The growth of dating apps has changed the way relationships are formed. These applications have enabled users to widen their dating pool of potential partners through profile recommendations based on proximity and shared interests. However, dating app usage was also found to impact well-being negatively, with the AI systems of these platforms, contributing to it. In this project it was therefore explored how well-being can be enhanced, by mitigating the detrimental impacts of dating apps.

Contextualising well-being
Literature research was conducted to explore the features within a dating app along with its effect on well-being. By linking the various experiences with dating apps to well-being theories, a theoretical model could be developed. This contextual model of well-being was validated in a participatory workshop with dating app users. Findings from this workshop indicated that autonomy and relatedness were mostly affected, especially during the profile setup, which also influenced the overall app experience such as during swiping.

Operationalising well-being
As relevant constructs were identified for further study, it was necessary to determine how these facets of well-being could be measured, in particular for the context of dating apps. In-depth research on the relationship between autonomy and relatedness indicated that in order for people to become more autonomous (showing one’s true self to others), the need for relatedness (being understood or feeling a sense of belonging) had to be fulfilled first. For dating apps, a sense of relatedness could be achieved through sharing similar interests (or by experiencing a sense of belonging) with others, while autonomy relied on choosing qualities that are not necessarily desirable, but valuable to the user themselves (when it concerned self-expression).

Optimising well-being
Based on these insights, a design direction was formulated. This concerned, enhancing social connection by highlighting individuality (uniqueness of a person) within similarity (through a shared connection). This direction was used as a base for ideation. AI Ideation cards, which showcased the capabilities of the technology, were utilised. The possible interactions enabled by the technology were linked to desirable well-being outcomes defined previously.

Implementing well-being
This resulted in the design of a new dating app, MiHue. The app highlights a person’s unique attribute and tries to find a common ground with others either through an uncommon trait or through mutual passions. The experience of autonomy and relatedness upon this design was measured and the outcomes were used for recommending future cycles.

Initiating a new cycle
For the next cycle, it was recommended that other well-being related aspects which were not considered in the design, but present in the theoretical model (such as self-acceptance, positive emotions and physical health) to be considered for future research. Furthermore, it was advised that the involvement of minorities should also be included and that gender differences should be taken into account for the next cycle. ... Read more

This project is an inquiry into design for mind-wandering experiences. The project has applied a blend of Introspective Design, Research through Design and Co-creation methods to gather a nuanced understanding of mind-wandering experiments. The scope of the project is situated on the overlap of six dimensions that allowed us to form a fruitful stance. The project focused on individual creativity of novice designers, who are working from home. The proposed design solution is a product that will support a deliberate mind-wandering break of novice designers with homogenisation of perceptual information. The proposed design concept focuses on providing low variability organic change of visual information to create homogenisation of visual sensory information. The project provides arguments for conceptual understanding of the effect of homogenisation breaks to support deliberate mind-wandering.

The proposed design was a result of the insights gathered throughout four phases of the project: theory research, context research, co-creation, and research through Design. The effect of the product on creativity was measured with a predictor of creative performance—self-efficacy. ... Read more

Our current food system puts a lot of pressure on our planet, global health, animal welfare, and creates an unfair agricultural economy. One of the strategies to decrease this pressure while serving the growing population is the protein transition. As Weinricht (2018) states, “Shifting our collective diet from eating mainly animal proteins to focusing on more plant-based proteins”. Currently this transition does not resonate with everyone. Not everyone is willing or able to participate.

One of the stakeholders working in this context is the Voedingscentrum (the Netherlands Nutrition Centre). The Voedingscentrum aims to encourage consumers to eat less meat. Additionally, they are seeking interventions to reach people with a low socioeconomic position (or ‘SEP’). Due to more pressing concerns, this group often has limited capacity to make long-term changes, such as adopting a healthier and more sustainable diet.

The goal of this project is to design an intervention that addresses resistance in the protein transition and enables the Voedingscentrum to reach people with a low SEP who are unwilling or unable to embrace the protein transition.

To determine a fitting design direction, the project began with research into the protein transition, consumers with a low SEP, and behavior change theory related to resistance. This was accomplished through various research activities, including literature and field reserach. The collected insights led to ten clusters representing the factors that influence people’s behavior in this context. Structuring these clusters and evaluating the resulting social context led to the following design goal:

“To facilitate a healthy shift towards a more plant-based diet, we want to help consumers feel secure in such a change by stimulating them to joyfully follow others.”

