This graduation project explored how the TWAF framework could be translated into a more practical and accessible tool for analysing sound-driven design projects in healthcare. TWAF describes four ways in which sound can function in design, but applying the framework consistently can be difficult for first-time users due to its abstract and interpretive nature.

The project began with the development of a Manual Archiving Method to better understand how TWAF could be operationalised. Through this process, several challenges became visible, including difficulties in distinguishing between TWAF modes and the need for clearer guidance and examples.

Based on these findings, the project shifted towards the development of a Guided TWAF Interpretation Tool. Instead of fully automating TWAF classification, the prototype combined lexicon-based analysis, semantic similarity techniques, and visual evidence representations to support reflection and interpretation. The system presented TWAF ratings together with indicator words, concordances, and sentence-level evidence to help users explore how sound functions within healthcare design projects.

The evaluation showed that participants developed a better understanding of the role of sound in the projects. Participants also critically reflected on the generated outputs rather than blindly accepting them, highlighting the importance of transparency and human interpretation within computational analysis systems.

Overall, the project demonstrates the potential of combining computational analysis with human interpretation to support sound-driven design exploration and education. The findings suggest that AI may be most valuable as a reflective support tool rather than as a fully automated classification system within the context of TWAF. ... Read more

Automated machinery has become an integral part of modern dairy farm operations, using notification sounds to alert farmers to emergencies or inform them of ongoing actions. While these sounds are intended to enhance safety and improve user experience, they are often perceived as confusing and unpleasant by farmers, leading some to disable the audio system entirely, thereby compromising safety. This project seeks to develop a sound design framework and a set of notification sounds that prioritise the safety and well-being of both humans and their cattle.

Focusing on the robots developed by Lely, an innovative company in the agricultural sector, this project explores the role of sound in enhancing user feedback for dairy farm robots. Through literature research, the perception of sound from both human and cow perspectives was examined, alongside relevant sonic interaction methods. Interviews with Lely’s product development and safety teams helped map out current notification sounds and identify safety guidelines for sound use. Technical sound design guidelines were then developed.

Interviews with dairy farmers and visits to farms revealed six key issues: the unclear meaning of the notification sounds, the inability to identify the robots by their sound, the perceived unpleasantness, the disturbance to neighbours, the inaudibility, and the lack of guidelines for the use and creation of notification sounds. To address these issues, sonification techniques were utilised to develop new sounds, which were iteratively tested and refined based on user feedback.

The final design includes a concise set of notification sounds, along with a sound design framework that includes guidelines for the development of new notification sounds for future Lely robots. The sounds are designed to be intuitive, pleasant, and clearly audible over barn noise while avoiding disruption to neighbours. Each robot has been given a distinct voice to allow the user to differentiate the robots based on their sound. Solutions were also proposed to minimise sound levels and the occurrence of sound inside the barn. This project addresses a significant but overlooked issue in dairy farm operations, offering a design that meets safety, usability, and environmental criteria. However, further research is needed to assess the long-term impact of these notification sounds.
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In this dissertation it was investigated how the acoustic environment perceived by patients, or soundscapes, in Intensive Care Units (ICUs) could be optimized to support more human-centered ICU stays. The dissertation had two objectives: first, to explore how human-centered design could contribute to positive listener experiences for ICU patients with a needbased, listener centric soundscape approach; and second, to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach, i.e., to what extent designed soundscape interventions could benefit patients in terms of soundscape perception, emotional states, and stress. To achieve these objectives, a combination of listener-centric, evidence-based practices was employed rooted in human-centered design and sound-driven design. The five studies in the dissertation featured a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methodologies, including interviews, questionnaires, and physiological measurements. The project was a collaborative effort between the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering of TU Delft, the Critical Alarms Lab, the Adult ICU department at Erasmus Medical Center, and Philips..... ... Read more

The expansion of human lifespan has increased the demands for healthcare services. Meeting these demands requires healthcare to evolve and be more efficient. Rapi dly advancing technology plays a crucial role in this evolution by automating tasks and supporting healthcare providers in their workflow. This requires a symbiotic collaboration between humans and digital systems. On the human side, healthcare providers understand the clinical context and are highly specialized in integrating information from several sources. Yet, they face limits in attention span and workload capacity. On the digital side, patient monitoring systems operate tirelessly and with precision, yet they lack the ability to interpret the clinical context of information. Consequently, effective patient care relies on each side playing their specific roles.... ... Read more

This thesis mainly describes the research, design and evaluation of an activity for improving soundscape beginners' sound awareness -- Sound Detective.

