This thesis report presents the research and design process for an interactive light installation developed for the Museum Catharijne Convent (MCC) in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The project aims to create an imaginative experience that connects visitors with the museum’s collection and stories through light.

MCC houses a significant collection of medieval art and is dedicated to sharing the cultural and historical value of religious heritage. Between 2026 and 2028, the museum will undergo a renovation, during which its permanent ground-floor exhibition will be redesigned around the theme “The Power of Imagination.” In collaboration with MCC’s educational team, this project addresses the challenge of engaging younger audiences—particularly school groups—through immersive, light-based storytelling.

A user-centered design methodology was employed, guided by the Double Diamond model. Contextual research and user studies informed the redefinition of design goals and requirements. Several design concepts were developed and tested, including Light Collage and Unfolding Manuscript. Iterative evaluation and prototyping provided insights into interaction, spatial design, and narrative potential, which shaped the development of the final concept.

The resulting design is an interactive light installation that transforms exhibition windows into a stage for imaginative storytelling, inspired by manuscript objects. By integrating light, narrative, and participation, the installation invites school groups to unfold and experience stories that draw on diverse religious and cultural contexts. Recommendations are included to guide future development and ensure effective implementation based on evaluation findings.

This graduation project investigates the potential of interactive technologies to preserve the heritage of the Afghan rubab, a traditional string instrument currently prohibited in Afghanistan. In collaboration with Stichting Solh, an Afghan–Dutch cultural foundation, the project developed The Rubab Legacy, a Mixed Reality (MR) and Sensor-Based Embedded (SBE) technology system that conveys both the tangible and intangible heritage of the rubab. The work was guided by two design goals: (DG1) to design an interactive technology experience to meaningfully convey the tangible and intangible heritage of the Afghan rubab, for culturally interested non-Afghans to encounter the beauty of Afghan culture; (DG2) to design an interactive technology experience that conveys the rubab’s physical playing sensation through a combination of Extended Reality and SBE technology. An exploratory phase addressed four research questions concerning: the status quo of interactive technology employment in musical instrument heritage preservation; the desired message of the project; the essential elements of the rubab’s heritage; the qualities that constitute a meaningful cultural encounter. Insights were gathered through interviews with rubab players, generative research sessions with the target audience, conversations with Afghan diaspora members, and desk research. The resulting design employed capacitive touch sensors on the frets and proximity infrared sensors beneath the strings of a physical e-rubab, translating user interactions into sound and navigational outputs within an Extended Reality environment via a Socket.IO connection. Iterative prototyping, cultural accuracy checks, and user evaluation informed refinements to the final system. The outcome is an immersive, culturally grounded MR experience in which users can explore the rubab’s heritage in three interactive levels. Its evaluation lead to recommendations for further development.

The current fashion industry is characterized by overconsumption, disposability, and a loss of knowledge about textiles. This thesis investigates how needlework, which was once a more prevalent, can be repositioned through design to support sustainable fashion practices, particularly among young people in the Netherlands. Through a combination of historical research, stakeholder interviews, and design, this project explores how repair, rework, and DIY culture can contribute to garment longevity and empowerment.

The research identifies that while young people are increasingly interested in sustainable fashion, many lack the skills and knowledge to repair or rework their clothes. At the same time, traditional education and commercial systems provide limited support for developing these practical skills. Drawing from these insights, the final design concept is the "Under Construction: Repair & Rework Kit". This is a hands-on toolkit that introduces basic needlework skills through an accessible and guided experience. The kit encourages users to make their own tool pouch before moving on to repairing garments, lowering the barrier to entry, as this step introduces them to key techniques needed for repair. The kit is available as an opensource resource, so expert needleworkers can create a self-made kit, to gift to beginner needleworkers.

The evaluation of the prototype demonstrated that the kit has value to beginner needleworkers, who perceive their lack of knowledge as a barrier. Repair and Rework practices are threatened by the guided experience of the kit. There is also a personalisation step that empowers users to take ownership of their kit. This highlights how design can facilitate learning-by-doing and foster a sense of agency in sustainable behavior. This thesis shows that design interventions rooted in needlework and DIY can revive lost knowledge, promote sustainable consumption, and contribute to personal and environmental well-being. Ultimately, by reconnecting people with the process of making, we can challenge the fast fashion model and inspire more meaningful relationships with our clothing.