The designed concept, ‘Spaar je vol’, is a savings campaign or ‘spaaractie’ that allows consumers to save stamps while grocery shopping. With a full card of stamps, these customers receive a healthy vegetarian meal box containing fresh ingredients for a meal for four persons. The meals are created by the Voedingscentrum and come with easy-to-follow instructions. This campaign offers the Voedingscentrum a practical way to influence what people consume without relying solely on their ability to obtain, understand, assess, and use health information for decision-making. The variety of meal boxes offers vegetarian options without explicitly stating it, promoting a shift towards a healthier protein consumption pattern and reinforcing the new norm.

To cater to consumers with limited financial resources, supermarket customers can also donate their stamps to the Voedselbank (Food Bank). The donated stamps will be converted into donated meal boxes and distributed through the Voedselbank.

The conducted evaluation sessions provided insights from the target audience and stakeholders, demonstrating that the concept was positively received. However, additional steps need to be taken regarding the (financial) feasibility of the project.

This project contains an in-depth case study that demonstrates how behavior change theory can be applied when on dealing with resistance during the design of interventions. It offers an intervention for consumers with a low SEP and provides multiple recommendations for further steps within this domain.
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The Tensile headphone is a redesign of the HD6xx line for Sennheiser, to showcase new ideas of haptic aesthetic headphones and explore innovative directions. The project as a whole followed the Research through Design approach. That is, the design detailing of the Tensile headphone was used as a medium to gain knowledge about how aesthetic theories for product design (usually developed for the visual sense), are applicable to the haptic sense.
It was found that the researched aesthetic theories (unity - variety and novelty - typicality) can be applied to some extent to the haptic senses, with some factors to be considered. The RtD also helped understand how to better design for haptic aesthetics in headphones, but also expanding to other product categories.
There were three main design activities that led to these findings. An exploratory session with four groups of design students helped guide the design process to a haptically novel outcome. Once the design was completed, an empirical test was conducted on one aesthetic principle, testing iterations of the design. The chosen iteration was incorporated into a final design with which the second aesthetic principle was tested in a qualitative study with audiophiles (sound and audio gadget enthusiasts). ... Read more

New studies state that climate change is projected to harm snow reliability in ski resorts, resulting in shorter ski seasons, increased snowmaking demand and low-lying ski areas may cease to exist. Open Wear is a sustainable outerwear brand that uses sustainable materials and ethical production to produce clothing from 100% recycled plastic. The brand promotes sustainability in the winter sports industry but acknowledges the potential impact of climate change on the industry and its existence. The report discusses the potential changes in the winter sports industry due to ecological changes, economic interests, human experiences, and cultural values. By creating a worldview of winter sports in 2040 and designing a concept product there has been explored how the brand can innovate in this changing world. The ‘Vision in Product’ method has been used, which focuses on the ‘raison d’etre’ and uses a worldview created from various context factors such as trends, developments, and principles to design a future vision. The company’s strengths, weaknesses and potential opportunities have been analyzed, stating that especially the Open Wear community can be a great asset in the future. Literature research indicates that winter sports can still be practiced for decades to come, but low ski areas or ski areas with unfavorable locations in terms of snowfall will have to deal with less snow in the coming years. The amount of snow-reliable days seem to be decreasing exponentially. To understand the impact of these and other factors on the worldview of 2040, driving forces have been created by forming clusters of these factors. A prediction has been made about what the world will look like in 20 years. Open Wear wants to encourage environmentally conscious people to moderate their ski behavior and to keep enjoying their outdoor escapes. They can do this by making multi-sport vacations more accessible by designing clothing that is created around conditions instead of sports. A digital platform for collaboratively creating future-proof products has been designed to switch from winter clothing to multi-sport clothing. In this way, Open Wear can motivate people to continue to enjoy their outdoor escapes sustainably, without being dependent on a changing climate. ... Read more

A transition towards a sustainable food system needs to happen to ensure people can live a healthy life on this planet. Picnic as a retailer in the food system is the bridge between producers and consumers of food products. Many people hold values which are in line with the food transition, which means they care for others, the environment, and their health. During the purchase of food however, these values are not always acted upon. This can be described as a value-action gap. There is an opportunity for Picnic to support customers in closing the value-action gap for food-transition friendly grocery shopping.

