Innovation is critical in driving economic growth. It fosters new products and services to move the economy forward. On the other hand, innovation requires new technologies to thrive. One such technology that has revolutionised various industries is big data. By harnessing big data, businesses can unlock valuable insights to enhance decision-making processes and ultimately encourage innovation across sectors. While big data holds the potential to drive innovation and economic growth, managing big data-enabled digital product innovation projects is challenging. Organisations need the resources, knowledge, and skills to manage these projects. In addition, companies should also be aware of the privacy and security risks associated with these big data innovation projects. Considering all the many factors influencing big data innovation projects, it is necessary to understand how they impact these projects in order to manage them well. This doctoral project answers the main research question: How do companies develop big data analytics capabilities in digital product innovation? This doctoral research identifies the different factors that influence big data innovation projects and reveals the mechanisms behind how these factors influence each other and affect digital product innovation. This research contains a multiple-case study with four cases to explore the answers to the research questions. The case studies analysed four new digital service development projects from four big companies operating in different industries (i.e. transportation, internet, navigation, and cybersecurity) in the past five years. In these cases, big data from various sources are used as input for machine learning and statistical models to enable digital product innovation. For collecting research data for this study, the semi-structured interview protocol was used, focusing on the process of using big data in innovation projects, the challenges and factors that affect this process, and its consequences. This study’s findings highlight the mechanism of how antecedents influence big data analytics capabilities (BDAC) and subsequently impact innovation performance. The study applies the resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capabilities view as theoretical frameworks to clarify the mechanism behind enhancing innovation performance. It investigates the antecedents of BDAC constructs, explores the interactions among these constructs, and evaluates their effects on innovation performance. This research enriches the existing literature by revealing how BDAC constructs promote their development, unveiling the dynamics within BDAC, and emphasising the vital role of data variety. Furthermore, it extends the literature by uncovering novel connections between dynamic capabilities and BDAC and between environmental uncertainty and BDAC, broadening the scope of environmental uncertainty and examining the effects of BDAC constructs on innovation performance. For practitioners, this research suggests that innovation performance can be ultimately improved by enhancing data variety and establishing supportive internal and external environments for BDAC. ... Read more

This graduation project is carried out for PostNL's XL parcel delivery. PostNL is one of the biggest delivery companies in the Netherlands and one of their departments takes care of XL parcel delivery. This department is called Extra@Home. XL parcels can be seen as non-regular parcels, meaning odd sizes or weights. For Extra@Home, the XL parcel delivery comes with a delivery, installation and assemblage service. Products varying from wardrobes to washing machines can be delivered, assembled and installed in the customer's house.

Extra@Home proposed a graduation internship to analyse the current customer journey to search for possible service optimisations. Context analysis and literature research outline the graduation project's context.

The customer journey was composed with literature review and user research insights. User research was conducted by interviewing expert, experiencing a service delivery, interviewing Extra@Home's customers and experiencing the communication. From the customer journey negative and positive customer experiences were derived. Negative customer experiences were evaluated with the SERVQUAL model. The SERVQUAL model provided two different design directions: Extra@Home can be more customer-oriented and services of Extra@Home can be more user-centred. Several factors led to the decision to continue with the last direction.

This direction was the start of the designing process, with the outcome of Mechanics@Home (Figure 1). It is a service designed for Extra@Home that improves the current service. It is a user-centred service, that emphasises the core values and strengths of PostNL.

Customers and mechanics of Extra@Home are put at the centre of the service. The service is a personal approach to the current service. The customer gets the opportunity to get to know the mechanic before they come to their house to deliver and install a product. The customer also receives personal communication from the mechanic with updates about their delivery.

An integration with the current PostNL app makes sure that customers have a positive experience when encountering the service of Extra@Home. Instead of a lot of different communication channels, everything can be handled in the PostNL app. Transparant communication about what happens in the service journey is essential.

From the mechanic's point of view, the service highlights the skilled mechanics, which will create a feeling of responsibility from the mechanics. This feeling of responsibility exists, because the customer knows them., because they are responsible for their service delivery and they are known by the customer.

A service blueprint outlines the service of Mechanics@Home with front- and backstage actions. For a direct implementation a service roadmap was created. This roadmap has a three-step implementation strategy and it works towards the vision of integrating Mechanics@Home completely in the PostNL app and in Extra@Home.

Finally, Mechanics@Home was validated with all the important stakeholders in this project: customers, Extra@Home, mechanics and the marketing team.
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This thesis presents the results of the research into and the development of an international growth strategy for Revolt, a B2B provider of a product-service system for EV charging.

Revolt provides charging points for electric vehicles through a subscription model. For a fixed monthly fee, customers receive a charge point, the installation, maintenance and accompanying services.

The EV market is developing rapidly and the rate of adoption of EVs is growing. Companies feel the need to provide EV charging to their employees, customers and visitors. However, they often do not have knowledge about the charging infrastructure, nor do they have the budget to invest in charging stations.