This thesis explores the enhancement of active reading experiences through a human-machine co-creation process, focusing on visualized narratives. The project addresses the limitations of traditional reading materials that often neglect the individuality of readers in visualizing narratives. To bridge this gap, the project adopts a modified ZEN design approach, emphasizing user rituals and the integration of AI tools for visualizing mental models. By integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and generative technologies, the project combines human creativity with machine efficiency, aiming to create personalized digital reading experiences that cater to individual cognitive abilities and preferences.
The project begins with a comprehensive literature review that establishes the theoretical foundation for understanding narrative books and active reading. Realizing each one's active reading process and mental images regarding the same contents are different, the core of this project is to create a personalized active reading journey. Then, design vision is proposed to identify design goals and value delivery. To understand the actual user ritual, qualitative user research is conducted to study the reading activities and mental models of active readers. Then, through competitive products research, mental image visualization is found to be the active reading function currently missing in the reading products on the market. Thanks to the emerging AIGC technology, it becomes possible to generate desired visual images for people with different mental imagery abilities with high efficiency and quality. By strategically synthesizing the user requirements with image generation workflow, design round 1 focuses on content personalization. 2 solution flow was designed and tested by 10 participants with different mental imagery abilities (results from VVIQ test). After iterating the solution flow of mental image visualization function, design round 2 is conducted to realize toolkit personalization. Scenebites as an integrated active reading platform is introduced, empowering diverse user rituals of active processes. The value proposition of design vision and key user needs are validated through focus group research.
The final design output of this project is a human-machine collaborative system flow for personalized digital reading experience on knowledge construction, together with business model propositions for future libraries. The results demonstrate that personalized visualizations significantly enhance active reading experiences by reducing cognitive load and increasing engagement. And the assistance of visual options and editable mood boards in the user journey can positively match the requirements from users with diverse visual imagery abilities.
The project also suggests improvements in AI models to enhance precision and control in generating visuals. It also recommends strategies for libraries and educational institutions to integrate personalized reading services, thereby transforming the digital reading landscape into a more interactive and user-centered journey.

The public's participation in scientific research is increasing (Shirk et al., 2012), and citizen science is being used more in the context of museums. These museums want a deeper engagement with their volunteers, and a way to do so is to involve them in citizen science projects. This project aims to support the co-creation and execution of a citizen science project with volunteers and museum researchers by lowering the barriers for volunteers to join and by helping them formulate a research question that is suitable for a museum's citizen science project.
The project began with a background study, exploring the theory of citizen science and volunteering. More extensive research is done to discover how this theory translates into practice. This research was focused on finding answers to the following questions: Who are the volunteers that are involved in citizen science projects, what motivates them, what does a citizen science project look like in a museum, and who are involved and what are their roles? Finding these answers is done by conducting interviews with experts and volunteers and sharing a questionnaire that is focussed on the motivation of volunteers.
Insights from this research highlighted several topics that influence these citizen science projects. Project leaders of citizen science projects expressed that they see the goal of a project to allow the volunteers to become their own researchers, to ask their own questions, and to drive their own way forward. And focus on involving the volunteers earlier in the process so you can create a citizen science project together. A data scientist in a citizen science project said that she recommends a closer collaboration between the volunteer and the scientist.
Based on these findings, the final design solution was developed: An online research assistant that supports the volunteers that want to start a citizen science project with the museum. The tool guides the volunteers in identifying a topic they are are enthusiastic about and helps them formulate a research question that aligns with this topic and that fits within the museum goals. This results in a good starting point for them to pitch their ideas to the museum researcher. It helps them feel more in control of a project by making them an active part of its creation. For the museum, this results in a new citizen science project that fits within the volunteer project. This is how they get the most out of the skills and interests of the volunteers that are involved.
This project shows a tool that can ultimately help volunteers and museum researchers create a citizen science project together, creating citizen science projects where the citizens are fully participating. Further research can focus on how this tool can be applied in other research areas as well, which can provide valuable insights into the applicability and impact of volunteers in scientific research.

This project, in collaboration with Rotterdam Public Library (RPL), focuses on the renewal of the Erasmus Experience, aiming to engage citizens of Rotterdam with the values of Desiderius Erasmus. Despite Erasmus's historical significance and RPL housing the largest collection of his works, many visitors remain unaware of his contributions. Originally designed in 2016, the Erasmus Experience aims to introduce Erasmus's ideas on language, behaviour, religion, and humour in an interactive format. With the renewal of RPL and a decline in visitor numbers, a renewed experience was in favour.

The goal of this project is connect citizens of Rotterdam with Erasmus's values, guided by RPL's mission to foster conscious, critical societal participation. Speculative design was chosen as the foundation for the new experience, in particular the method of Design Fiction. Speculative design employs fictional future scenarios to provoke thought and discussion on societal values. By presenting hypothetical situations relevant to Rotterdam, visitors are encouraged to reflect on moral and societal issues.

The final concept, In praise of the Future, integrates these speculative stories into an interactive digital experience, guiding users through four reflection moments. At the end, participants receive a token as a tangible takeaway to encourage continued reflection.

The evaluation, conducted at RPL, tested user engagement and the effectiveness of fostering critical reflection. While the prototype struggles to attract spontaneous participation in a busy space, those who engaged showed deep reflection, connecting the stories to their own lives and societal concerns.

By using speculative design to explore modern societal themes in an engaging and accessible way, the project shows the potential to successfully encourage reflection while being in line with RPL's broader educational and cultural goals.