There is a knowledge gap around what the values are that are important to Dutch customers when online grocery shopping, and which hurdles are present in the service of Picnic to foster the food transition. An exploratory study amongst Picnic customers shows the hurdles are formed by a lack consideration, confidence, and information. Furthermore, other values can be more important and there can be hesitancy towards change. To overcome these, dedicated moments should be created in the shopping journey to consider values. The design statement therefore is:

I want to design an experience for Picnic customers who have values in line with the food transition but do not fully act upon them, by providing them with a moment to reflect and adapt so they can become proud of their actions.

To design an experience for Picnic customers that allows for the desired behaviour, an iterative design process is used. During this process, four design guidelines are uncovered: interventions for reflection on food decisions should be controlled, specific, goal-oriented, and quick.

The final proposed intervention is a Betere Boodschappen functionality, where customers get control over their shopping environment. They reflect on their values through answering three questions and based on those answers get personal suggestions for functionalities that can help them pay more attention to their values. A mixed method study, consisting of a quantitative between-group study and qualitative interviews, is used to test the effect of the intervention. There is a positive significant effect on behaviour and behavioural control over buying sustainable groceries. Customers furthermore indicate that doing better groceries is made easier for them through the functionality, and the store feels more personal. A plan for implementation of the functionality in steps is proposed, and recommendations are made to others designing for transitions inside a business. ... Read more

In the future, the digital environment is increasingly determining how we are living together. Both young and old are being challenged in preparing themselves for a world they do not know yet. Children are growing up in a faster changing world than their parents, increasing the tension between parents and children in how they perceive the world around them. Therefore, this project focuses on the generation differences between parents and children in perceiving the digitising world. This report describes the research on digital citizenship in the current and future context and describes the concept design process derived from it. The project takes a holistic approach, using the ViP method, and is done in collaboration with the design lab of the public library in Amsterdam. The two main questions in this project are: How do parents and children relate to the digitising world? And how can they be invited in creating a common understanding of what it means to be a (digital) citizen? The research phase of the project consisted mainly of interviews with parents and children and interviews with experts, getting to know the different points of view. Literature and desk research complemented the research. The concept presented in this project is Bubbel Babbel. Bubbel Babbel is a conversation box that allows parents and children to discover their digitising world together. The box invites parents and children to step out of their bubble and lets them experience the online world through the eyes of the offline world, and vice versa. The concept fits well with the future role of libraries, which become more focused on digital transformations. Therefore, Bubbel Babbel could serve as the first tool that builds a bridge between the physical world and the digital world, letting people wonder “how do we actually see the world?”. ... Read more

Robotic delivery services can provide contactless delivery, a highly sought-after service under mandates of social distancing since the coronavirus pandemic has arisen. With the rise of autonomous delivery robots, humans' and robots' collaborative existence has become a crucial topic to be discussed. This graduation project aimed to explore the autonomous delivery robots' specific perception of the world through various factors: their purpose, intent, state, mood, personality, attention, responsiveness, intelligence, and capabilities, and through this understanding, design unique robot emotions that will foster them to communicate their unique needs. Since autonomous delivery robots have different concerns than people, they require different emotions. A speculative design approach has been utilised for this project. Speculative design serves two distinct purposes: it enables us to think about the future and critique current practice. It is based on imagination, imagining other worlds and alternatives, creating provocations, and raising questions, innovations, and explorations.

Throughout this project, several exploratory research methods were conducted to understand the delivery robots' worldview. Following, four unique robot emotions have been created. These emotions aim to serve particular concerns of the delivery robots on sidewalks. The proposed four unique emotions are called Donsul, Trittity, Loniformi and Puffalope. An online survey was conducted to examine whether people could distinguish these unique robot emotions from human emotions. The survey results show that people assumed that the robot is more likely to experience emotion when it experiences an adverse event, such as a barrier to executing its task. The project's value is not what it achieves or does but what it is and how it makes people feel, especially if it encourages people to question everydayness in an imaginative, troubling, and thoughtful way and how things could be different.
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The urge to promote mental health and well-being is gaining increasing importance and attention in recent years. Adolescents, who are among the most vulnerable under this aspect, are experiencing an increase in mental health complaints and need of youth care in the Netherlands. In addition, they perceive current means of care as inappropriate to their needs. Generally, mental healthcare remains hard to access due to its elevated costs and lack of resources. Alternative ways to promote mental well-being appear necessary. These could be provided by implementing design to mediate and promote positive activities through human-product interactions. Teenagers make heavy use of smartphones with continuous internet connection; this creates the possibility to take advantage of digital phenotyping, the practice of gaining information on users’ (mental) state by collecting and interpreting data from smartphones’ sensors and interactions. This system would allow to detect when teenagers experience risk states and provide proper (design) interventions.

