumer research, which involved studying existing literature, conducting field studies, and gathering feedback through surveys and interviews.
From the gathered data, a strategic product launch roadmap was created for Company X. This roadmap offers advice on highlighting features that make the company's heat pump different from others and on effective launch strategies. A key observation was the varied nature of the Chinese market and the specific demands of its consumers. Since user needs and preferences differ from region to region, it is crucial to adapt strategies and, when needed, test them with local partners before a widespread rollout.
Interestingly, the research also showed that many consumers are not fully aware of the ASHP product, signalling opportunities for educational initiatives. For Company X to truly resonate with its audience, it is essential to reimagine its brand image, emphasising sustainability and user experience. The ultimate objective is for Company X's new product to resonate with its target audience and capture a significant portion of the ASHP market share.

This thesis presents a VR Transgender Inclusion Experience that informs, immerses, and improves the cisgender user to become more inclusive towards transgender peers. By showing them uncomfortable scenarios from the perspective of transgender and non-binary people they become more aware of how their behaviour, and that of their peers, may come across. With hands-on tips, the cisgender user is motivated to go beyond their phase of acceptance into the role of being an active ally. In doing so, these allies not only improve their own behaviour but become spokespersons for the trans community within Delft University of Technology, affecting others in the process.
The report highlights the polarizing effect that linking gender identity to gender expression can have on cisgender and heterosexual individuals due to fear of the unfamiliar. This phenomenon is also observed at Delft University of Technology, where trans and non-binary employees feel less comfortable and less connected to the university community compared to their colleagues. A recent survey by the D&I office identified these issues, but the root causes and solutions remain unclear, with investigations into student experiences ongoing.
The project's objective is to create a more inclusive and supportive environment for transgender people at Delft University of Technology. The emphasis is on fostering comfortable conversations between cis and transgender people and providing appropriate language for discussing this sensitive topic. By achieving a more informed perspective, healthier interactions between cisgender-heterosexual and trans/non-binary individuals can be promoted, creating a secure environment where everyone can express themselves without causing offence.
This research signifies a deliberate choice to concentrate on the cultural aspects of queer inclusion rather than the systemic aspects. This is because the TU is actively working on enhancing policies but is lacking initiatives to change the institute's culture. People at the TU often express a desire for inclusivity due to their cognitive empathy, understanding the challenges faced by minorities. However, this sentiment doesn't always translate into action. To bridge this gap, it's important to trigger emotional empathy by enabling individuals to feel from the perspective of a minority.
The heart of the VR experience is being immersed in scenario’s that transgender people run into. Even though the user experiences the scenarios through the point of view of a transgender person, it does not try to replicate how it is to be trans. Such an experiences cannot be replicated in a matter of minutes. The goal is to activate allies to stand up for transgender people when they cannot do that themselves.

Be it for providing a positive customer experience, a holistic brand identity, or a way to combat stress and exertion, background music has been used by businesses for profit since the invention of the phonograph. (Thompson, 1995) Modern technology enables this to happen fast, and tailors it to the needs of the business. Kollekt.fm is an Amsterdam based B2B music consultancy focussed on doing just that: providing brand-tailored music to businesses. Though this appears to be a single service, it has multiple facets: commercial music licensing, music consultancy, creation of music libraries, and music management and playback. Kollekt's primary proposition is a culmination of all four of these, making it a high-end service accessible only to a particular market segment. However, the team at Kollekt believes that their expertise and assets have the potential to go beyond this current segment, and this project explores possible opportunities for new value propositions in this domain.

An extensive market analysis for services comparable to Kollekt (and their vision for the new proposition) reveals a dense competition space with several well-established players with a global presence, indicating that providing a comparable service and competing on standard business metrics (like cost) may prove to be futile. (Kim & Mauborgne, 2005). On exploring Kollekt's client stories, an enticing new opportunity is revealed: employee involvement and well-being. Employees in businesses are a key stakeholder in its music ecosystem, yet all the services explored in the market research give sole control (of music curation, scheduling, and playback) to the business owners or managers, effectively sidelining the staff in the journey causing unhappiness and possible conflict between stakeholders. Contextual Inquiry done in small businesses in the Netherlands also reveals interesting insights. Small business employees have power, autonomy, and often are in-charge of the music (often with restrictions placed by the managers). However, there are no services that enable them to do so well, and they find themselves relying on personal use streaming services like Spotify. This is not ideal as these services are illegal to use in businesses, and not designed for commercial use.

