The rollercoaster Baron 1898 in the Efteling is a unique and thrilling experience. However, the Safety Department observes an unwanted phenomenon: Occasionally, guests do not safely store their small personal belongings, such as phones, which then fall out during the ride. The result is a lost or broken phone or other personal valuable. Not properly storing personal belongings is considered undesired guest behaviour and is addressed in this thesis. The problem addressed in this thesis is twofold: First of all, the undesired guest behaviour is caused by expecting guests to make rational decisions in the distracting, emotion-laden immersive environment that is created by the Efteling. Secondly, safety measures are commonly seen as disruptive to the immersive experience created through storytelling. Experience-driven safety is proposed as a solution to this problem. This type of safety design takes guest experience, rather than a safety problem, as starting point of the design. The result is a safety solution that allows the guests to remain in the immersive experience, while directly targeting the undesired behaviour. Through ideation, the field of experience-driven safety has been explored, forcefully expanding towards safety-focussed and experience-focussed solutions. The concept that was chosen is the Kompel jacket, a wearable that allows guests to bring their items safely along during the ride of Baron 1898. It plays into the needs of the user behaviour found in the analysis phase, such as a staying close to personal belongings. Moreover, it takes an active role in the storytelling, transforming regular Efteling guests into 19th century miners (Kompels) before entering the attraction. The solution is placed in a low-pressure touchpoint – the queue area – to address guests while the distractions from the environment are still relatively low. The iterations of this design concept focussed on exploring the clarity of visual cues on the jacket. These communicate the risk of losing phones and the functionality of the jacket as a storage solution. Four different varieties of the jacket were created with communicative elements ranging from experience-focussed to safety-focussed. These were tested with potential users to find the most effective balance between creating an authentic mineworker’s jacket and creating a functional storage solution. The two varieties that aimed at an authentic mining look were considered to be confusing. The variety with the strongest safety elements was preferred and most effectively convinced the participants of safely storing their belongings. The active role the design concept takes within the storytelling assumedly allows for some leeway in adding strong safety cues without breaking the immersive experience. Guest behaviour needs to be fully uncovered to design functional products within the immersive context of the Efteling. This thesis suggests experience-driven safety as a promising method for capturing the guests’ attention and steering their behaviour within the emotionally turbulent environment of a theme park.

Prosthetic limbs are devices that change users’ lives in every aspect. They allow the wearer to live and be independent again. Nevertheless, despite the numerous benefits, they carry cultural stigmas, as well as physical and mental discomfort, along with various daily challenges. While the functionality and physical comfort of these devices can be objectively evaluated using instruments with differing levels of sophistication, assessing psychological well-being is highly subjective and challenging. It is known that the aesthetic of prosthetic limbs can have a significant impact on the users’ wellbeing. Research demonstrated that an aesthetically appealing prosthesis can improve user confidence and overall quality of life (Össur® systematic Review, 2022). It can promote a positive self-image and a more active involvement in society (Bekrater-Bodman, 2020), reduce the risk of anxiety, depression, and psychological distress and increase the frequency of use of the device (Lee at al., 2022). In this scenario customization emerges as a viable approach empowering prosthetic users to improve their life and the embodiment with their prosthetic limb. This thesis has been conducted in collaboration with the prosthetic company Össur®. The project revolves around NAVii®, a new protective cover designed for the knee component of transfemoral prosthesis. For the first time, NAVii®’s users will be able to customize their prosthetic limb by choosing between five different colors and three available sizes. Össur® is now looking into the modalities by which these customization options can be presented to the market. The focus is on the main stakeholders: the prosthetic Users and the specialists Certified Prosthetist/Orthotist (CPOs). The project takes a user-centered design approach that aims to a deep understanding of the users, the context and the current system’s dynamics. By applying qualitative research methods such as interviews, focus group and observation the goal is to improve the whole user experience during the selection of the NAVii® cover. This research highlighted the impact of the different CPOs on the journey of each patient. Even though every user goes through a subjective amputation experience, it is possible to identify common touch points throughout the prosthetic acquisition process. The final design is the result of an iterative process of concepts’ prototyping and testing. The findings obtained from the testing lead to the development of a system of tools that aim to support the CPOs and the users in the selection of the NAVii® protective cover. This new design system, is able to suit diverse user’s needs. The design outcome yielded positive impacts on the user’s psychological empowerment, consequently enhancing the CPO-User relationship.

