This project proposes a redesign for the self-sampling test for Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) and Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG), guided by principles of Design for Emotion. The goal is to uncover the nuanced emotional experiences users encounter during the sampling process and translate these insights into a more user-friendly and supportive design. Through techniques such as micro-emotion scans (MES) and the identification of motivational dilemmas, the research offers a detailed understanding of users’ emotional experiences during key stages of the process. These findings inform a redesign that promotes emotional ease, addresses motivational conflicts, and empowers users to trust their ability to carry out the test correctly.

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as CT and NG remain a significant public health concern, particularly among sexually active young adults. To promote early detection and treatment, the GGD Amsterdam provides a home-based self-sampling test, enabling users to collect their own samples in the privacy of their homes instead of a general practitioner’s office or a GGD location.
While self-sampling offers greater discretion and accessibility, it can also evoke negative emotional responses, such as doubt, insecurity, or anxiety, that may undermine users’ confidence in performing the test correctly and influence their interpretation of the results.

Extensive literature, desk and field research is conducted to get a better understanding of the usability and user experience when self-sampling. Findings point out that doubt and insecurity often stem from a lack of medical knowledge, the intimate nature of the procedure, and the absence of direct professional guidance. It is therefore not surprising that many users question their own ability to carry out the sampling correctly or worry about compromising the reliability of the results. Acknowledging and understanding these emotions is important. Examining them more closely offered valuable insights for improving the overall user experience and building greater confidence in the test through thoughtful design.

The proposed redesign (the Stepwise kit) was evaluated through user testing, a micro-emotion scan, and qualitative interviews. Results suggest the kit positively impacts users’ self-efficacy, with participants reporting increased confidence in their sampling. This was mostly due to the step-by-step guidance, progress tracking, and focused information delivery. However, the evaluation also revealed a tension between minimizing cognitive load and the need for users to anticipate upcoming steps in a motive dilemma. These insights informed a set of recommendations for further development, emphasizing the importance of consistent usability
for creating a design that supports the user’s self-efficacy beliefs.

Unaccompanied minor asylum seekers housed in minor shelters face a major change when they turn 18. In the minor shelter, they receive personal supervision, live amongst peers and create a home. At 18 this drastically changes when they have to leave the minor shelter and need to go to a regular shelter, focussed on mass housing. This change is especially difficult for this vulnerable group, since it not only ends a relatively stable period, it also triggers an earlier trauma of being forced to leave their home behind.

Using a Positive Design approach, this design project aims to Design a product that supports young male asylum seekers in building confidence and adapting well to life in a new shelter environment when moving from minor to regular shelter.

Two shelters in the Netherlands collaborated with the designer of this project. A literature review and qualitative research were conducted to gain rich insights into the experiences of young asylum seekers and other stakeholders. Contextmapping is a key method used during this project. This structured process helps designers explore users’ experiences, needs, and dreams by involving them actively in the design process. The research findings substantiated seven design opportunities and a design vision: Fly out, Land well.

An elaborate ideation phase resulted in the Fly out, Land well Kit. By effectively addressing the found design opportunities, the kit helps minors leave with confidence and stability, and settle in safely and positively at their next destination.

By supporting this transition, the Fly out, Land well Kit helps minors to prepare for this step, gain confidence and feel ready to live at the new location. The kit consists of two main parts: the Bridge, a tangible and creative tool that a mentor uses to prepare and communicate the transition to a minor, and the Booklet, used to reflect, personalize their goodbye period and create a memento. Together, they guide the mentor and minor through the transition process.

This project investigates the rising interest in psychedelic substances, particularly microdosing, for well-being and self-development, with a focus on stimulating public discourse about its potential benefits, risks, and challenges as a future socially accepted practice. Utilizing critical and speculative design approaches, the research aims to provoke critical thinking by exploring the tensions and future trajectories surrounding the increasing media attention and popularization of psychedelic microdosing.

The project is grounded in extensive research, which includes a literature review of existing microdosing studies, semi-structured interviews with members of psychedelic societies, an online questionnaire cataloging diverse microdosing practices, and observational activities at various microdosing events. This foundational research identified four key themes for deeper exploration: (1) A Paradigm Shift, which examines the varying perspectives on psychedelic use in Western culture; (2) Microdosing as Technologies-of-Self, which looks at microdosing as a method of self-regulation for purposes like well-being and cognitive enhancement; (3) The Role of Intuition, which contrasts intuitive practices with strict protocols; and (4) Evidential Basis, which underscores the research gap in understanding the health effects of microdosing.