For these problems, Revolt provides a solution. By providing an all-in-one service, from technical feasibility to maintenance and backoffice systems, the customer does not need to worry about these and they can rely on Revolt’s expertise.

The Netherlands is a forefunner in the field of EVs and the charging infrastructure. Revolt has found product-market fit here, but in order to reach scale and network effects they need to expand beyond the borders of the Dutch market. For that reason, the co-founders have asked the author of this thesis to research the European market and develop an international growth strategy for Revolt.

During the research, the author was part of Revolt’s team. This allowed the author to easily get in touch with all employees, access internal documentation and experience the company culture. By integrating in the team, the author was able to gather knowledge and validate ideas quickly.

By means of a literature review, internal and external analysis, quanitative market research and qualitative market validation the author has created a market segmentation and ranking. By using design methodologies and principles, the author has developed a market entry playbook, which serves as a manual for foreign market entry. This thesis presents the results of this research.

The literature review presents an overview of traditional market entry strategy literature, supplemented with literature on resource-based analysis, effectuation logic and psychic distance. Based on the results of this review the author has developed a process for the international market selection and entry.

Based on internal and external analysis the author developed a market data dashboard which analyses and ranks markets on quanitiative factors. The results of this analyisis led to the segmentation of potential markets in mature, high-growth and easy-to-enter markets. After a resource-based analysis of the fifteen most promising markets, the author has done a micro-level research on Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Poland. This micro-level research included e.g. charging behaviour, legislation and expected needed charge points per region.

Based on the micro-level analysis and interviews with experts in Germany and Italy, the author recommends Germany as the first market to enter, more specifically the state North Rhine-Westphalia.

To assist Revolt in the foreign market entry the author has developed a market entry playbook. This playbook covers the market research, entry and validation and provides decision-making guidelines for each phase. The author ends with general and internationalisation-specific recommendations. ... Read more

One of the largest trends among young adults concerning the camping industry is the vanlife movement. As ANWB requested research into targeting Gen Z with their camping portfolio, this project dives into an analysis of the current market trends, the company and its industry and the consumer and their behavior. The ultimate goal of the project is to answer the research question: What business strategy can be designed for ANWB to activate Generation Z to become members of the association through the camping portfolio of the company?
The process starts off with orientation, using variable research techniques to gain insight into the context of the problem. It became clear that ANWB is not currently targeting the selected demographic audience well, as both their offering and their branding does not suit the consumer’s demands. Using this as the problem source, an explorative search on trends and the consumer lead to various more insights that allows for the strategy to be detailed later on in the process.
After elaborating on the widespread initial research, this document discusses the design process that has been followed. Using the first ideation round to narrow down the scope towards vanlife, a deeper dive into the consumer behavior is derived from qualitative interview. Insights into vanlife enthusiasts identifies three value drivers linked to their experience: freedom through unrestrained travel, joy of building, and the expression of identity through creative decision-making. These drivers are used to further design a concept that enables the distinction of these drivers between its service offerings.
The concept is split into two services: the hosting of workshops to repurpose vans into RVs, and the renting of these RV-vans for private use. The workshops will eventually be held in a workspace environment that also facilitates a community of van builders and vanlife enthusiasts to meet and connect.Having this community can greatly boost the naturally occurring oral advertisement for the brand, in turn tackling the current negative brand image. The rental service offers the consumer a low-investment option for experiencing vanlife first-hand, ignoring the necessity for building the van themselves. Breaking apart the act of building and travelling allows for the consumer to choose to engage with the concept however they prefer: only building, only travelling, or both.
To help ANWB target the consumer, their innovative offering should be combined with a good branding strategy. This project therefore presents a product launch campaign, with several recommendations on styling and tone of voice. Focussing communication on the adventurous experience paired with vanlife instead of the current ‘parent’ aesthetic the brand is known for is proposed to shed new light on the brand, better suiting the target group in the process.
Taken together, the roadmap presented as the result of this project presents a full strategy that covers both portfolio innovation and the marketing strategy,, thus enabling the company to successfully target the predefined demographic audience. ... Read more

This project aims to enlarge the impact of small-scale run-of-the-river hydropower for Turbulent. Turbulent has designed a unique low-head vortex hydropower turbine that creates renewable energy from the flowing of water. To find design opportunities, the company is analysed using stakeholder value mapping, a SWOT analysis, user interviewing, and Business Model Canvases. Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and Single Households are identified as interesting user groups to design for. The insights gained from interviews with IPPs are grouped in a strategic roadmap. The main insights for the IPP market revolve around the topics of partnerships, feasibility and viability studies, certification, manufacturing, and product offering.