This project aimed at providing designers with strategies to create interventions promoting teenagers’ mental resilience and well-being through product-mediated activities. The research entailed literature review, interviews with experts and adolescents, examination of tools, prototyping and user evaluation. The Vision in Product design and Contextmapping methods were employed. Academic stress and depressed mood were identified as the two most relevant detectable risk markers for teenagers. The goals of "making adolescents embrace resilience as a collaborative learning process by identifying purpose and stick to congruent behaviour" (for academic stress) and "by reframing negative emotions, translating them into learning opportunities" (for depressed mood) led to the development of 14 intervention design strategies. These are presented in a card deck, whose evaluation stressed the importance of implementation, detailing and user testing to reach intended impact, and the necessity to evaluate and prevent potential counteractive effects.

This work contributes to the field of Design for Well-being and specifically to the Smart-CUEing MEntal health research project, whose aim is to promote adolescents’ well-being by implementing digital phenotyping and design interventions. ... Read more

The environmental impact of our current consumption pattern on the earth is growing. The linear economy is accelerating the environment pollution and increasing the use of resources. If we want to be able to gradually move towards a circular system it is vital to include in this strategy the way products are being cared for, which is Product care. Product care is an approach to use a product as a means to catalyze consumers’ care behaviour change. It does so in a user-in-control way (you wash your coffee machine regularly without any reminder), but also in a product-in-control way (the coffee machine will stop working if you don’t wash it on time). The control degree of the product care means the degree of consumer autonomy over product care behavior and the degree of product intervention on the user.

This project is aiming to explore what is the optimal balance between these two ways when they design for product care. This goal is reached by using the research-through-design approach.

In this study, three strategies of product care with different control degrees were formulated through analyzing and combining existing strategies from circular design and behavioral change design fields. Based on three strategies, six concepts were generated to test which strategies and control degree are most effective. And the result was that users preferred the concept of a balanced product care agency.
To verify and further define the optimal balance between user in control and product in control, the control degree mechanism of product care was formulated which includes 3 aspects, 7 themes and 15 design elements. The mechanism can be used to help the designers to determine the agency of the dominant product care in the concept by determining the control degree of the design elements contained in the concept, which has been validated by the second user test.
Besides, at the end of the project, the most effective and user’s preferred scope of balance between user control and product agency in the mechanism are provided:
Awareness (The design intervention increases the awareness of product care and helps users to start care activities consciously.)：Balanced or more user-oriented
Support (The design intervention supports the user in the process of product care, making care activities cognitively or behaviorally clearer and simpler.): Balanced or more product-oriented
Feedback(The design intervention will give users feedback when they complete or fail to complete their product care activities.): Balanced
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This graduation project explores how white people can break their reproduction cycle of systemic racism. As a result this thesis proposes the final design REcolor, a consecutive three step process that visualizes employees’ apparent normal within work related situations. It appeals to the Dutch belief that manifestations of racism are wrong in order to adjust their behavior regarding reproduction of racism.

Within the first phase of this project the context exploration has been examined through an exploration of the systemic level of racism revealing how it touches upon individuals, organizations and institutions. In which manifestations are embedded within cultural and institutional processes. The exploration continued with a focus on the reproduction of the individual within the context of Dutch society. While white Dutch citizens have no intention of executing manifestations of racism, they unconsciously continue to be reinforced and reproduce the cycle of racial injustice. In which white people behave according to the norm that is reinforced through social structures of the dominant culture. Allowing white Dutch people to remain ignorant towards their own manifestations of racism during social interactions.

Continuous context exploration of institutional racism placed these individuals in the social structures of organizations and institutions. As such, decisions and products individuals make at work are influenced by their reinforced social structures. Via the distribution of these products like a meeting agenda or a policy within the social network of an organization they gain a power of influence. In other words, organizations hold power to influence the reproduction of during their social interactions via their created in/visible elements. Based on these insights a focus has been put on the individual with unintended racially unjust decisions during work situations. Combined with both the insights of white Dutch people that are unaware of racial reproductions and the acceptance of these as the norm, the design statement became:

‘In order to reduce systemic racism, I want white people to break with work oriented reproduction of racially unjust choices by broaching their apparent normal for review so they can adjust their actions towards their beliefs.’