Speculative artifacts were then created to address the issues and initial tensions identified within these themes. These artifacts, shared with a diverse audience, served as a catalyst for reflection and discussion. Through this process, the project identified four overarching tensions: Perspective, which highlights conflicting views on the use of psychedelics between spiritual and utilitarian perspectives; Reasoning, which explores the tension between intuitive and logical decision-making in substance use; Outcome, which examines the tension between microdosing for self-discovery versus self-regulation; and Potential, which discusses the disparity between the hype and reality of microdosing.

These tensions are particularly evident in the workplace context, where the project critiques the commodified approach to microdosing, especially within the “Silicon Valley” culture. This exploration reveals the contrast between the healing and spiritual purposes of psychedelics and their pragmatic, corporate use, raising significant ethical concerns. One of the primary concerns is the potential for microdosing to be used by employers or authorities as a means to control and regulate employee performance, shifting the focus away from individual well-being in favor of profit-driven motives. The media’s portrayal of microdosing as a tool for cognitive enhancement is critiqued for creating an illusion of quick fixes for deeper personal or systemic issues.

The project also addresses the risk of commodifying indigenous traditions and plant-based medicines within Western corporate contexts. It raises important ethical questions about the implications of using psychedelics purely for capitalist gains, urging a broader reflection on the social and ethical consequences of integrating microdosing into corporate culture.

In conclusion, the project contributes to ongoing debates about the future of psychedelic microdosing, emphasizing the need for careful consideration of its ethical and social impacts before it becomes a mainstream practice, particularly in the corporate world.

The goal of this project was to create a new and meaningful product, using Vision in Product design, and Positive Design methods, that could give the Dutch network of financial support organizations directions for improving the financial well-being of adolescents in 2025. The project was hosted by Wijzer in Geldzaken and Geldfit, who both concern themselves with supporting individuals in navigating the complex and fragmented landscape of personal finances in the Netherlands, in order to further national financial well-being. Following the Vision in Product design method, research was conducted towards the driving forces that make up the future context, by collecting factors, discovering clusters, and finally structuring a worldview that can be used to reveal future experiences and behaviors of adolescents in the context of financial well-being. The key characteristics of this future context have been identified as being overwhelming, with a high likelihood of experiencing personal vulnerability, as well as developing financial vulnerability. Through adherence to the Positive Design Manifesto, further research into economics, and clarification of the designer’s opinions about the future context, the designer takes a position on a desired future society. This position is presented as an ambition for a society that supports the well-being of adolescents, illustrated by a number of transformational values and principles that outline how a focus on human flourishing instead of economic flourishing can be realized. Moreover, four visions, that flow from the ambition, are presented on how to improve the individual and social financial well-being of adolescents in 2025. An illustration of how these visions can be used to create transformative products is presented, by outlining the development of a conceptual product. The product facilitates resilience to financial shame experienced in social situations, through the integration of principles from scientific theory, and the stimulation of maintaining small amounts of debt. Finally, a brief letter of advice intends to help individuals and organizations interested in this work to understand how to apply it for themselves.

Emo:on-driven design inspects people’s emotional experiences in a targeted context and study the concerns behind these emo:ons. The is connected to an understanding to people’s personal experiences. Social media is playing an increasingly important role in daily life, as the technologies to do social media mining is developing, it is becoming a great database for learning about people. These data from social media is becoming a valuable dataset that is scaled, updated in every moment, and its access is being increasingly democratized.
These rich data are bringing a lot of opportunities for emo:on designers to scale up research and design. They form a dynamic dataset of people’s emo:ons related to their preferences, opinions, geographic locations, communities as well as social news and events. However, social media mining has not yet been employed for emo:on-driven design. Currently there are various tools and methodologies that support design conceptualization, but with no tools yet to employee the dynamic social media data as a material. This project investigate the role of the user- generated content on social media to emo:on- driven design, bridging the two with meaningful stories that reflect people’s subjective experiences in emotional events. Later on, experiments and tests were done to explore a workflow of how can designers discover the meaningful stories from Instagram. This resulted in a basic approach and a set of data exploration techniques. Therefore, the goal was set to developed a data exploration tool for designers, which facilitate them to do controllable explorations and flexible searches with with the qualitative, unstructured social media data. The target group is designers who are interested to look for meaningful stories in social media but have less experiences in data mining. In the end, a data exploration tool is developed , and it is evaluated by designers on the effectiveness aspect and experience aspect.
The evaluation indicated that the story exploration in social media with the tool could sensitize the designers with their target users’ daily life emotional experience, and can broaden the designer's horizon by having an overview on the possible experiences. The tool is recommended to be used in the very early phase of emo:on-driven design.