For the single household market, a new way of working is proposed, where local contractors do most of the contact with single household clients. A customer journey for both single household clients as well as contractors is made to design a website. This website is used to test the market demand for single household turbines. Potential clients can pre-order a pico turbine (less than 5 kW) on this website (turbulentpico.be). Different price points are tested. It is found that there is enough demand for pico turbines that the design and engineering phase of the pico turbines can be started. It is recommended to start Turbulent Pico as a separate company.
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Executive summary Visiting a museum is not only about the unique collection or the information available. Visiting a museum is about the visitor. Without them, what would be the point of putting a collection on display? Exhibitions are only as relevant as they are experienced to be. In line with this thought, the graduation project presented in this thesis centres on design for museum visitor experience enhancement. Specifically, the usefulness of digital technologies in allowing visitors to experience a museum in new valuable ways is focused on as an emerging key driver for museum experience design. A conceptual framework was proposed for (re-)designing museum exhibitions to expand the visitor experience, enabled by technological add-on features. The applicability of this guiding framework by exhibition designers in the field was illustrated with a proof of concept, developed for the case of a fictional museum exhibition on pre-Columbian adornment artefacts. These results were achieved through a design process consisting of phases of contextual research, practical research, development, evaluation and discussion. In the contextual research phase, the involved stakeholders were identified and described, and studies were conducted on the principles of museum experience, the potential uses for digital technologies in enhancement, the role of gamification in effectuating visitor participation in tech-enabled learning interactions, the state of the art of digital technologies considered for the development of add-on features, and finally the financial confines and dependencies to development typical for the museum sector. The practical research activities, these being an observational study in a museum and a generative session with museum visitors, served to validate prior findings and complement these with additional insights gathered. The proposed conceptual design framework and corresponding proof of concept would be developed through a bottom-up 'Research through Design' process, iteratively building upon knowledge acquired through progressive development. The proposed designs would be evaluated with the involvement of target stakeholders, contributing to further validation of the proposed designs as well as additional considerations for concept design processes. Further recommendations for development of the proposed designs and for exhibition design more generally, as well as the limitations of the study presented in the thesis, are presented as a follow-up. The project was concluded by stating the need for the proposed framework to be used by exhibition makers in real-life design settings in order to learn more about potential adjustments to the framework to better support exhibition design processes. ... Read more

For an incredibly long time, what exactly happens between the legs of female-sex people has been a great mystery.
It‘s not common to talk about our vulvas and how we feel about them in detailed and specific terms - and yes it‘s vulva and not vagina, the vulva is the entire external genital area, the vagina is merely the internal muscle canal.
It‘s so unusual that many women lack the vocabulary to describe their genitals and the education that‘s practised in the school system is sporadic and often only focused on reproduction.
And the vagina is by no means the star of the show and definitely not the female equivalent of the penis. This is the clitoris, which is by no means just a little (apparently difficult to find) knob above the vaginal opening, but is a large and complex organ located beneath the skin‘s surface. A more or less fun fact, for example, is that it was not until 1998 that the complete anatomy of the clitoris was revealed in a study by the Australian urologist Helen O‘Connell (Fyfe, 2018). In fact, most anatomical books don‘t even show the clitoris and therefore not depicting the vulva correctly. Let that sink in.
Conversations about sexuality, well-being or pleasure find no place and lead to misconceptions, rumours and often leave people wondering „Am I normal?“.
This thesis aims to answer the question “How might a concept car look like for Yoni” as means of process and deliverable exploration for The Young.
In essence this thesis is about the world and future of vulvas and which role Yoni could play to ultimately facilitate positive change in people’s lives.
To explore this notion the method of developing a “concept car” was used to deliver a tangible representation of this future brand scenario.
And because the social climate is changing and brands are increasingly acting as amplifiers of cultural trends and the introduction of questions and topics into the mainstream of society. At this point Yoni joins the conversation. Yoni has been offering organic 100% cotton period products since 2015 after the founder found that the products recommended to her by her gynaecologist were not only unavailable to the majority of consumers but regular period products did not list their ingredients and were full of synthetic fibres.
That‘s why Yoni made it its mission to offer better products, products one would trust to touch their most intimate body part. Yoni wanted to change the market for more transparency and a higher standard of menstrual products and has achieved this, especially in recent years. Big brands are now also offering organic alternatives, explaining the ingredients of their products on the packaging or at least online and other brands have followed Yoni‘s lead. But with the constant fulfilment of the initial mission, it is time to find a new drive, a new vision.
And the time is ripe to do so, people are excited and ready to overcome their inhibitions and have meaningful conversations about their vulvas, and are eager for opportunities to learn. And the market is not yet oversaturated with offerings.
To answer the question of what exactly happens in the world of the vulva, this work started with in-depth research both in an interview study and in extensive literature and media research. It was about exploring the behaviour, feelings, culture, history and economy regarding vulvas and menstruation.
The market, consumer and context research resulted in four distinct directions Yoni could follow in the future to have a positive impact on their users‘ lives. These directions were about pushing the menstruation conversation in society further, for more social justice, to build strong communities of people with vulvas to overcome gaps of knowledge and wisdom, to unlock knowledge about hormonal cycles beyond the binary view of period on-period off and finally to discover how to bring vulva care to the forefront of people’s attention to share knowledge, facilitate experiences and overcome bodily shame.
In close collaboration with Yoni one direction was chosen as the means for Yoni to facilitate meaningful positive impact in the lives of their users and subsequently use this direction as a vehicle for organisational transformation and future vision.
This direction is called “vulva care” and targets the redefinition of what true vulva care might mean on a time axis of 1 to 5 years. At the end of this axis stands the concept product of vulvovaginal microbiome testing and personalised vulvar care products which acts as a beacon for creative brand development.
To make this concept product more accessible from an organisational point of view, the product was contextualised in a three step roadmap showcasing three distinct steps on how the company might develop for their current offering and structure towards a focus on vulvovaginal care using digital and care products infused with science and technology to ultimately future-proof a brand with incredible potential.
At the final pages of the report you will find the translation of this concept product into a website and digital product prototype illustrating how Yoni’s brand future might look like.
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This project is executed in collaboration with Eveon Containers, a young start-up in the online retail of containers, as part of my Master thesis. In consultation with Eveon Containers, I decided to integrate the project and implement the results directly within the current business processes and assignments. The ideas and results solved the current needs and problems within the start-up. The project resulted in a practical solution presented as a vision for the coming eight years and consist of five deliverables that address important future subjects such as sustainability, the changing needs of customers, and market transformation. These deliverables take the form of a research report deconstructing the container market, a trend report looking at the upcoming eight years, a brand strategy to stand out in the market as the leader in container trading, and a roadmap with services and products that re-shape the value of a container. Additionally, I designed a book for the internal branding and culture of the company.