The final design of this thesis exploration is REcolor, intersecting at individual and organizational levels of systemic racism by visualizing shared individual actions, allowing people to be critical towards the current organizational culture. Reveal is the first step, and visualizes the social relations of an organization to allow participants to be critical upon the societal contribution of the organization. Reflect is the second step in which participants are confronted with the effects of unintended behaviors during social interactions through dilemmas about institutionalized situations at work. Redirect is the third and final step in which a new shared social structure is documented on a visible element allowing participants to monitor undesired behaviors despite the intentions of the actor. Crossing of these manifestations from the visible elements confronted participants with their self perception of an equal society and involvement with racially unjust decisions. The three distinct steps of REcolor facilitate employees to broach manifestations of racism in social interactions in order to adjust their behavior regarding reproduction of racism.
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This report describes the process of designing a ventilation concept for the renovation industry. The project is in collaboration with Breman Schoorsteentechniek, an installation company located in the Netherlands. The initial brief was kept vague on purpose and described a project in which I was to find a way for Breman, to make their products more recognizable on the market. At the time, Breman was starting to rebuild their companies vision with ecologically sustainable intentions.

The initiation of the project became a search for what the vision for this product should be. Next to a small analysis of the current workflow, a trends and development research was conducted. This resulted in core movements for the year 2030 in the fields of: sustainability, construction industry and general world developments. These were then used to communicate a proposed world vision and were discussed with the board members of Breman. From these meetings three ideas where generated. After consideration of the core movements and the initial aspirations of the project, the direction of ventilation in renovation was chosen.

After a short transition from this general vision to the design phase, I constructed a model in which I could order my decisions. The model made that the overall design stayed consistent and that gaps in the argumentation for the concept could be determined. Concluding from this model, I designed a component based product. This product consists of a full central ventilation system with integrated IoT functionality. A distinction was made between a full fletched version and a budget version. I implemented the product in a virtual space, to offer a more tangible impression of the product.

With the conclusion of the design phase, I continued to a small evaluation phase. The virtual space visualisations where used in meetings with experts on different levels of the ventilation industry and the field of plastic injection molding. The gained feedback on the feasibility, desirability and viability of the concept was then used in combination with left over insights of the project, to write recommendations for Breman. As a conclusion to the project, the initial brief is reflected upon. The final result is Breman flow, the next step for ecologically sustainable ventilation in the renovation industry. ... Read more

The objective of this project was to explore the context of gun violence in America using the Vision in Product (ViP) design process to identify and design an intervention that would help reduce gun violence in the United States. I began by investigating the vast nature of this domain to gain a bird’s-eye view and deeper understanding of this complex problem. Through my secondary research, I collected many relevant political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological factors that make up and influence my domain. Through the formation of my worldview, I identified that the root cause of government inaction on gun control is the financial influence of corporations and special interests groups, primarily the NRA, on politicians. I then identified the Progressive Movement, as a vehicle to counteract government inaction on gun reform, both directly and indirectly, and an opportunity for my design intervention to mobilize citizen participation supporting this cause. The Progressive Movement is a segment of the Democratic political party that aims to make the US government more responsive to the needs of the American people through widespread political reform. I formulated my vision statement for my design intervention and brainstormed possible solutions. My final concept is a web-based platform that connects Americans to Progressive volunteer opportunities, as a way to support the Progressive Movement’s efforts in reducing gun violence. I based my concept on five interviews with potential users, where I learned about personal barriers that prevent people from volunteering for political and societal causes. My concept was then validated with five additional users through prototype testing and a simulated volunteer activity to see how people would react to my platform and if they would use it. Through this validation research, my solution was able to successfully activate citizen participation. Too many innocent lives have been lost to gun violence, but US history shows that sometimes change must come from outside the government, from the people. That is why I feel that supporting the Progressive Movement’s efforts of reducing gun violence through grassroots participation is crucial. Through the Good Trouble platform, we have the opportunity to mobilize millions of Americans across the country to become active participants in the fight against gun violence in America.
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This graduation thesis report gathers the research activities investigating loneliness and the design to postpone it. The research approach refers to Vision in Product design (ViP), which includes exploring the domain. The context factors were gathered based on the literature, interview experts and non-experts, and observations. The research was formed in a world view, summarizing the driving forces around loneliness. The vision was formulated from the context research, including a design statement, interaction vision, and product qualities. From the research summary, loneliness can happen for a variety of reasons. However, one thing that every lonely person has is a lack of control. In contrast, a driving force that keeps a person away from being lonely is a sense of security, including self-awareness, sense of place, and belongingness. Following this insight, the design goal was to enhance people’s sense of security by giving them agency in the environment. Ideation involved creative sessions and individual brainstorming. The outcome was the Sound of a city, a sound creation tool using augmented reality, letting users create their sounds and add to their location. The design was validated through user testing of the interaction between users and the environment. In conclusion, the Sound of a city provided users a positive experience in having their personal (sound) touch in the public space. Participants agreed that this could make them bond with the places, resulting in more security. This master thesis contributed to bring some potential results in bringing sense of security to postpone the loneliness. ... Read more