This graduation project focuses on balancing entertainment and social value of football to create relatedness and belonging among the younger supporters in Arnhem and Vitesse. Relatedness and belonging are two of the thirteen fundamental needs defined by Desmet and Fokkinga (2018). Designing for fundamental needs is one of the eight approaches to emotional design.
The projectThe social function football used to provide was what sociologists call “socialization”: the modification of the child’s behavior as they mature, and their assimilation into a grown-up world through customs, rituals and more (Tempany, 2014). According to Tempany, football has never been safer, better televises or more entertaining. Moreover, it has never been this individual and less about the culture of the people who shaped the football clubs (Tempany, 2014). Sports industry leaders cite the shift in consumer behavior of younger generations as the ‘top threat faced by the industry’ (PwC, 2018).Dutch football clubs are in search of new possibilities to involve and renew the connection with the younger generations of supporters. Vitesse is one of the football clubs that undergo difficulties to connect with younger supporters (age twelve (12) to sixteen (16)). Vitesse wants to play a more prominent role in the life of the younger supporters. In doing so, Vitesse is searching for answers to how they can (re)connect with the younger supporters.
Research and design aimDuring the analysis phase, a user study is done to understand how the younger supporters of Vitesse fulfill their fundamental needs within the context of football. The second objective is to find out whether the fulfillment of their fundamental needs differs from older generations. The study aims to identify elements that affect the fundamental needs defined by Desmet and Fokkingga (2018) to find which needs affect the emotional bond with Vitesse subsequently. The main insight derived from the user study is; the younger supporter of Vitesse supports Vitesse in their own since most of their peers support other football clubs. While the need to support collectively is present. They get in contact with their peers mainly through Fifa and other digital channels; fulfilling their need for belonging and relatedness and creating a more significant distance between them and Vitesse. This led to the aim to design an activity between fellow supporters and peers that allows them to grow social relationships, where the activity is guided and organized by Vitesse and its football players.
Vitesse Buiten Spel‘Vitesse Buiten Spel’ is a game platform based on football battles that allow the younger supporters to play football against and with each other at different places throughout Arnhem. The concept lifts playing football outside to a higher level by providing battles that are guided and demonstrated by the team of Vitesse and linked to specific places in Arnhem, aiming to achieve a positive social impact in Arnhem. The game is built-up in four elements that form a connection between the users, Arnhem and Vitesse to create a sense of belonging and relatedness. These elements are; (1) Who - Peers, (2) What - Play & Discover, (3) Where - Arnhem, (4) How - Game. An app is developed to connect the four elements creating a connection between the game platform and the real world.
Although the fulfillment of relatedness and belonging is difficult to assess, the user evaluation with children between the ages of twelve to sixteen years old in Arnhem reveals that ‘Buiten Spel’ helps to connect them to fellow peers and supporters. Moreover, the evaluation shows that the concept allows them to grow social relationships, stimulating them to be more involved with Vitesse while taking playing outside to a higher level.

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.

The design of the white cane, the most used mobility aid for visually impaired, has not changed significantly since the mid-20th century. New concepts and technological solutions have failed to catch on. However, the cane seems unappealing and outdated to some potential users. Margot Scheltema, the initiator of this graduation project, is a future cane user. She feels that the current cane design is alien from her identity and she feels reluctant to use it. She is not alone: due to the social stigma, many cane users feel self-conscious when using the device, some even decide not to use it, despite the mobility limitations resulting from such decision. Research After the initial desk research phase, field research was conducted to explore questions of VIP mobility. The process contributed to a high level of empathy for VIPs. Autoethnographic studies were conducted in collaboration with Thijs te Velde, to build a base of self-experience concerning VIP mobility struggles. Through the collaboration with Visio Den Haag and Margot Scheltema, different perspectives were represented in the research data. The most important mobility struggles and attitudes concerning mobility aids were identified. Positive aspects of VIP life and the inherent dilemmas were also collected. The design solution The Dot Bot is a navigation aid consisting of a network of location-specific navigational and environmental information nodes (Dots) accessible to a specific user group. The information is stored in the form of audio descriptions created by the userbase. This way virtual DotBot community facilitates the sharing of commuting know-how. The information Dots make use of existing VIP relevant infrastructural elements in the tactile paving. It is aimed to enhance the perks of being part of the VIP community, cultivating feelings of connectedness and belonging. The semantic qualities of the cane are preserved, to keep it recognisable and ensure user safety in commute. However, there are moments where the effects of impairment are preferred to keep private. For this reason, I aimed to limit the need to ask for directions and aid VIPs in cultivating pride and the feeling of competence through exercising their ability to navigate autonomously. The way the information is stored and accessed supports this: for the outsider eye accessing information from a road stud on the tactile paving is invisible. During the evaluation phase, several aspects of the DotBot concept were tested with VIP participants. In the first validation session, insights on information needs during navigation were collected. In the second validation session the envisioned interaction was evaluated by the help of functional prototypes, and feedback types were also investigated. Further studies would be needed to establish the optimal Dot density in vibrotactile feedback pattern and intensity.