TRUNE, an end-to-end SaaS background music services for businesses, aims to fill this gap and create a more inclusive business music ecosystem by recognising staff as a key stakeholder. It also aims to make background music accessible to more businesses by expanding Kollekt's roster of value propositions. The essence of the concept lies in leveraging businesses' human capital (instead of expert curators in Kollekt's current service) to create a unique background music identity. This empowers the employees and creates a better working environment for them, which in turn positively impacts the customer experience and business performance. Different aspects of the solution are also tested and validated, resulting in directions for further iterations.

The thesis ends with discussing the relevance of this concept within the context of Kollekt and its strategic fit with the company, and gives recommendations for its implementation. In conclusion, employee involvement in the background music (via the solution offered or other directions) has high potential in furthering the commercial background music industry and can simultaneously provide Kollekt with a blue ocean to grow to new heights. Scope for further research and development is also discussed, both within the company and externally.

Challenged to innovate towards full circularity and sustainability, both the waste management and inner-city transport industry are drastically changing in the Netherlands. Being a waste management organization that operates in these markets, PreZero is looking for new waste collection solutions to facilitate the transition towards circularity.

An envisioned solution for this new context could be in collaboration with parcel delivers that operate via hubs on the outskirts of cities. By letting them collect waste streams from inner-city customers while also delivering parcels, the electric vehicles that would otherwise return to the hub empty would be cleverly used.

The client is piloting this system in The Hague but is looking for a custom solution to fit the needs and wishes of all involved stakeholders. Therefore, the research question of this master thesis is:

How can a scalable product-service system for smart return logistics of source-separated commercial waste streams in an inner-city environment be designed and implemented by the client?

With the project aiming to develop a new business model and product, the entrepreneurial theory of ‘effectuation’ is applied as the theoretical framework of this thesis, and co-creation and qualitative research methods are selected for the approach. In a series of interviews and case studies, insights about the existing pilot are gathered, resulting in a set of means and potential goals to work with. Additional exercises like customer journey mapping the waste stream and value flow modeling the complex stakeholder context, enable the means and goals to be translated into a set of six potential value propositions for the future.

A design intervention is used to rapidly prototype the next iteration toward these potential value propositions and show the client how the effectual approach can be implemented. This design phase focuses on the various stakeholder contexts and uses a compact waste container and an MVP version of the waste collection bin to pilot the envisioned product-service system. Using phenomenological research, the designs are evaluated, resulting in a rich set of insights about the requirements and wishes for the system, container, bin, and involved partners.

All gathered insights are combined into four future visions that describe the potential strategic positions that the client could aim for. By detailing the business model, needed partners, targeted customers, and steps to be taken, the client is enabled to start implementing tomorrow. Posters visualize each future vision to bring the business models to life and empower the client’s project team to get the internal support needed to develop solutions towards one of these future roles.

Concluding the report, recommendations are given about what future vision to aim for and how to get there. With a drastically changing environment that is hard to predict, effectuation delivers a risk-limiting approach to co-create the future with involved stakeholders. Implements these insights from the report will support the client in its iterative journey towards the new business model.

This master thesis for Strategic Product Design at the TU Delft presents a design for a personalised Volkskrant-app. The goal of this project was to explore the different possibilities of personalisation and see how it could help de Volkskrant fulfil its mission to enrich their reader’s life through news.
Why?
During my whole project I have involved readers, journalists and the product developers at DPG Media. Within the theory analysis, interviews and conversations I had with these stakeholders I have identified four reasons for implementing personalisation in the digital news distribution product of the Volkskrant:

Facilitating the fulfilment of the diverse reader needs of the subscribers.
The current home feed of the app and website of de Volkskrant mainly focus on the update-me need.

Developing the platform of de Volkskrant into a product that takes full advantage of the possibilities of digital news distribution.
The current digital news distribution product offer of de Volkskrant is still seen as a digital translation of the physical newspaper. It is time to look at what digital developments can offer something different.

Offering an extra service for the users of the platform of de Volkskrant
The rise of competitive platforms for news put pressure on the business model of de Volkskrant. Personalisation could offer an extra service to bind readers to the app of de Volkskrant.