Scientific conferences are a valuable place in which a lot of knowledgeable people come together to create meaningful content. However, in a fast-evolving world with increasing environmental issues, inequalities and crises, conferences seem to only change slowly. Besides the irresponsibility towards the environment, due to the large usage of resources and vast amounts of travelling to conferences, also the exclusion of groups of people are still widely a result of the current conference system.
Therefore, we need to investigate the context of the future conference in order to design a better conference of tomorrow.

This graduation project dives deep into the purpose of scientific conferences and how this purpose can evolve in the future to propose a new visionary concept. It investigates changes within the domain of the academic society and its conferences but also takes into account factors that can have an impact on the domain, such as climate change, societal and technological developments or the COVID-19 pandemic. The result of this project is a new conference vision that proposes design interventions within the organizational and interaction level in order to create a more inclusive but also impactful conference.
The report presents the investigation for designing a future experience for academic conferences. The exploration revealed three main driving forces that can play a big role within the world of conferences:

1. The growing relevance and awareness of academics’ impact on climate change and on society will continue to increase academics’ sense of responsibilities. There will be more focus on creating knowledge and doing so in a meaningful and respectful way towards environment and society.
2. The growing relevance and awareness of inclusion will highly impact the social value. The community is going to become a safe and welcoming space for people to celebrate uniqueness and distinctiveness rather than fit and sameness.
3. Technology can make it easier and more effective to reach an inclusive and impactful community by giving people the chance to be able to express themselves and inspire each other.

The final design ‘The living conference’ is a response to these main driving forces by providing a space with more flexibility in participation as well as creating more insight and consideration into individual contributions and people. This shall help to make it easier for people to participate (inclusion) as well as creating a more effective space for knowledge creation (impact). The design consists of a digital space that makes use of interactive data visualization to represent content and people for more consideration and insight but also presents different formats of sessions to provide people with eye-opening content and activities. ... Read more

In the Netherlands, around 100,000 people become a victim of sexual violence each year, 90% of which are female, and mostly between 12-24 years old. ‘’Sexual violence is a term used for all sexual acts that someone is forced to perform, undergo or see. It may involve sexual assault, rape or sexual abuse.’’ (Centrum Seksueel Geweld, 2019). The consequences on victims’ lives are severe. Victims can experience mental, physical and/or social problems, affecting their daily lives and sometimes lasting a lifetime if left untreated. 98% of the victims don’t look for help due to feelings of shame, fear and guilt (Bicanic, 2018). The aim of this thesis is to propose a design solution to aid with the processing of sexual violence, to specifically design for female victims (between 12-24 years old at the time of the event) of sexual violence in a way that reduces the negative effects on their daily lives. The research phase focused on defining the negative effects and finding opportunity areas, using elements of ViP and systemic design methods. Based on literature and field research, the broad context of support after sexual violence was built. The research included interviewing victims and experts in the field. Insights were gathered in a system map, which visualized all stakeholders and their relations. The problems victims experience were listed and discussed. Themes were identified and formed the basis for a worldview, summarizing the current meaning of sexual violence in the Netherlands. Based on the context research, a vision was formed including a framing statement, an interaction vision and design boundaries. Firstly, the most important stakeholders in the system were defined: the victim herself and her loved ones. The negative effect which needed to be addressed was the deteriorating bond between the victim and her loved ones, due to misunderstanding and ignorance of loved ones around the effects of sexual violence. Following this, the statement goal was to make a loved one feel confident in engaging with the victim by facilitating the sharing of insecurities in a playful way. This vision formed the basis for ideation. Ideation involved a generative session, individual ideation as well as rapidly prototyping ideas. The outcome was a working mechanism ensuring the sharing of insecurities. This mechanism was translated into a design concept, called VORM. VORM is a social game designed to strengthen the bond between a victim of sexual violence and her friend. The goal of VORM is to meet each other in the middle, by building a bridge towards each other. Players can get closer to each other by asking questions about insecurities and sharing their truths. The elements of the game provide the input for the questions and building the bridge. VORM was validated through user testing of the usability, desirability, effectiveness and sustainability of the game. Experts evaluated the target group fit, accessibility and placement in the care process. The conclusion is that VORM facilitates the sharing of insecurities in a playful way, strengthening the bond between players. Experts see a role for VORM in the care process and some participants expressed strong buying interest. Further research is required to map (the size) of the target group and consequent market opportunities. ... Read more

