Over the past few decades, there has been a significant increase in the number of professional female athletes. One thing that both professional and amateur athletes can experience is the effects of their hormonal cycles. These hormonal cycles can affect their performance, and in return, their performance can affect their hormonal cycle. However, the underrepresentation of female athletes in sports research has resulted in most sports guidelines not reflecting this possible connection between the menstrual cycle and performance, causing female athletes to be unaware of it.

Athletes should be aware of the connection between their menstrual cycle and performance. Female rowers, in particular, experience a rapid increase in training load and they may be hesitant to discuss menstrual problems with their coach due to their relative newness to the sport, which could cause them to perform less optimally or even unhealthily. This project aims to find an alternative approach to support female rowers to build their knowledge using their sports and menstrual data so that they can perform optimally and healthily.

This project followed a research-through-design approach. This meant that knowledge was generated through design activities (Stappers & Giaccardi, 2014). The design activities were performed in three cycles to iteratively increase knowledge and improve a design that supported rowers in understanding the connection between their performance and the menstrual cycle. Each cycle began with a theoretical investigation of current design practices. These practices were then applied during a practical phase. The primary objective of each practical phase was to deploy and evaluate a design prototype with rowers.
The first cycle of research investigated how sports and menstrual data could be implemented in designs for female rowers. During the practical phase, a digital prototype was used with rowers and the evaluations indicated that the design should be simplified and place more emphasis on visualization. After the evaluation, a co-creation session was held which suggested that the design should explore the value of sharing the data.

The second cycle of research explored how tracking could be a valuable experience for rowers. The findings from the first cycle led to a physical design prototype that was again used and evaluated by rowers. The evaluations of the second phase suggested that the design should take a broader view of performance, and the co-creation of the second phase placed more emphasis on having different levels of activities by the rowers to understand the data. The knowledge generated throughout the project was synthesized into a final design.

The final design was a mobile application that would support rowers in exploring the relationship between their performance and their menstrual cycle. By tracking their mental, physical, menstrual, and contextual data on a daily basis, rowers could reflect on their beliefs about this relationship. In conclusion, the continuous implementation of insights constructed with stakeholders led to a design that could support rowers in understanding their experiences with performance and the menstrual cycle.

There are more and more women who participate in sports on a professional level. The Olympic games in 1964, in Japan, have been the first ones where almost half of the athletes participating were female. But still, a lot of female athletes train based on what has worked for men. As in many other fields, there is a research data gap because studies of exercise, muscle and cardiovascular physiology are commonly studied on male participants (O’Halloran, 2020). That comes with obvious problems. Not taking the unique biological differences that women experience, including the menstrual cycle and hormonal fluctuations into account. Women’s bodies are not simply smaller versions of men’s, so it’s important that we approach training in a way that acknowledges and accommodates these differences. (Criado-Perez, 2019)

This graduation project explores the impact the hormonal cycle has on rowers performance and wellbeing. As well as how to include this female health aspect in the rowing practice to empower rowers to reach their fullest potential. The project applied a co-creation approach involving multiple experts from different disciplines such as gynocology, sportspychology and of course rowers and coaches. The research includes a study with over 200 rowers, multiple interviews and co-creation sessions with the experts.

The insights gained from the research were coined in the final result of this thesis. The outcome is a novel more meaningful approach to performance tracking and communication. As every women is different in their needs the rowers can choose one of the 5 tracking paths in the app. This ask daily questions to put their individual menstrual health factor in correlation with their performance. After each cycle, they reflect on their data by transferring information from the digital app into a physical booklet. This allows them to put their data into their own context, making them the owner of their experience and lets them select the relevant insights they would like to share with their coaches. Moreover the booklet also prepares the rowers for coach reflection meetings, that occur after three individual reflection moments, fostering proactive action by both rowers and coaches.

The objective of this project is to develop a suitable design proposal for the future context of ASML’s Training Center, substantiated by research and stakeholder input. Since training demand will increase also with the introduction of new systems, the company entails the creation of a product that will support this dynamic environment by offering the possibility to create a tailor made training journey, while keeping certain dependencies in mind. A combination of representative techniques, such as Hardware, Virtual Reality, Software and Theory will be used to create the most realistic training experience with a strong focus on hands-on capabilities. A supportive literature and user research has been conducted on training context, aiming at methods and psychology, future trends complemented by in-depth interviews conducted with other technology-focused companies to study their practices. Additionally, the user experience was investigated at the graduation company through a combination of interviews, observations and surveys. This extensive exploration phase has resulted in a wide diversity of possible future training focus points such as for example (1) improving effectiveness and practice opportunities of hands-on trainings targeting optimal knowledge retention and (2) increasing on-the-job performance support through mentor guidance and manager evaluation. Incorporating the input of the majority of engineers, as part of the User-Centered Design approach, it could be concluded that focusing on a planning tool, while optimizing the amount of effective hands-on modules, was the most promising direction. Product requirements have been gathered through interactive co-creation and brainstorm sessions with users and business stakeholders. Once the core features were determined, the prototyping phase was launched, consisting of two separate sections. First a UX design was created through wireframing and several conducted rounds of usability testing. Next an effective planning proposal was defined representing a possible training scenario. A balanced merging of these two sections characterizes the High-NA TC planning tool ‘MyTraining’, which enables micro-managing and adapting a training to the needs and preferences of trainees. It supports a flexible environment, where learning by doing is encouraged, and practice opportunities are facilitated. It entails three main functionalities; book training time slots according to own preferences and availability, self-direct the training journey while encountering the planning guidance and explore other training programs for personal development awareness. The tool can be perceived as valuable to the users, since it will boost their motivation through a sense of autonomy, mastery and purpose. Furthermore, their confidence level will be increased through practice opportunities and effective modular training slots. Business benefits for the company are improved field self-sufficiency of the trained engineers, which will impact the quality of service to the customers, and decreased training and preparation time which will free up additional capacity for other valuable business-related purposes.
However, in the current situation the company does not have enough modules to fulfill the growing need of hands-on practice opportunities. The key recommendation is that the company supply should be aligned with the hands-on training demand to support a practice stimulating environment. It can be concluded that this thesis provides a starting point for the company to explore their way of working in the future Training Center, where learning by doing is crucial to satisfy the engineer’s needs and to create optimal field self-sufficiency.