Smartphones have become an inseparable gadget and beneficial tool in our lives. Imagining a future without them would truly be impossible. When a new technology arrives, society needs time to adjust and become aware of the impact products have on people and our ways of behaving.. This always takes time. In the case of smartphones, the last few years have shown a growing amount of literature, media, researchers and most successful people in the world give attention to the negative effects and developments smartphones and social media has had on many people around the world. This thesis did even so, but has as final goal to create awareness, stir debate and provoke reflection within the audience about the subject. To do so we used design as tool. This particular movement is called Critical Design. Through an extensive literature research the present effects and developments in different areas of expertise were identified, such as the cognitive area, psychological, physiological, and social. From a user study empirical data related to the matter was collected, the way people feel, think and experience their own relationships to their phones. Combined, these scientific findings led to five interesting themes that we transformed into a smartphone manifesto, which could then be used as basis for the idea generation. The Social Paradox, The Loss of Solitude, Your Internal Friction, Your Divided Attention, The Addiction. For each theme, one design has been made. The final outcome of this thesis is a collection of five critical designs, from which three have been developed into prototypes. As part of these designs, narratives have been created in the form of commercial like videos, setting the context and adding to the completeness of the design concepts. By combining personal perceptions towards society with scientific evidence and empirical data, a translation from a very scientific background towards a more artistic way of designing was made. There was no prior process similar to the one taken in this thesis, which allowed a very open, new and free way of going through the design process. In a qualitative final evaluation, 8 people were interviewed in order to find out if the critical designs provoked them and created critical reflections towards our own behaviors and relations to smartphones within society.

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

Object-mediated fidgeting (pen clicking, ring spinning, paper folding, etc.) is a pervasive and often unaware human behavior. Despite its prevalence, fidgeting has no consensus cause or effect in existing scientific literature. This graduation project seeks to operationalize fidgeting through and with design to enable affect self-regulation, or the recognition and modification of emotions and mood states. In particular, the Fidget Spheres concept and prototype aim to move users towards a “productive” mood state. Further, we consider the use context as traditional offices and higher education, in situations such as a lecture, conference meeting, quiet desk work, or a video call. Key project outcomes are “constructed” – both a physical prototype and future concept, but also a theoretical landscape of fidgeting. The project began with a literature review, launching from the topics of “somaesthetics,” emotion, and interaction design. While somaesthetics is not the guiding principle for the final design concept and generated knowledge, it served as a vehicle to introduce many relevant topics, such as embodied interaction, extended cognition, implicit and explicit interaction, affective loops, and mind wandering. Research into these disparate domains, once synthesized, yielded key takeaways that informed concept directions and desired interaction characteristics for later development. After acquiring a theoretical background, three research activities were conducted to better understand both fidgeting and affect. A three-person introspective experience scanning exercise yielded early insights about the intent of fidgeting. Next, analysis of a short-response survey on stress coping mechanisms revealed common mechanisms and strategies for affect self-regulation. Third, an intensive Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA) was conducted on a large public data set of ‘Fidget Widgets’ and use descriptions. These study results, taken alongside the literature review, drive our theory of “Reflexive Focus Bounding” and the embodiment of the Fidget Spheres prototype and concept. Concept directions were loosely explored before settling on “Fidget Spheres,” a set of handheld spherical fidget objects inspired by Chinese Baoding meditation balls. This simple and adaptable platform allows for future iteration and development of interaction and haptic feedback modes. The prototype was used to embody specific interactions with responsive vibration feedback and was evaluated by six participants in a focus group session. While prototype development was not finished during the project term, rich insights from literature, data analysis, and prototype testing were still sufficient to create the final concept vision for Fidget Spheres. The concept video details the use case, effects, and interaction characteristics for the envisioned and optimized Fidget Spheres. This graduation project constructs both a fidgeting design space through synthesis of cross-disciplinary knowledge, and an embodied prototype to enable affect regulation through established ‘mindless’ or implicit fidgeting behavior. Future work can conduct more detailed analyses of the perception of varied feedback modalities in-situ, as well as prove (or disprove) the proposed Reflexive Focus Bounding theory. The prototype could be evolved with “personalization” protocols and the implementation of other haptic feedback modes.

Coping with pet loss will be difficult for these pet owners without support or guidance. The pet market has seen increased prosperity as people’s living conditions have improved. Taking the Chinese market as an example, by the end of 2018, the number of pets had surpassed 100 million (Chen, 2019). Approximately 10 million pets die each year, based on an estimated death rate of 8-10%. When pets reach the final phase of their lives, both the pets and their owners have to deal with a variety of challenges. For instance, the communication between pets and owners decreases due to the illness, causing owners to be overwhelmed with worry and anxiety. When it comes to saying goodbye, it can be an extremely emotional and vulnerable moment. Anger, guilt, disbelief, and depression are all emotions people may experience. When all these complex emotions collide, it is difficult for pet owners to handle practical issues as well as mental or ethical challenges. Furthermore, they usually cannot get the appropriate support from people around them after pet loss. Thus, it is not only the pet itself but also the owner who needs to be taken care of when it comes to death. The project first took broad research on pet loss through literature review and context research. After creating a journey map of pet loss experience, different design opportunities were identified in different phases. Considering personal preferences and feasibility, the opportunity of communication between dog owners and vets was selected to be further explored. Vets always play an important role in the experience of pet loss. Many dog owners find themselves in the dilemma between the quantity of life and quality of life. They usually rely on their vets to make medical decisions. Also, vets are the primary source of emotional support to help people get through of pet loss.