For new students who are just beginning to learn about soundscape, or researchers who have just entered this field, in addition to mastering basic soundscape knowledge, it is equally important to improve their sound awareness. Sound Awareness, to be specific, is Listening to sound (hearing sounds in the soundscape), Experiencing sound (knowing what feelings the soundscape will cause and how to describe it), Understanding sound (knowing the characteristics of sounds and how we use/react to different sounds), and finally Organize sound (adjusting the sound for a better experience).

However, the current learning methods have limitations. To be specific, the limitations are lack of practice (lectures), lack of flexibility (workshop), lack of guidance (research studying), and heavy use of teaching resources (workshop). It is worth mentioning that Sound Walk, as a very pioneering soundscape learning activity, can indeed enhance sound awareness, but it is limited to the first part "listening to sounds" and ignores other parts.

Thus, Sound Detective, which is the main outcome of this thesis, is designed to act as a supplement and improvement that focusing on training beginners' awareness of sound during their studies of soundscape, in combination with other learning methods.

The thesis starts with a survey of soundscape, serious gaming, and existing soundscape-related activities and educational methods, interviews experts in the field of soundscape, and proposes three different activity designs. Following this, the paper conducted a selection of concepts based on the given benchmark and performed multiple optimizations, resulting in the final output. An evaluation of this output was then carried out. The conclusion of the paper provides a summary, discusses the limitations, and offers suggestions for future work. ... Read more

This thesis project in integrated product design focuses on developing a musical instrument to complement the standard inventory at social jam sessions, facilitating music novices' participation. Social jam sessions are defined as informal, unrehearsed music gatherings accommodating musicians of varying skill levels, emphasizing social interaction rather than performance. Research indicates that such activities positively impact mental wellbeing and social development, offering potential to address issues of declining happiness and increasing loneliness among young adults in the Netherlands.

Observations and a poll conducted with young adults at TU Delft revealed that beginners seldom participate in or return to social jam sessions, primarily due to challenges related to musical instruments. Consequently, the project targeted instrument design as a key area for innovation. Employing a user-centered, iterative research through design methodology, the project involved multiple design cycles of prototype development, user testing, and refinement based on feedback.

The project was structured into three design sprints: understanding the problem, defining a design direction, and developing a functional prototype. Through this process, one experimental setup and five prototypes were created, supplemented by desk research on relevant design artifacts.

The resulting instrument, the "Bass Box," is a one-string acoustic bass with a moveable bridge, designed to resemble a cajón in size and playing position. The instrument allows dynamic pitch changes by adjusting the bridge, with note markers and an integrated tuner providing orientation for novices. The Bass Box bridges the gap between simple percussive instruments and complex melodic instruments, enabling harmonic improvisation and enriching acoustic jam sessions with audible bass notes. ... Read more

Product sounds are important in our interactions with them. The temporal and context-dependent nature of sound makes it difficult to design them. There is a semantic gap between how we talk about sound and how it is embodied. Sound-driven design aims to improve this in two ways. It proposes a human-centered design approach, focusing on designing for the listening experience instead of purely the sound. Secondly, it proposes a collaborative approach, iteratively designing the listening experience with all stakeholders throughout the project.

The four stakeholders of sound-driven design work and design with sounds in different ways. Sound designers are brought in late into a project and work on sound solitarily. They are experts at bridging semantic gaps. Acoustic engineers are solution-oriented and think of sound in terms of noise elimination. Design researchers are experts in guiding design processes and incorporating user needs but are ill-equipped for sound. Expert users are well attuned to the sounds of their context, which is vital information for sound-driven design.