It is an industry-wide, sociopolitical problem that makes improvements in the container market on efficiency and sustainability difficult and slows down the modernisation of the supply chain and shipping process. For example, most ports still use manual and paper-based processes without access to digital technology, creating a polarised environment (Shrives, 2021). For retail, container trading is a traditional, opaque process still using old practices; prices are not published and depend on how much experience you have in trading. Next to that, many parties are involved, between the moment a container is sold by a shipping line and the final purchase by the end-user. A, not at all, modernised process compared to today’s retail and e-commerce. The inefficient process is caused by the lack of knowledge, lack of trust, difference in interests and expectations in the market, and the nature of the maritime industry (Poh Chua, 2021). Other reasons for inefficiencies in the market are caused by a difference in export and import recourses and needs. The result of this is the congestion at ports, the empty movements of containers (Sanders et al., 2021), and the extreme high pick-up fees for new containers in China (Remes & Saxon, 2021).

In the next ten years, significant trends will change how we look at sustainability, technology and digitalisation. The container as we know it today will be less, or even no longer, relevant. First of all, customers - businesses and consumers - expect more from their products regarding connectivity and the experience of purchasing and using a product or service. Therefore, it is unsurprising that the developed products, services, and strategy look beyond the container as a product. In ten years, container retail will be focused on smart containers and the additional services of data analytics and insights. Besides unique features and functionalities, an exceptionally seamless and smooth user experience will make or break a company. The designed 2030 strategy for Eveon is based on these insights. ... Read more

In the past decade, food waste has accepted intensive attention from society. It is increasingly acknowledged that approximately one-quarter of the food for human consumption is wasted throughout the food supply chain (Papargyropoulou , 2014). At the Delft University of Technology, It organizes a vast meeting every day in different facilities. The banquet service with the company of Cirfood would be the food supplier to provide the lunch for the guests during the meeting. Typically, the orderer needs to book the food from the “Banque” website, the official and only platform that merely offers the food for the Delft University of Technology.
In contrast, it must go through a long journey from booking the food to disposing of the food with conference organizers, the secretariat who is also the orderer, and the Cirfood caterer in a different stage. The project figures out the workflow of the banquet service and understands the problems of different stakeholders that meet during the process that cause food waste. The design solution achieved the vision: I envision a seamless banquet service aiming to help the organizers, orderers and audience collaborate to reduce food waste. The project ends with the holistic banquet service concept, which integrates with the website, APP, and packages to apply numerous design interventions for multiple stakeholders to meet their value towards collaborating to reduce food waste. In addition, validation has proven that the new service concept could achieve the goal of the design vision.
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As main contractor at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, BAM Infra Energie & Water strives for optimal asset maintenance for each and every one of their assets. In order to achieve this, one of the components which needs to be improved are the amount of malfunctions of Schiphol’s sewage pumping stations. These are caused by all types of obstructions, but especially towels and wipes. So far, BAM’s technically oriented solutions have not shown sufficient improvement. This was the base for this graduation project, in which I took a designerly, human oriented approach into solving the obstructions. I have tried to solve the obstructions at the source: the passengers at the airport. The goal of this project is to design a behavioural intervention, to prevent passengers from flushing waste down the toilets in the first instance. After reviewing research done into behavioural change and toilet design, as well as an evaluation of the stakeholders involved, a user research was set up to identify the behaviour which causes the flushing of waste and the reasons behind this. This was done in the form of exploratory interviews among a population representative of the possible visitors passing by at the airport. With the initial research, five design directions were established as a basis for ideation: signage, waste bins, towel dispensers, removing opportunity and feedback. A myriad of solutions were combined into an initial concept proposal, to be refined into a final, two-part concept: 1. A design of a new, user friendly and hygiene oriented waste bin, to be implemented in the individual toilet cubicles. The availability and user oriented design needs to make throwing waste into the bin more attractive than flushing it. 2. A repositioning of the cleaning personnel, where they are more in the forefront in a host-like manner. This will establish a connection with the passengers to give them a feeling of responsibility over the cleanliness of the toilet area, as well as a feeling of being watched to ensure the passenger behaves better. Combining these two interventions should trigger the passenger enough to lower the amount of waste being flushed and eventually the number of obstructions in the pumps. To confirm whether this concept actually achieves the intended behavioural change, a second user test was performed, in which the user group gave their thoughts on the new situation with the help of a use scenario to help them imagine themselves in this situation. With the user evaluation, as well as in-depth interviews with the three main stakeholders, BAM, Schiphol and cleaning company Vebego, the concept was optimised for implementation. The concept and its implementation came together in the final strategy, which consists of a detailed plan for a six month pilot to evaluate the effects in real life and the possible definite implementation of the concept after that. ... Read more