Limiting the news overload that readers experience in current day and age.
De Volkskrant should help subscribers to find the articles they look for and offer a clear overview.
How?
To create an algorithm that would facilitate more needs of the readers, I came up with co-curation of the news. The digital news will now be curated by both journalists and an algorithm, both having a different responsibility:

Journalists: Delivering on the promise of creating the most relevant news events and productions that make de Volkskrant stand out.

Algorithms: Bringing the niche articles to the right readers by fulfilling their personal habits, deepening their knowledge in specific topics and surprising them with suggestions out of their filter bubble.
What?
The final design proposes two newly designed interfaces for the app of de Volkskrant. Focusing on two scenarios:

Getting the right article to the right reader: the home feed
The newly designed home feed is co-curated. A horizontal scroll bar was added to the home feed saying ‘de belangrijkste verhalen voor jou’ - the most important stories for you.

This addition is based on three key principles for personalisation: transparency, autonomy and diversity. The horizontal scroll bar is distinctive because of its look, title and scrolling direction, allowing the users to dive into it or leave it out in their session.

Rubber is by the European Union stated a critical material (Critical Raw Materials, 2020). For our society the material is essential but can be depleted. The search for circular solutions for rubber is urgent.

In 2020 27.4 million metric tons of rubber has been produced globally (Tiseo, 2021). Around 70% of all produced rubber is used to create tyres (About rubber, z.d.). creating one of the biggest single product waste streams in the world.

Rubber granulate is a material made by recycling tyres. Stockz is a company which creates rubber sports flooring solutions for fitness gyms and sport clubs from these rubber granules. Delivering a safe space for athletes, reducing sound and protecting the base floor from the impact of falling weights. The life of the rubber material is extended but still after this 2nd life cycle the product ends like waste.

In this project circular strategies are examined to prolong product and material life as long as possible. The 3 most promising circular strategies, Reusing, Remanufacturing and Recycling were chosen to evaluate on feasibility, viability and desirability. Based on tests to create 2nd cycle granules and rubber sports flooring solutions the feasibility is proven for the recycling strategy. Reusing flooring is also possible. Remanufacturing is based on interesting ideas and therefor is plausible but not proven feasible.

Interviews with clients, end-users and production partners gave valuable information on their view on the strategies. An idea generation session to redesign for remanufacturing gave new ideas how to create a more circular product. Life Cycle Analysis were made for the current situation and the 3 strategies. Resulting in a decrease of CO2 with the use of the strategy reusing by 11%, remanufacturing by 15.5% and with recycling by 17%.

Next to this circular business models were examined which led to 2 different retrieval services for indirect sales clients and a rent/hire business with direct sales clients. Cost calculations were made and discussed with clients and end-users. The viability of the reuse strategy is proven. The viability of the remanufacture strategy is because of the new idea not certain but plausible after some investments. The viability of the recycle strategy was not proven because of a higher price than the current product which was not desirable. A 2nd cycle recycled flooring solution could be viable for other clients or end-users than interviewed who are willing to pay more for a more sustainable product.

From these results a strategic roadmap was made towards the vision of Stockz having a circular business. A MVP to start the retrieval service in 2023 is the first horizon going towards the second horizon in 2024 were pre-loved (used) products and 2nd cycle products are being sold.