During group ideation, participants use generative session methods to generate solutions to a design problem. If this collaboration is managed effectively, a group outperforms its members. Generated ideas are larger in quantity, quality, variety, and originality. During idea generation, participants use their creative cognition to generate ideas. The dual pathways model of creativity states that creative cognition is the result of persistence and flexibility in thought. These two cognitive processes can be primed to enhance creativity.

Based on this theory I designed Soundstorm, a quick and collaborative card game. Players take turns making product sounds based on randomized prompts. It should be played before starting a generative session, and positively influences its outcomes. Soundstorm is meant to improve creative cognition by priming the persistence and flexible cognitive process. Soundstorm allows players to practice vocal expressions. Playing a collaborative game increases social cohesion.
Soundstorm was validated using a protocol study (n=18), in which 3 groups played a game before a brainstorm, and 3 did not. There was no increase in the number of ideas generated. There is an increase in iteration for the Soundstorm group, but the effect was not significant.

Future research into sound-driven design ideation should explore the fundamentals of sonic and verbal generative methods. Furthermore, sound-driven design should be applied in a collaborative project where problem and solution are allowed to coevolve over multiple iterations.
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Dehydration is a common medical condition in the elderly. This deficit in body water increases the risk of illnesses and mortality. The human body has no way of storing water which makes consistent water intake crucial. Water plays a multifaceted role, from being the medium for all bodily chemical reactions to regulating temperature and ensuring organ functionality.

The challenges in the healthcare system emphasise the need for promoting independent ageing. With an increasing gap between the demand for caregivers and their availability, especially in countries like Germany, the healthcare system is on the brink of a crisis. The situation requires the development of solutions that empower the elderly to age independently, reducing the pressure on primary and secondary care systems. A significant observation is the decline in water intake with age. While younger generations have a variety of tools to monitor and motivate water intake, such products often overlook the elderly demographic.

This thesis introduces "Daria", a product designed for hydration self-monitoring among the elderly. The primary stakeholder for this project is the elderly population, specifically those above 65 years who live outside care institutions.

Context mapping was used to understand the elderly's daily routines and challenges related to fluid intake. Expert interviews provided insights into current medical practices and the nuances of hydration among the elderly. Functional prototyping was key in the design process, allowing for tangible testing and validation of design solutions.

Literature research revealed several challenges the elderly face in maintaining optimal hydration levels. Ageing results in a reduced renal concentrating ability, diminishing the kidneys' capacity to retain water. More importantly, a decreased thirst sensation in older individuals often leads to inadequate fluid intake. Other factors, such as urinary incontinence and social isolation, further contribute to hydration difficulties.

Various strategies have been explored to enhance hydration among older adults. While many interventions have been conducted in controlled environments like nursing homes, none have focused on home settings. Common strategies include verbal reminders to drink and providing a variety of beverages.

In conclusion, "Daria" aims to introduce a new product category to enable hydration monitoring for the elderly. By understanding their unique challenges and habits, this product aspires to motivate them to maintain optimal hydration levels and enhance their overall quality of life.
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In the realm of healthcare, the effective management of alarm systems within the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is of paramount importance to ensure patient safety and reduce alarm fatigue among nurses. This study presents a comprehensive exploration of designing interfaces tailored to nurses' needs for adjusting alarm limits, aimed at enhancing their decision-making and patient care. Leveraging a multidisciplinary approach, this project amalgamates insights from nursing practices, user-centered design, and data visualization.

Drawing on meticulous literature review, direct observations, interviews, and user surveys, the project meticulously dissected the intricacies of nurses' interactions with alarm systems. This investigation highlighted the necessity for a dashboard that not only reduces the cognitive load on nurses but also empowers them to make informed decisions based on alarm data. The resulting system interfaces offer data customization and visualization capabilities, facilitating rapid and accurate alarm limit adjustments.