Food is of great significance in the lives of Chinese people. In addition to nutrition, it is also closely related to emotions, social interactions, environment, and culture. China's food culture is not only diverse but also developed its own characteristics in various regions. In recent years, the phenomenon of Chinese young people migrating to big cities has become more widespread. It is inevitable that many people have moved to new cities, but find that they are facing a completely different eating environment. Some people have trouble deal with the situation and lead to an imbalanced diet. Imbalance in diet can cause many negative effects on people's lives, such as lacked nutrition and obesity. In order to help young Chinese migrants adapt to the local diet, how should they be encouraged to try new foods? In this project, through literature research and user research, a deep insight into the life status and needs of the target group was gained. After that, through multiple iterations, a mobile application developed for them was tested and evaluated. This project aims to provide a relaxing and fun way to explore new foods for young migrants. The idea behind this is to strengthen their emotional connection with the local area through the exploration of new foods here, thereby having a positive impact on their overall lifestyle. ... Read more

The initial goal of this graduation project was to find a way to establish a reliable digital relationship with PostNL’s consumer. This is considered an important part of a digital transformation strategy that is necessary for traditional postal companies to stay relevant in a digital era. One of the main challenges of this digital era, relevant for PostNL, is the increasing uncertainty of knowing who one is dealing with online. This assignment focuses on the idea of implementing a digital identity (eID) that can be used during digital and physical encounters with PostNL and is able to provide the desired certainty to ensure a more safe and seamless service. Thereby the focus during this project is especially on how this digital identity can be established, with whom and which certainties are absolutely necessary for doing so. Digital identities that enable a consumer to prove who he or she is online, can exist out of multiple attributes that define this (online) user. Worldwide these digital identities are increasingly being adopted by companies active in multiple service industries, including LSPs. However, this does not mean that companies can simply request all kinds of data from their consumers to confirm the needed attributes. With regard to regulations including those concerned with privacy (GDPR), they are required to keep data processing to a minimum and are therefore only allowed to request data that is absolutely necessary. For PostNL, it was found that sufficient desired certainty would be possible to be established by personal validation or address validation. Although consumers do see PostNL as a reliable party (the most reliable within the Netherlands), they do not seem to be willing to (digitally) share sensitive personal information such as a picture of their ID with PostNL. Address validation on the other hand does not require too much personal information about an individual but does provide the assurance that that individual has a high probability of righteous access to the address he/she uses online. For PostNL this is most important since they provide logistics services at these addresses. As a privatized company that is not allowed to simply make use of governmental databases, PostNL is currently mainly dependent on other (commercial) parties. However, it is highly desired to establish certainty themselves, create and keep data internal. This resulted in the suggestion of a multilayered address validation system enable to establish different types of address certainty. In the ideal situation, a consumer should be processed through as many layers as possible to realize maximum certainty. Thereby the starting point is to make it as convenient as possible for consumers while raising a threshold as high as possible for fraudsters. Not only does this strengthen security, but it also increases the reach as each type is being preferred by a different group of consumers. It also enables PostNL to create, use and keep internal data while offering significant added value for the consumers in return. One element of this system has shown high potential and was selected for further elaboration, namely Stikky: a smart solution that combines the physical with the digital. It enables consumers to prove that they have righteous access to an address, while simultaneously adding significant value to them. As a result, this enables PostNL to achieve a higher first-time-right while simultaneously making it more difficult for malicious people to commit package fraud. Interesting target groups for Stikky are considered: frequent orderers, digital-savvy millennials living in urbanized areas, and worried receiving consumers. Finally, a design roadmap has been discussed that shows the long term strategy towards a multi-purpose eCommerce-ID. To have a starting point for this, also a short-term implementation plan has been provided that guides Stikky the way to a successful market introduction within six months. ... Read more