DESIGN OPPORTUNITY

The TU Delft student theses repository has not been updated since it switched to digital PDF reports in 2007. Currently, entries only contain a title, author and contributors, programme, date, abstract, and the PDF to download.

While the search engine is fine if you know the author's name or the title of the thesis you're looking for, users expressed that it's difficult to use the repository to find inspiration for your own graduation project, see what reports are good or not, or to find out what supervisors look for in a project, or what projects they usually take on.

After uploading, the entry looks boring, and doesn't grip the reader's attention. Furthermore, the entries are not very visible internally, or externally (like on google scholar) .

THE GOAL

My goal was to redesign the repository to:

● Allow students to upload (interactive) multimedia to their repository pages.
● programmatically add multimedia to already uploaded repository pages.
● Redesign the user interface with a user centered design approach.

THE SOLUTION

The solution

My new design features:

● 'Thumbnail' images, graphical abstracts, posters, embedded videos, and interactive embeds (such as 3D model viewers), which show what the thesis is about.
● One or two sentence 'pitches' under titles that allow users to quickly assess interest.
● Views, bookmark, and download metrics that show how popular a thesis is; Entry awards; featured theses; and supervisor highlights make it easier for users to find examples of good projects.
● Supervisor profiles that show all their supervised theses, some information on what they do, and if they might be available for supervising your project.
● Publishing theses will no longer be mandatory, so people who aren't proud of their mediocre thesis will show up less.
● Related theses/supervisors/keywords in a sidebar can help a user find more of what they're interested in.

Art is the universal language of humanity. Art viewing not only evokes aesthetic pleasure but also inspires people to create their own art. In this digital age, more and more museums democratize their art by making their digital collections freely available online. However, these online sources are mainly targeted at researchers and visit planners who have specific search goals in mind. For inspiration-seekers who usually start with a vague idea, the current way of access to museum digital collections–searching through metadata–limits their exploration.

This graduation project explored how to help novice artists seek inspiration in museum online collections. Through literature review on the topics of inspiration and creativity and interviews with creators, an understanding of the context was gained. According to the user study, museum digital collections are more valued by beginner artists. The design goal and target group were narrowed down for the following ideation phase. Three interaction qualities, guiding, resonating and encouraging were used as guidance through the exploration.

Based on the insights gathered from the context exploration, four rapid prototypes were developed and tested with seven participants to define the final design direction. In addition, the interface of the chosen prototype was redesigned to enhance its usability.

The final concept, ArtMind, is an online tool that allows users to make textual associations to diverge their ideas while also recommending them similar artworks to converge ideas. The final design consists of three core functions: associating search, recommending artworks with similar visual characteristics and making personal collections.

Finally, ​​user testing allowed me to evaluate whether my design solution achieves the design goal. Participants claimed that ArtMind offers a unique inspirational path. By broadening their thinking pathways, users were able to generate more original ideas.

Today, thanks to digitization, publications are no longer fixed, but dynamic and fluid. The convenience of carrying, the diversity of interaction and the convenience of resource acquisition provided by e-reading make e-reading more and more popular. However, there is still a lot of room for exploration in this field based on the more reading experience brought to readers by electronic screens, and it is also the direction that more laboratories and companies want to develop. There are many interactions and feedback that cannot be achieved in physical reading, such as how to make readers immerse themselves in the scene and truly feel the objects in the book; the reader establishes an emotional connection with the objects described in the book through touch and generates emotional resonance; or through touch senses attract readers' attention, enhance their reading concentration, etc. And these can be achieved through e-reading.

Furthermore, in the process of reading, because the reading medium is mostly limited by paper books, most people memorize the contents of a book by vision, except for some auxiliary tools, such as bookmarks or dog-earing pages. But with the development of e-reading, readers can have more forms of interaction with e-books, not limited to visuals; at the same time, e-books can also provide more feedback modes. So, will this multi-sensory reading mode provide new opportunities for people's long-term memory of reading content?

This graduate project explores how to improve the readers' e-reading experience and the long-term memory of the content through haptic technology. I gained more relevant information through literature reviews on topics such as haptic exploration and reading comparisons of print and e-books, as well as research with target users. The target group was identified as 20-30 year olds who are familiar with and own electronic reading devices. In order to achieve the design goal, an interaction vision with three qualities of immersed, focused and playful is proposed.

Based on the insights gleaned from the research phase, I designed 5 initial prototypes and tested them with 11 participants. After this, test results are collected and analyzed for a second iteration, resulting in an integrated prototype. Then, the test was conducted again with 3 participants, and the test results were collected and analyzed, resulting in a third prototype. Finally, I tested the third prototype again with 6 testers and finally got the final design. A total of three test evaluations and prototype iterations are used to continuously refine the design prototype to improve its usability and functionality.

The final design of this project is a mobile-based e-reading application. It can transmit the emotional changes of characters in the story through vibration, thus bringing users a more immersive, focused and playful reading experience.