Therefore, this project has generated interfaces that involves tracking, analyzing, and visualizing the data logged by the nurses in response to alarms and their evaluations, thus supports nurses in adjusting alarm limits for an individual patient.

The evaluation of the designed interfaces through two kinds of questionnaires reflects a promising usability score, with nuanced insights about nurses' varying levels of comfort and trust with the interface. Future recommendations include personalized information delivery based on experience levels, Leverage machine learning algorithms and so on. ... Read more

This research project delves into the exploration of the sound environment within Intensive Care Units (ICUs), particularly focusing on Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). It aims to enhance the understanding of sound events and their impact on both nurses' decision-making and patients' sleep behaviors. By recognizing the unique challenges of the sound environment in these specialized units, the project focuses on creating a soundscape evaluation metric, incorporating sound event detection algorithms, and simulating real ICU scenarios through synthesized audio. This approach seeks to facilitate better decision-making, foster communication among nurses, improve behavior, and enhance awareness of events within the patient's room.
Utilizing an iterative process that involved technological exploration, algorithmic integration, and UI design, the project offers a novel perspective on sound quality within NICU and PICU settings. The main objective is to transform raw sound data into visually accessible formats for the nursing staff, while also addressing complexities like sound collection, data processing, information storage, deployment methods, and interaction design. The project culminates in the development of a functional product prototype that not only meets the initial goals but also reveals new opportunities and challenges for future exploration. The insights gathered contribute to the wider understanding of the sound environment within NICUs and PICUs, shedding light on potential improvements in patient care and nurse interaction within these critical healthcare environments. ... Read more

Voice Assistants (VAs) have gained traction in cars, promising safer, more convenient driving experiences (Braun et al, 2021). These Intelligent Voice Assistants (IVAs) offer hands-free control over navigation, entertainment, and climate, reducing distractions and enhancing safety. IVAs also provide context-aware interactions, improving personalization.

Voice control combines button convenience with touchscreen versatility, offering direct access without menu navigation. Automakers leverage IVAs to enhance brand perception, loyalty, and revenue streams, as positive experiences drive brand attachment.

However, despite early adoption, user satisfaction lags (CRI, 2019). Notably, Lynk & Co’s IVA elicits numerous complaints due to its underwhelming real-world performance within the complex car environment, causing frustration and distraction.

This jeopardizes brand image, as negative IVA experiences taint overall brand perception. Users might underutilize or abandon the technology, squandering potential. Overestimation of capabilities is common (CRI, 2019), often blaming technology while neglecting usability and context.


The crux lies in the socio-technological challenge of user engagement, surpassing technical issues. To address this, the thesis seeks strategies to bridge user-technology gaps, optimizing IVAs. Tackling usability necessitates understanding user-technology misalignment, considering interaction patterns, learning curves, and context. By doing so, IVAs can genuinely enhance driving experiences, ensuring safer, more convenient, and satisfying journeys.

The thesis employs the ‘double diamond’ design model and ‘user-centered design’ method, incorporating literature and field research. User analysis identifies trust and control as key needs, while brand identity is synthesized.

Four essential design questions frame requirements:

Functions: What should it offer?
Interaction: How should it occur?
Visuals: What appearance should it have?
Behavior: How should it act?
Combining these requirements with user needs and brand identity defines the design space, creating a tailored concept for the European market.


Beyond visuals, the core concept involves proactive behavior, humanizing the IVA for perceived competence and trust, encouraging technology adoption. It empowers users by proactively showcasing functions and human characteristics.

The IVA’s position ranges from driver-facing DIM to distant CSD, adapting based on vehicle activity, harmonizing with brand identity.

Balancing concerns like distraction and customization optimally addresses user needs, brand identity, and requirements. ... Read more

Orthopedic surgeries are identified as one of the most noisy surgeries inside the OR (operation room). The highest noise sound level could reach up to around 130 dB, which is harmful to patients’ well-being and are likely to evoke negative feelings during surgery. In the previous study investigating the emotional experience of patients who receive spinal or general anesthesia in orthopedic surgeries, results showed that different kinds of sounds inside the OR could lead to fluctuating emotions for patients, such as nervousness, curiosity, and relaxation. Therefore, this project is mainly focusing on this user group and aims to improve their experience, especially regarding sounds inside the OR.