Many non-profit organizations (NPO’s) in the Netherlands have lost a large amount of donors over the last years. This thesis explores the use of behavioural influence design, applied in an online solution, in order to improve donor engagement for the well-known NPO WWF. The thesis focuses at creating long-term engagement with donors in the age class between 18 and 35. People in this target group want to be flexible when it comes to making donations, want their own impact to be specific and tangible and rather take action themselves, in a personal and individual manner, when it comes to environmental goals. Furthermore, this is an age group that is very active online, especially on social media, which is interesting for the online solution space. As WWF-NL wants to create a society-wide movement, showing people that there are more ways to contribute to their mission for a sustainable society, beyond donating (like adjusting sustainable behaviour or investing time), it seemed an interesting opportunity to improve engagement with this group and connect with them on the common interest of contributing beyond donations. With the help of literature and successful exemplar cases on engagement, guidelines haven been created for improving the different levels of engagement (cognitive, emotional and behavioural) in relation to the target group. Also, the field of behavioural economics, which assumes the irrational thinking and decision making processes of human beings, has been explored to see how behavioural influence design could be applied to improve the (different levels of) engagement. The conclusion of this exploration is that behavioural influence design should not (just) be implemented in the smaller details of online expressions; it should be part of the broader strategy, where it is used to improve individual (in this case sustainable) behaviour of the target group. Again, with exemplar cases and literature, guidelines for improving engagement with the help of behavioural influence have been created. The guidelines and insights for improving engagement with the help of design for behavioural influence are combined in a strategy. Its details, that make it a WWF-specific approach, are shown in a roadmap, with supporting directional concepts. To successfully reach the vision of this roadmap, all parts of the horizon must be followed carefully. The remainder of the project focused on horizon 2 of the roadmap, to provide WWF with a specific and tangible project to pick up and carry on after my graduation; the development of the WWFxYOU app. The goal of this app was to create a personalized relationship between the target group and WWF, based on the motivation to create impact (on an individual level). A first test, with 10 in-depth interviews with participants from the target group, had promising results; the app was described as a personal, approachable, (inter)active and involving way of contributing to WWF and seemed more attractive than current (WWF) donorships. A redesign is made based on the interviews. For further validation, I recommended to improve and test this design with a larger participant sample, before actual implementation. ... Read more

Kollekt, a provider of background music for businesses positions itself in the competition heavy market landscape as a bespoke music strategy provider. Their personal and totally customised approach is what differentiates them from their competitors and helps them to deliver satisfying results to their clients. However, this amount of detailed attention causes unstructured processes and inefficient ways of working. This project structured and analysed the specific steps in the bespoke music strategy consult and simplified them. Moreover, using in-depth interviews with clients, seven design guidelines for the consult were constructed. These design guidelines were used to design a new service proposition, based on the newly structured consult, to guide the client during the process. This new proposition is the first iteration towards a client focussed consult experience, increasing the perceived value of the consult, while reducing work pressure for the Kollekt team. The concept has been validated and delivered promising results for the future. ... Read more

In recent years, a preference for purpose-driven brands, brands that display values and intentions beyond simply making profit, is increasing amongst consumers. However, this growing preference comes along with brands that use purpose as an opportunity for marketing purposes, creating skepticism in consumer’s mind about the authenticity of the brand. As a consquence, purpose-driven brands encounter an intention-behavior gap. Thus, there is a need for brand authenticity in brand development. This thesis draws links between purpose-driven, brand authenticity and brand development literature, of which a theoretical framework is developed and applied to a case study for Forestwise to build a beauty consumer brand. Forestwise is a Dutch social enterprise, located in Indonesia, offering harvested rainforest ingredients for the food, beauty and personal care industry (B2B market). The thesis resulted in designs for Forestwise that are a stepping stone for the new brand to inspire potential partners and use as a discussion tool to further develop the new brand. 1. Roadmap 2. A brand book 3. Brand narrative 4. Brand touchpoints examples. . This thesis suggests a new approach to purpose-driven development by regarding brand authenticity factors. However, the value and effectiveness to this approach remains uncertain. It is suggested to do further research regarding these topics. ... Read more

The aim of this project is to bring more eco-design into business practices. The specific approach to this project is to bring eco-design methods to startup with an introduction via the Lean Startup method. With the help of input of startup founders, a solution has been found in the form of an opportunity identification tool. This tool allows users to see how eco-design can benefit their business and how any changes induced by eco-design criteria will affect the business. This tool, called Improvement Identifier Canvas, is useable with the iterative approach applied in the Lean Startup. This allows to keep track of the ever evolving business and effect of eco-design changes. ... Read more

This thesis explores the topic of ‘embedding strategic value in blockchain development’ within the context of blockchain consultancy startup GoBlock. The result of this research was a process framework together with a workshop for validating a blockchain use case’s strength and potential.