Do you remember the phrase “they grow up so fast”? Personally when I hear this, I immediately get flashbacks of my grandmother smiling proudly from ear to ear while saying this about me and my siblings. Maybe for you this was a parent, a neighbour, a teacher or a family friend. Or maybe you have a different memory with this phrase altogether. Babies turn into children, children grow up to be teenagers and before you know it those little munchkins have graduated and found their first ‘real’ job. Do we not all wish we could be forever young? We are all full of hopes and dreams for the future, never having enough time to do it all. Always studying, working and growing day by day. Some of us may already have dreams like travelling the world for when retirement comes around. Others may have different plans like learning to play the violin. Either way, you want to make sure that you can enjoy your retirement to the fullest, worry-free.
Do you know whether you will have enough saved by then to turn your dreams into reality? Have you ever actually looked into your pension before? And do not lie to me, or rather yourself, now. This is a safe space, no judgements. In fact, most of us have never really bothered to look into it before. So you are definitely not the only one if you have not. But why not?
A new pension system is on its way, which makes this the perfect time to dive deeper into this topic from now on. The upcoming changes should make pension more transparent and personal for participants. One of the consequences of these changes is the fact that the emphasis of pension accrual will be even more so on the start of people’s careers. This, along with the fact that they still have plenty of time to accrue their pension and make any changes if preferred, makes it especially interesting for young participants to engage with their pension. This way they can ensure a worry-free retirement. However, especially younger people have a difficult time imagining their future self and making plans for the long term. All these big life decisions can be rather overwhelming.
The goal of this project is to make younger participants [21-35 years] in the care and welfare sector feel more in control of their own pension by making them aware of the impact that they can have on it themselves. The idea is to develop a concept of a ‘future self’ tool for this that uses predictive knowledge.
A process of literature research, two rounds of interviews with participants and interactive workshops has led to a set of criteria for this ‘future self tool’. One of the main findings is that participants, of all ages, are just not that interested in their pension. Some can worry about it or feel bad that they have not looked into it before, but no one really does anything about it. No matter someone’s age, it just still feels too far away. This is why a pension specific tool is not going to do the trick here.
The Toekomstplanner (EN: Future planner) therefore does not focus on pension, but rather on the life events that younger participants are interested in already. From the interviews I have learned that especially decisions regarding moving to a new home or career related events are things that the target group already thinks about or even works towards. These decisions also have an impact on a person’s future, including their pension. The Toekomstplanner is an add-on to a participant’s Email platform. Participants can use the tool to create a checklist for a life event they plan to look into. The Toekomstplanner uses predictive knowledge to help the participant make a checklist for this life event that fits their current and future personal situation well. Pension tasks related to the life event are included in the checklist to introduce the participant to their pension in a more low key way. Next the Toekomstplanner again uses predictive knowledge to help the participant find a suitable moment to sit down and work on the checklist. In addition, The Hooked model by Nir Eyal was applied to the concept to design for a habit-forming tool that is ingrained in participants’ daily lives.
When people are more knowledgeable, this decreases negative emotions like worry and increases their feeling of being in control. When people feel more in control they are also more likely to prefer delayed rewards like pension over instant gratification. Positive experiences with the Toekomstplanner elevate PFZW’s customer satisfaction to a new level and the tool provides PFZW with an easy way to connect with this younger target group that is relatively hard to reach for the pension fund.
The concept of the Toekomstplanner is not ready for implementation yet. The discussion section of the report reflects on the concept so far and presents recommendations for further research and exploration.

A bio-based future where biomaterials are part of everyday life is the vision and entry point of this thesis. Achieving this scenario requires changes in socio-technical systems by cutting non-renewable materials and redefining cultural and behavioural dynamics in the production-consumption value chain. With a focus on user experience, this research proposes the following. How can the user experience with materials be used as a driver in the biomaterial transition? Several theories related to materials, diffusion of innovations, and sustainability transitions address the challenges and potentials of the biomaterial transition separately. However, there is not an integrated approach. This research aims to tackle this gap articulating a literature review and three exploratory studies as research stages. The results broaden the perception of biomaterials as disruptive innovations. Thus, deepening in their role in shaping social practices redefine the

Sustainable production and consumption are becoming increasingly important to both consumers and businesses. Sustainability is defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. A distinction is made between social, environmental and financial sustainability, this thesis focuses on environmental sustainability in a fashion supply chain. The fashion industry has a significant impact on the environment, mostly because the textile industry relies heavily on non-renewable resources. When looking closer at the fashion supply chain, textile wet processing, which includes dyeing and printing of fabrics, contributes significantly to the environmental impact of the fashion industry by consuming and polluting significant amounts of water. Therefore, this thesis focuses on decreasing environmental impacts of textile wet processing for marlies|dekkers (MD). Fashion supply chains are highly decentralised and therefore, traceability of lacking. This leads to a lack in transparancy. Supply chain integration or supply chain alignment could overcome these challenges. The design challenge for this thesis is formulated as follows: How can a fashion company collaborate with suppliers in its supply chain to decrease the environmental impact of its textile wet processes? An analysis of the fashion industry is given, as well as a supply chain analysis and company analysis. Furthermore, suppliers and industry experts are interviewed. Finally, a collaboration strategy, that can lead to improved production processes to decrease the environmental impact of a fashion supply chain is delivered.