The research phase of the report includes two parts. The research in LUMC mapped out the patient journey, for instance, when, and how the design should intervene. Questionnaires for surgeons provided strong support for the rationale and effectiveness of musical interventions in this design project. Later on, the second part of the research, the one on AI music alignment proved that to some extent, AI generative model could understand the textual input with emotional descriptors, and output desired emotionally effective music that could influence the listeners’ perception. With this in mind, the design could refer to the circumplex model that Hevner and Schubert developed on music emotions to position the descriptors of specific musical emotions in two dimensions and achieve control of musical emotions in spatial terms.

The design concept mainly has two phases, the preference input phase, which allows patients to choose their favorite prompt list for the AI model to generate later on adding the emotional descriptors together as prompts; the music experience phase on the other hand, mainly happens during surgery when inside the OR, patients will be able to freely explore the music emotion variations during surgery with their favorite music styles (prompts). The design goal for the project would be to design a music companion product for orthopedic surgery patients who are undergoing spinal anesthesia. The product interaction aims to improve their emotional experience during the surgery period. The interaction should be distracting, desirable, and immersive for patients.

Once the general direction of the design concept is determined, the iteration phase began. The prompt input part is based on the brainstorming session and the co-creation session to develop an ideal interface for the experience. While for the music experience part, one of the three interaction ways will be chosen through the concept testing and evaluation procedure. The chosen concept will be further developed into the final concept - Music · Wave.

In the future, I imagine that the OR would be an immersive sensing space for the patients as well, so adding visuals into the whole design would be another vision, that maybe will be further designed in later projects. This project, however, would only give a rough glance into what the whole experience could be like in the future, and how the surgery soundscape could be reframed.
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This graduation thesis is on the topic of Critical audible alarm-sound design for handheld monitoring devices in Neonatal ICUs. Hand-held mobile devices are being tested in the field for effective alarm perception and response in the NICU at Erasmus MC Sophia's Hospital, Rotterdam. Based on the context analysis, the major stakeholder, and the focus of the design is the nurses and possibly neonatologist at the NICU, with the former being the main scope of this project.

The goal of this project is to The new critical audible alarms on the device must be able to distinguish the individual alarms, identify them for each patient per nurse, and respond to them by reaching the ideal destination of the patient room in a NICU. These responses should be achieved without the assistance of a visual cue.

A grammar for the new design is established via semantic network association methods (analogy) and in this case, it is the use of ‘Baby Toys’ as the building block for the sound design, The newly designed audible alarm library consists of 6 sounds namely Chimes, Lullaby, Shakers, Dial Tone, Piano A, and Piano S, which are then equalized under masked conditions for effective use in the NICU environment. Their functionality (response time & identification), urgency, and perceived pleasantness are tested for the context.

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ICU survivors have been shown to face memory loss during and after their ICU stays, which contributes the psychological issues. ICU digital diary has been proven as a way of filling the memory gap, thus avoiding the development of these mental issues. EMC has currently been working on the implementation of the digital diary and a tailored strategy should be considered to support ICU nurses in using the digital diary.

As ChatGPT’s potential in the field of the ICU, this project starts with the assignment to explore the possibilities of ChatGPT for ICU digital diary in the context of the ICU. Leveraging a multidisciplinary approach, the project amalgamates insights from nurse practices, interface design, and the introduction of ChatGPT technology. Drawing on meticulous literature review, direct observations, and interviews, the results from these activities highlighted nurses’ need for patient information visualisation and guidance in their diary writing, and the possible application that ChatGPT could provide in the digital diary.