Doing groceries is an inherent part of family life (Pettersson, Olsson, & Fjellström, 2004). Families are recognized as a unit for food choice and consumption. The influence of family members on food choices happens throughout family life and takes place in the private home or in the public sphere, mainly grocery stores. Picnic is an online-only grocery store delivering groceries in The Netherlands and Germany. Families are their biggest target group, averagely placing the largest and most frequent orders (Picnic, 2019). However, since Picnic does not have brick and mortar stores, all orders are placed via their smartphone app for iOS and Android devices. This deviation from traditional grocery shopping profoundly changes the family decision-making process in food buying and consumption (Suwandinata, 2011). Whereas grocery stores can act as arenas of family interactions including children constantly influencing their parents, directly and indirectly (Haselhoff, Faupel, & Holzmüller, 2014), the online grocery shopping process is mainly an individual experience. This behavioural change significantly affects the sense of shared responsibility within families. Moreover, it prevents kids from learning how to act and behave as responsible consumers, to get educated about healthy eating habits and to understand the value of money (Suwandinata, 2011).Therefore, the aim of this research is to explore ways to actively engage multiple family members in the online grocery shopping experience. With the goal of ultimately fostering a feeling of togetherness and shared responsibility within families, making the online shopping process resemble a festive family ritual while celebrating the involvement of kids.Various design methods and tools are used during this project, mainly following the Design Thinking methodology and applying parts of the Vision in Product Design framework. After empathizing with internal and external stakeholders and gathering insights on the context from a higher perspective, a design statement has been formulated. Subsequently, multiple rounds of prototyping rounds were executed, constantly involving the target audience and gathering feedback from the company.The final design takes a granular approach towards creating a collaborative digital grocery shopping process loop. “Picnic Family” facilitates a variety of collaborative family touchpoints throughout the entire service journey and offers new playful ways of grocery shopping. It supports the creation of new family rituals by providing tools that enable new habits of family communication and interaction during online grocery shopping. The “Picnic Family” has been designed and prototyped for smartphones and tablets and each prototype has been evaluated with the target group and internally within Picnic. However, to fully validate the long-term effects of the app, it should be used by families in real life and over time. Additionally, the research of this project and the effects of the designed tools can be used to investigate family collaboration on other digital services, such as e-commerce businesses, travel planning tools, entertainment streaming platforms. ... Read more

Polarization is one of the prominent issues of current western societies. This project takes on the challenge to design an intervention that deals with polarization in Dutch society, based on an extensive analysis of the context of the phenomenon, in order to achieve positive impact for society. It was found that even though the Netherlands is not as divided as it seems when for instance watching the news, the emphasis on extremes in the public debate is a problem. People want to belong to a group, which results into a pressure to choose for one of the extreme opinions on an issue. People with a moderate opinion either tend to go along with the extremes, or to turn their back on the public debate because they feel unrepresented. This in turn creates polarization. In order to relieve the pressure to go along with the extremes, the desired implication of the to-be-intervention is defined as to augment the presence of moderate opinions in the public debate, by making people with a moderate opinion express themselves in the public debate. The created intervention is the Pine Grenade (Dutch: Granaatappel), an emblem symbolizing outspoken reasonableness and thereby a counterpart to the ‘like’ known from social media. It is meant to serve as an appealing and recognizable representation of reasonableness in the public debate, inspiring people to express themselves in a reasonable way and relieving the pressure to choose for one of the extremes. In order to make the symbol publicly known, public figures representative to the message are approached to become ambassadors of the Pine Grenade. ... Read more