This thesis report represents the result of a graduation project for the master programme Strategic Product Design at the Delft University of Technology carried out in collaboration with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. This project aims to find out how to create the desired experience for KLM passengers during undesired disruptions. This problem has been tackled with the use of the Double Diamond approach enriched with the ViP approach. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands with the ambition to become Europe’s most customer-centric, innovative and efficient network carrier. To achieve this ambition, they have to make significant steps forward. KLM decided to do this by striving for operational excellence, creating a long term sustainable growth with products that both stimulate efficiency and provide customer intimacy. At their new department, Operation Decision Support, they embraced this by becoming more data-driven by creating tools to optimize the operation of KLM.
While the airline industry is progressively optimizing and KLM is facing strong competition, there is one area that remains relatively uncharted. What happens to the passengers when disruptions occur? There are many types of disruptions, varying from individual level to operational level. Unexpected mass disruptions, often caused by bad weather, are challenging to solve and result in disastrous customer experience results. During these unexpected disruptions, the Net Promoter Score, which measures the passengers’ satisfaction and thus the loyalty for the firm drops drastically. To increase passenger satisfaction, KLM should improve their service recovery when operational disruptions occur. This can be done by giving the passenger their ‘perceived justice’ which depends on the offer they get, the procedure and the interaction. Pinpointing the needs of the passenger is unfortunately very difficult since every passenger is different: they have different mindsets and travel for different occasions. With the use of a qualitative research method; adaptive storytelling, the passenger needs are found and translated to the perceived justice framework. The presented solution offering the perceived justice to the passenger is called ’Emma’, an automated, digital, ground attendant integrated into the KLM application. She enables passengers to solve their disrupted journey by pro-actively sharing information, offering solutions and giving recommendations. This application is equipped with cognitive abilities; natural language processing, machine learning and intelligent automation to create a personal and tailor-made experience via a mobile device. The application ‘Emma’ shows the potential to increase the NPS score and therefore, the passengers’ satisfaction during operational disruptions. ‘Emma’ includes many features that enable the passenger to be in control, gives them the feeling of being taken care of and shows the responsibility of KLM by giving detailed and transparent information, giving personalised rebooking options and showing tips to spend their waiting time better. Creating an application requires the involvement and resources of third parties. This takes time, and therefore, the implementation plan is separated in two years. The first year is focussed on aligning the different teams within KLM and building the features with the available internal resources. The second year, the application will be extended and further optimised with the use of third-party resources. This will enable KLM to launch a service that will be relevant in the future and give the passengers a satisfying service recovery during unexpected operational disruptions.

This thesis studies the strategic motivations for large firms to engage in partnerships with young ventures, and aims to design a service model for an intermediary that puts the needs of the large firm at the core. This project was commissioned by, and executed in collaboration with Venture IQ, an innovation scouting company founded in August 2015. Venture IQ develops a software platform (named Catalist) to collect data on companies and share the results of their search efforts with their corporate clients. For every search project Venture IQ carries out the same approach, that spans three phases: Kick-off, Search, and Deep Dive. This approach does not embed client needs or provide structure to its team of analysts. 

With the goal of this assignment to redesign Venture IQ’s service model with a focus on client needs, the assignment was formulated as follows:

To develop a service proposition for an open innovation intermediary to aid large firms in the early stages of their search for strategic partnerships with young ventures.

Through phase of discovery including review of literature, explorative interviews with industry experts, analysis of the context and Venture IQ itself, two main research questions are formulated.

1. How can Venture IQ’s service model be designed to better serve individual projects?
2. What role can Catalist fulfill in the future of Venture IQ’s services?

The discovery phase provided insights into a variety of strategic motives that large firms have for searching for an innovation partner. To better understand the differences between individual projects and find answers to the research questions a conceptual typology of three search project types is constructed:

Market search projects - The large firm intends to gain access to new or adjacent markets to leverage their current technologies, products or services
Technology search projects - The large firm intends to gain access to novel technologies that can increase value of the firm’s current market
Explorative search projects - The large firm intends to gain access to, or knowledge about unfamiliar markets and the technologies, products or services that are shaping them

The research questions and the conceptual typology form the foundation for the next phase of in-depth research, during which nine search projects carried out by Venture IQ are investigated through case studies. The data for the case studies was collected through observations of client meetings and discussions, and analysis of correspondence and presentation documents. The nine case study projects were augmented with a survey among the analysts working on those projects to document their experiences.  Follow-up interviews were held with analysts to clarify responses where needed. 