In recent years, blockchain technology has gained tremendous popularity. The Bitcoin craze of 2017 has led many people and companies to explore the core technology behind it: blockchain. This has resulted in a large influx of capital into the industry, as many companies are now looking to reap the widely speculated advantages this technology might offer.
However, with the rise of its popularity there were also challenges that arose for companies experimenting with blockchain. First, the technology itself is still rather immature. There are no product archetypes which are considered to be industry standard. For some, Bitcoin is still the ‘perfect use case’ of blockchain, but many disagree. This has led to many projects trying to reinvent the wheel. To do this, significant expertise and manpower is required. This has led to a strong rise in demand for blockchain knowledge, in particular blockchain developers.

GoBlock, a blockchain consultancy startup based in Amsterdam, recognizes this need and views it as opportunity. With a strong development department, they are looking to cater to the need of blockchain expertise. After all, a lot of money has been poured into the industry, and with milestones not being hit and succesful product launches being extremely rare, the pressure is on for these companies.

This thesis hence aims to provide GoBlock with a way to structure their blockchain consulting process. The goal was to do this in a way that would result in the creation of succesful products (i.e. products providing value), as this is lacking in the industry.

Initial findings showed that the blockchain industry, and with that blockchain projects, are largely dominated by engineers and developers. This results in a technology-centered approach to blockchain development. Research showed that a multidisciplinary and design-driven approach can benefit blockchain development, both on a product level and on an innovation level.

An analysis of current consulting practices was conducted. It was found that the industry leader (IBM) utilizes Design Thinking methods in parts of their consulting process. However, it was concluded that the majority of competitors apply the technology-centered approach. Hence, herein lies an opportunity for GoBlock to distinguish themselves from the competition, while better addressing market needs.

Additionally, a company analysis was conducted. First, a case study was done to study goBlock’s previous processes. This showed that there was a fundamental lack of structure in GoBlock’s process. Moreover, the case study brought forward three main challenges that hinder the success of a blockchain product. These are:
1. Blockchain technology is used for cases in which the technology does not need to be used.
2. The strategic impact of a blockchain use case is not evident for the customer’s business. It is not always clear how business value will be created, if at all.
3. Stakeholder needs (i.e. user values) are left out of the equation. By not taking into account user needs and values, products are created that might never be adopted.

Therefore, this thesis proposes the addition of a validation step in GoBlock’s process. GoBlock can play a key role in assessing the validity of blockchain use cases before engaging in a development project with their customer. This can not only benefit the technology’s reputation, but applying user-centered approach to blockchain use case development allows GoBlock to distinguish themselves from competition.

To achieve this, a process framework is designed based on literature research and findings from expert interviews. This process framework contains two overall phases: validation and creation. In the first phase, GoBlock sits with the customer to assess the validity and potential of the customer’s use case. In this phase the use case can be reshaped and finetuned. This, in order to make sure that when the project reaches the development phase, an actual valuable product is developed, rather than just a pilot.
The goal of the workshop is to spark awareness about blockchain’s actual strategic impact, and that people in the blockchain industry should look beyond the technological realm to determine whether a use case is good or not. If mass adoption is to be reached, a user-centered approach is needed. This is where Design Thinking can be of value.

The framework and workshop were validated with students and the company, leading to recommendations for further development. ... Read more

This master thesis describes the process of introducing a healthy vending concept in the Dutch market. This concept enables PepsiCo Benelux to increase the sales and visibility of their healthier product portfolio. This is done by introducing a new sales strategy: healthy vending machines which serve as a solution for daily snacking. It offers a trustworthy and healthier product portfolio than traditional vending machines to busy millennials. This thesis includes the selection of the target market, target group, selected assortment and route to market. In addition, a marketing and business plan is provided to introduce this concept to the Netherlands. ... Read more

Artificial intelligence (AI) has come to the fore and is now expected to be one of the most disruptive technologies. It is easy to tell that AI will become pervasive in our everyday life. However, people still lack confidence in AI. Since trust is crucial in the development and acceptance of AI, it is essential to design for proper trust in the human-AI relationship to make people benefit from the technological advance. In this project, the challenge of trust in AI is explored in collaboration with Exact. Exact is one of the market-leading business software companies in the Netherlands. Following the trend of automation in the business software industry, Exact comes up with the future vision of Robotic Accounting and integrate AI into their product Exact Online. However, the users seem to stay behind in adopting these automatic features. Through initial interviews, they find that the lack of trust is one critical reason behind the low adoption. Thus, the design assignment is to “find out the reasons that cause a low trust and adoption of users for automation within Exact Online, and design a solution to promote the trust and usage towards Exact existing and to-be designed AI features.” To understand the background and why trust is such a challenging topic in AI, the project starts with literature reviews around AI and trust. Then trust models are studied to build the theoretical structure of what is trust and how is trust formed. Besides the literature review, the context of Exact and bookkeeping is also studied to define the background of this project and guide the design concept. After the analysis of trust theories and context background, two rounds of user research is conducted to know how users trust AI functions in Exact Online, and how will different elements influence their trust towards : the quantitative research and the qualitative research. The quantitative research is based on the theoretical framework of trust to validate and prioritized the elements, while the qualitative research is more explorative and could explain the elements with real experience. Insights are generated from the two rounds of research and guide the solution design. After the research, a strategy pyramid is created for Exact. The strategy pyramid consists of four layers. The first layer is the vision: trust AI like trust your best assistant; The second layer is the strategy: take care of trust for the whole journey; The third layer is the tactical layer: the trust-building guideline. And the last layer is the operationalization: the envisioned product. The last two layers are further designed. The trust-building guideline is designed as a toolkit that could provoke discussion round trust in the AI development process, and the envisioned product is a redesigned version of Exact Online based on the trust-building guideline. Both the two design concepts are being tested, iterated, and evaluated. ... Read more