People are actively looking to pursue happiness by spending their precious time on meaningful experiences, which are often sought for in media entertainment as it is people’s most engaged in leisure activity today. However, current services fail to support them or even counter them, with their manipulative media-platforms in favor of their goals often at the cost of people’s goals. This creates a world of regret instead of happiness. The student of this graduation project claims that media entertainment designers should feel responsible to design services that respect and allow people to pursue their goals in finding happiness through it. This project can be considered an example, or even proof that there is indeed a manner to realize that and that, as company, it is crucial to do so as people are starting to reject services that are threatening their happiness.

APPROACH
This graduation project first investigated what happiness consisted of, and how media entertainment could contribute to that. The conclusion was that people need to engage in mindful, intentional, intrinsically motivated media-experiences which well-balances short-term pleasure (Hedonia) with long-term happiness (Eudaimonia). Then, current platforms were analysed to understand why they exist and why they are currently designed the way they are and how this affects well- being. The conclusion was that current streaming-platforms are being created to maximize media-consumption which resulted in an over-focus on hedonia at the cost of eudaimonia and therefore people’s long-term happiness. As ViP focuses on re-framing and reinvention by creating future opportunities, instead of solving the present-day problems, a future context of 2020 had been outlined through an extensive analysis using academic literature, trend reports- and sites and interviews. The result was three meta-factors that described the world of 2020 as “embracing the mindful pursuit of meaningfulness’.

SOLUTION
ViP states that as a designer, you should take a position in this future vision. The goal of this project is to design a new streaming-platform that improves people’s well- being through media-entertainment, which resulted in the following statement:
I want to empower people to experience media-entertainment meaningfully, by guiding them in articulating their intentions through trusted others.

DESIGN
The new concept considers media-entertaiment as meaningfull experience packages and facilites people in finding these packages through the suggestions of trusted others, such as people close to the user (like family and friends) but also famous people/accounts (like inspirational influencers or design blogs).
Plus it empowers people to experience these entertainment-packages meaningfully by increasing their mindfulness through 6 steps.
The concept contributes to well-being by focussing on improving both the hedonic and the eudaimonic experience by increasing people’s autonomy, competence and relatedness, focussing on personal growth, achieving goals, finding meaning in life and improving people’s vitalty by better self-regulating their media-behavior.
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This graduation project explores how the concept of problem sustaining interaction (PSI) patterns in mental development in adolescence can be used for design. In contrast to the currently used Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which describes psychiatric disorders from only a psychological perspective, the concept of PSI-patterns describes mental health problems as interaction problems. This new holistic approach incorporates interactions within the individual, but also those between people and their environment. To concretise the concept of PSI-patterns, I used the knowledge of system theory. From the research is concluded that factors on multiple levels influence each other; from biological to cultural. The factors in a system form loops that together reach an equilibrium. PSI-patterns consist of smaller, reinforcing feedback loops of which multiple together cause a system to move towards a problematic state. Changing a system requires effort and outside support. By making the patterns insightful, it becomes clear what strategies can be used to create positive change. The physical, social and psychological changes during adolescence make them particularly vulnerable to develop mental problems. There is a taboo around talking about mental health and society turns a blind eye. This causes adolescents when they struggle mentally to feel abnormal and alone, to lack knowledge and understanding to talk about their struggles and to feel not taken seriously when told that troubles are ‘just part of life’. To support adolescents in their mental development I introduce the design concept “The Bumpy Road”. The Bumpy Road supports adolescents to learn to understand their feelings by recognizing them in others. It is a platform with a variety of podcasts in which adolescents share personal and authentic stories about times in adolescence where they struggled. The problematic patterns of the storyteller are unravelled and explained to listeners in conversation with a pattern expert. The patterns that are discussed in the podcast are linked to other stories on the platform that include their version of the pattern. By making patterns insightful, listeners understand why problems keep occurring and get direction on how to navigate towards a more sustainable situation. The Bumpy Road teaches listeners the language to talk about struggles, normalizes them and provides advice on how to help themselves or support others. This project brings PSI-patterns from a conceptual level towards a concrete and validated design service, and thereby proves that PSI-patterns are a suitable framework for design.
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