Children living with lower limb differences can utilize prostheses for mobility and conformity. However, children’s prostheses is a small market where development happens slowly, with a very small selection of products. Products in the children’s prosthetics market prioritize providing mobility and tackling mechanical challenges, but amputee children are found to suffer socially as well. (Michielsen, Wijk, Ketelaar 2010) Due to their bodily differences, they can feel stigmatized, which leads to stress, anxiety and lowered self esteem. (Vaes, 2014) Stigma and lowered participation can especially impact preteens, a subset of children 8-12 years old who have increased social awareness and strong motivation to fit in with their peers. In the research phase of this graduation project, I aimed to construct a design methodology to understand the concerns of amputee children and utilize this to design a product that prioritizes the emotional wellbeing of its user. I employed positive design research to understand the sources of unmet or unvoiced needs, priorities and preferences children could have. As children differ from adults in their cognitive, emotional and language skills, I leveraged principles of designing for children as well as psychological research into children’s development to develop my own methodology, a collection of exercises to uncover the motive hierarchies of preteens. Through in-depth evaluation of the exercises with a child participant, in combination with information from other stakeholders, I found moments in an amputee child’s life a design could provide value. The collection of product ideas that stem from the research were narrowed down using a lens of feasibility in the scope of this project and desirability for the end user. The final idea selected is a shin cover designed to boost the amputee preteens’ self-confidence when playing soccer, through facilitating a mental shift from daily to exercise use. Amputee preteens can feel insecure on the football field, as they perceive their prosthetic legs not appropriate for exercise, even though they functionally are. Although sports prostheses exist, they are difficult to finance, offer no additional benefits in contact sports, and amplify the bodily difference between children and their peers. Moreover, children wearing prostheses are barred from playing soccer starting at 14 years old as the prosthesis can harm the players of the opposing team upon impact. When donned on, as if plate armor, the prosthesis cover visually transforms the prosthesis. The auditory feedback of the snapping cover and buckle provides confidence that the cover is attached properly. 3D printing technology is explored as an enabler of the lightweight, compliant mid-layer which dampens oncoming impact. This concept, rooted in the concerns of one child who was an amputee, was evaluated with preteens from a football summer school using a prototype. Children were quickly able to identify the prototype as a shin guard and approached it with curiosity.

Recommender systems have become a core strategy of countless online sites and platforms including music streaming services like Spotify. These recommender systems are associated with limiting our exposure to a narrower range of content, this is even the case for features designed to promote discovery like Spotify’s Discover Weekly. Discover Weekly is curated with the aim to match users’ current preferences, it analyses its users’ listening habits and searches for similar songs that they haven’t heard before. While presenting users with new songs, Discover Weekly keeps users from discovering new and diverse music. This project aimed to design an intervention that increases user’s exposure to diverse music and fosters wellbeing. For this, literature research was conducted. First an understanding of the current landscape of features of music streaming service was created. This led to the conclusion that personalised recommendations were the most relevant for this project, as they are driven by recommender systems. Next, different personalised recommendation features were linked to wellbeing. It was established that mood-based recommendations have the potential to contribute to hedonism, that activity-based recommendations have the potential to contribute to personal functioning and that discovery recommendations have the potential to contribute to personal development. Given the alignment with the broader concerns of recommender systems, the project continued to focus on discovery features and personal development. By analysing how current recommender systems operate in these feature, it was determined how that the recommender system of the new intervention should implement an ‘exploration mode’ approach and gradually introduce users to new items, allowing them to slowly acclimate to new genres over time. Next, the design focus was narrowed down to: promoting personal development through expanding user’s musical horizons by introducing them to diverse music that differs from their current listening behaviour, fostering greater understanding of others and oneself. This design focus let to two different concepts. The first concept is ‘Discover More’, which adopts a similar approach as Discover Weekly, an automatically created playlist that gradually introduces users with new genres. The other concept is ‘Explore More’, a concept in which users are encouraged to actively explore new genres themselves. After evaluation it was decided to continue with Explore More. This concept was further developed and after evaluation of this concept, an improved version of the concept is proposed for the next cycle. The concept highlights the gap between the vast musical landscape and the music the user listens to, creating awareness of their musical bubble and inspiring them to start exploring new music genres. Additionally, Explore More helps users gain deeper awareness and understanding of their own preferences. This is achieved with the help a guided self-reflection. Furthermore, the feedback on the reflection is utilized by the AI in selecting next genres and aims to align with the mood and taste of the user. After several exploration journeys, Explore More provides a recap—an opportunity to revisit the musical discoveries and providing insights into remarkable trends, such as specific elements that repeatedly spoke to the user, contributing to self-awareness. Lastly, the report ends with additional suggestions that could be taken into consideration during the next cycle.