Business is becoming increasingly competitive as companies aim to deliver superior product experiences to their customers. To establish innovative results and compete with smaller, more flexible companies, corporates look for new ways to organize themselves. In the light of these developments, design is moving beyond approach to improve aesthetics, towards a more strategic role in new product development.

The way designers think and act forms the basis of Design Thinking (DT). DT has been introduced in a range of organizations as a problem solving approach that helps teams deliver more innovative outcomes. The concept is represented through cognitive principles, practices, and process steps supported by specific design methods.

Many companies claim to have successfully implemented DT in their organization. Increased innovation is most frequently mentioned as benefit of using DT. Other effects range from reduced investment risk in product development, to increased employee engagement. Anecdotal reports on the value of DT are plentiful but lack detail, for example on the type of innovation output that can be expected. There is still little empirical evidence on the value of DT.

Organizational change, specifically in the innovation domain, clashes with current business processes. Hurdles to implement new management concepts can be expected, but there are no studies that specify how challenges to implementing DT can be overcome.

This thesis describes a case study on implementing DT in project teams at Exact. Exact is a Dutch company with about 1500 employees that delivers business software, with a focus on financial processes, The firm recently founded a new team of internal designers, dedicated to spread DT in project teams. The graduation project is a collaboration between the Delft University of Technology and Exact with the aim to measure design practices and impact and propose focus points to improve DT at Exact.

The study compares projects at Exact that ran during the DT program, with a group of benchmark projects, to track the effects of the DT program on project processes and outcomes. An internal survey was conducted with 43 respondents, evaluating the maturity of the design principles: user centricity, collaboration, tangibility, ideation and an experimental and optimistic mindset.
The survey also included measures for project outcomes. Context specific benefits of design practices were explored through correlation analysis of the design principles and project outcomes.
To determine triggers and barriers for project teams to apply DT, qualitative data was collected in eight employee interviews. Common challenges to using DT were prioritized with employees in four sessions.

Most activities in the DT program focused on enhancing user centricity or improving ideation practices. This led to a significant increase in the perceived user centricity in project teams compared to projects before the DT program, Also users indicated more unique benefits in products that resulted from recent projects. Besides user centricity, other strong design practices are collaboration and an experimental an optimistic mindset.
On the other hand, ideation measures scored relatively low and did not improve over time. Organizational barriers, such as subjective scoping and pressured time frames, pose barriers to creating multiple solution options. Also lower scores were found for tangibility, which includes visual thinking and prototyping activities.

Multiple positive correlations occurred between design practices and project outcomes. Practices related to ideation showed most positive correlations. Multidisciplinary teamwork and tolerance to failure also showed many correlations, indicating a high impact on project outcomes. The main value of DT in the context of Exact is improved the quality of products and enhanced teamwork. No significant negative correlations were found, underlining that DT does not block planning and budget goals.

Research results are used to design a strategy to improve design practices and their effect on project outcomes at Exact.

Focus points for the short and long term are identifies based on the survey results. Ideation is a focus point on the short term. Due to the low maturity level and high potential value, quick wins are expected in this area. A next step is to invest in increasing impact of prototyping and finally to invest in design as a strategic deriver by creating dedicated spaces and hiring design leaders. These last recommendations are based on an analysis of DT implementation strategies at other corporate firms.

To improve ideation, more detailed recommendations are made on organizational and team level. On organizational level, it is suggested to balance a portfolio of validation and exploration projects. Also, by a-synchronizing research and conceptualization activities with the technical development, more time can be dedicated to DT. For teams, a new standard ideation process is proposed with four steps: prepare, ideate, concertize and select. Complementary tools are provided to support each process step.

Tho conclude, this thesis work provides insights into the maturity and value of DT in the context of an established software firm. A step-wise approach strengthen DT in the organization is proposed.
Other companies can use the measurement tools used in this thesis to identify context specific strengths and weaknesses in design practices and create their own strategy to improve the impact of DT.
The ideation process and tools that are introduced in this project are generally applicable for firms that wish to enhance diverging and converging abilities in new product development. ... Read more