In addition to the goal of obtaining insights into Venture IQ’s process and client needs, the case studies form a method to learn about how the software platform is currently being used and how it can add more value to the search process. As a result from the case studies three platform user types were defined: Analysts: Venture IQ analysts that execute searches provide clients with results, Client lead users: people at the client firm who lead search projects and have experience in the field of corporate venture capital, and Project-based users: employees at client firms that are involved in specific searches because of their expertise in the field. 

The insights derived from the qualitative data are summarized into five clusters, that each form opportunities for design. The design opportunities are collected in the design brief that states the vision for the future of  the software platform:

The vision is for Catalist to become the go-to platform for initiating and organizing corporate venture capital searches, and accelerate these with Venture IQ’s data-driven services.

The insight clusters are formulated into design challenges that, together with the design vision, parameters and requirements form the design brief, the foundation for the ideation phase. 

Three concepts were composed from ideas that arose during team brainstorms. After detailing these concepts were tested along the requirements stated in the design brief and one concept was selected.  The selected concept describes a procedure where clients can initiate new search projects within Catalist whenever they desire to do so. This intake procedure consists of a series of questions that cover all the information that analysts need to start a search. Additionally, project information is captured in a format that allows collaborators (client lead users, project-based users and analysts) to review the project characteristics at all times and make alterations when necessary. 

Two iterations of prototype testing with clients have  illustrated the value of a structured intake procedure. Despite the low fidelity of the prototypes valuable information was uncovered by asking for specific types of project attributes and motivations. Test users, who were client lead users, acknowledged the value of the procedure. Not only to improve the effectiveness of the search process but also to individually assess the underlying reasons for a new project. 

A challenge for the future arose during the prototype tests of the intake questions, as some questions and definitions can still be misinterpreted. It is therefor recommended that the intake procedure is thoroughly tested to smoothen out the ambiguity that some elements might cause. 

The most important design features are two elements that are strongly connected: a new experience for the client to start their search for a strategic partner, and a service model that is a guide for the intermediary performing the appropriate search actions. 

The final design illustrates an innovative process for client users to interact with each other and with analysts, via Catalist. Aside from the intake procedure, a series of features is designed to make Catalist a central place to collaboratively search for potential partners and share ideas about future projects. 

Although Catalist must undergo changes before the final design is realized, the new service model can be put into operation immediately. A simple online survey or intake document can be sent to clients that want to start a new project. From this intake survey analysts can select the appropriate actions and start the search process. 

The reduction of waste materials is an important step towards a more circular economy. Within the mattress industry, the focus on sustainability and recycling has increased substantially over the last few years. In the Netherlands and a few other European countries the recycling of mattresses is strongly encouraged or made mandatory by local and national government.
Matras Recycling Europe B.V. is a Dutch company that specialises in the collection and disassembly of used mattresses. In order for this business to be viable and to increase the circularity of the entire mattress industry, it is important to find a suitable application for each of the materials of a used mattress. This thesis focuses on researching the potential of the outer layer of the mattress: mattress ticking.

This report describes the methods, outcomes and decisions that were made to create the final product. At the start of the project, the research question was:
“How can recycled ticking materials be used to design pet products, in the most sustainable way?”

The Material Driven Design method (Karana et al., 2015) was applied as a framework to determine the properties of the material, determining the market opportunities for mattress ticking.
Focus groups with the target group resulted in insights, which in combination with interviews with experts and other research, resulted into a preliminary list of requirements where the product should abide by.
After exploring multiple search areas, the search area “Travelling with dogs” was chosen because of the high viability. This search area led to 17 ideas, which were scored using the Harris profile method.
After further elaboration of the three concepts (Fence, Sunshade and Hammock) that scored best, one concept was chosen because it had the highest viability and desirability. This concept (Fence) was developed into the final product: Dipi. Dipi is a simple dog tent that protects dogs from the sun and creates a secluded area for the dog to lay in. The product is lightweight and easy to use. The product is intended to bring along on holiday.
The launch of the product is supported by a marketing strategy and a list of potential production partners, that is proposed to the client company.
After materialising the final design of the product, a prototype was made. The final prototype was tested in an exploratory user test with the envisioned target group, after which final design recommendations were set up.
The thesis is concluded with further recommendation for developing the Dipi and an extensive evaluation of the used methods during the project.