Most people are familiar with play as entertainment in the form of toys and games for children, but the same cannot be said for play as a means to energise for adults. And taking breaks to refresh during work is not something that we are generally good at, as was reflected in the results of various interviews which can be found in this thesis. 
 Though there are many definitions of play floating about, Van Fleet & Feeney (2015) define play as an activity or behaviour built of three characteristics: (1) goal of amusement, (2) highly interactive and (3) immersive & absorbing. These core elements are exactly what makes play so difficult to implement, though simultaneously so valuable to employees in a work environment, which in many ways reflects the opposite of such elements. For example, in a work environment one is expected to strive for efficiency and success, whereas play aims to amuse. This thesis focuses on the conflicts that arise when playful behaviour meets the office setting, which were identified through qualitative research activities. Results of these activities indicated that there are many motives that withhold employees from using break facilities such as a ping pong table when they are offered by the company. For example, some individuals expressed that they want to spend their time efficiently, and therefore did not have time to play with such facilities. Others felt that they want to take a break at their own convenience, and gathering tools and opponents to play with, would certainly take away from that convenience. These motives formed the basis for design criteria to be used for evaluation of the design during development and a scope, which was based on two core user dilemmas: 1) I want to be fully engaged in an activity but still be mindful of those around me; 2) I want to spend time with colleagues, but I don’t want them to see my shortcomings. Through various iterations of ideating, prototyping and testing with users (including CREFM employees and StudioLab members), a final design was created to ultimately help energise office workers through playful breaks. This concept, aptly named Button Bash, consists of interactive, modular panels featuring buttons and light, as shown on the next page. In interaction with and appearance of the product, it adds a playful character to stiff surroundings, and helps users find opportunities to recharge through active play.

The product generated in this project aims to develop offline version of an emotion measure instrument and the objective of the project is to combining the convenience of physical product and the clarity of animations. By analysing some other emotion measurement instrument as well as previous work of PrEmo, some opportunities that could help to improve the offline product. Through a group discussion, some inspiring ideas were generated and five design directions formed. Eight interviews were conducted to get users’ requirements of PrEmo and also assess the five design concepts. Four qualities were summarized and the ideal solution was selected. After some exploration and several iterations, the final prototype was made. It is a set of acrylic cards with manual guiding people to use it. An application was also developed for users to watch the animations of emotions. There is also an introduction movie inserted in the APP. An evaluation test was taken place at the end of study and all the tests went well, proving that the usability of the PrEmo is fine, though the clarity still haves some room to be improved.

Within this report, we explore the opportunities of the enhancement of well-being among hobby gardeners in the Netherlands using the principles of Positive Design realized through the methodology of Dilemma-Driven Design. Data was collected through qualitative in-depth interviews involving 12 participants who all engaged in either home, community or pot gardening. These interviews primarily focused on the exploration of the emotional landscape and pinpointing the underlying dilemmas experienced within the corresponding gardening context. The research process involved thorough analysis of interview results which led to dilemmas which offered a base to the ideation process employed within this project. Through ideation and iteration, a creative solution could be generated that holds promise for fostering human flourishing. In lines with the principles of Positive Design, this condition is key for enhancing subjective well-being and offers an insight on the potential of design to contributing to this within the domain of gardening. Prior to the field research, extensive desk research and a literature review was conducted, where the existing sources between well-being and gardening were explored. Additionally, the role of gardening tools within the aspect of how they contribute to well-being was explored, given the collaborative nature of this project with the company Talen Tools, renowned for its high quality gardening tool craftsmanship. As a final result, this project offers a new perspective on how designers can harness Dilemma-Driven Design to actively contribute to Positive Design, embodied through the design of the “PocketHelp”, a device that aims to overcome the dilemma of desiring help from fellow gardeners without seeming helpless, which is a dilemma commonly faced by community gardeners within the gardening complex Delftse Hout. The project offers insights into various design strategies which can be utilized to the enhancement of subjective well-being, in this case particularly within the context of communal gardening.