Based on the insights from research activities, a web application - Patient Diary Toolkit - was designed and developed through three rounds of design iterations. There are basically four main functionalities in this design: reviewing the patient diary, adding messages, diary tracker and ChatGPT-based assistant supporting nurses’ diary writing.

This design was evaluated with 15 participants and 5 experts through comparative testing and expert interviews, with the aim of getting insights from their perspectives about the usability, the user experience and the future potential of the design. The results of the evaluation show that the interface is intuitive and easy to understand, and the introduction of the ChatGPT-based assistant offers a practical solution for supporting nurses’ diary writing. Future recommendations including further research, optimisation of the functionality, future-focused solutions for nurses and user experience improvement have been discussed. ... Read more

The intensive care unit (ICU) is a dehumanizing technical environment causing complications that are all captured in the term post-intensive-care syndrome (PICS). The patient’s well-being could be improved by moving away from this hostile environment toward more patient-centred care. Therefore this report explores how to improve the daily ICU experience from a critically ill patient’s perspective.

Environmental influences in the ICU, like noise exposure, are important contributors to PICS (Abuatiq, 2015). Hearing is the most prominent sense of ICU patients. Thus, the Erasmus ICU is designed to keep sound out. It has been shown that there is no clear relationship between reduced volume levels and physiological improvement (Drahota et al., 2012), and the absence of sound does not necessarily create a positive environment (Truax, 1984). Therefore, this project aims to consider sound in a positive manner since sound is only perceived as noise when it does not fit the patient’s state of being.

After many former patients were interviewed and an Erasmus MC ICU nurse was observed, it turned out that it is hard for patients not to focus on their feelings of frustration, loneliness, discomfort, shame, panic, confusion etcetera and still keep a positive mindset. Thus, the design aimed to redirect the patient’s focus by connecting the patient to the environment.

The Thirteen Fundamental Needs for Human-Centered Design typology was utilized as a source to design a positive experience for the ICU environment. Six fundamental needs (Stimulation, Recognition, Relatedness, Autonomy, Security, and Comfort) were uncovered. Strengthening these needs could improve the patients’ experience.

Mapping a patient’s daily routine showed that need fulfilment changes according to the eventfulness, the presence, or absence of people or sound inside the ICU. A patient’s journey revealed that the absence of people right after leaving causes the most harm to the patient. Thus, the decision was made to focus on this transition moment.

Eventfulness can be determined by measuring sound pressure levels (SPL) in dB in the ICU. So the transition moment from an eventful (high SPL) to an uneventful (low SPL) environment can be detected and vice versa.

New visual/auditory stimuli were developed. These can be introduced to benefit patients’ recovery (Arbabi et al., 2018). The stimuli consist of sounds of nature in combination with a nature-based projection. The audio and the visual stimuli change according to the SPL in the room. This design intervention helps guide the patient into the new environment. It is a subtle way to notify the patient that something is happening. Furthermore, it can distract the patient (when bored or during treatment) and decrease the difference between higher and lower sound pressure levels.

The design was developed, embodied, and finally tested in a simulated ICU environment. The evaluation of the design intervention showed that all participants appreciated the design intervention, mainly because they were distracted from boredom, stress/anxiety, negative thoughts (loneliness) or discomfort. It made the experience more comfortable or relaxed.

Finally, three use cases were presented, redirecting the focus from anxiety, boredom, and loneliness. Additionally, recommendations were made.
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In healthcare, the doctor-patient interaction is most commonly held in the Consultation Room, which hasn't changed much over the last few decades. However, new technologies such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence, speech-to-speech translation, and so on are available now. These developments provide new opportunities to support all processes in the consultation room, of which communication between doctor and patient will be revolutionized. During the pandemic, the benefits and broad prospects of teleconsultation gradually entered the public consciousness and gained acceptance. However, for patients, going to the doctor is about more than just convenience and efficiency. Patients who are ill frequently experience significant anxiety, feeling lost and uncertain about their condition and future plans. According to Tyrer (2013), 10% to 20% of general hospital patients have abnormal health anxiety. As a result, the future of teleconsultation should consider patients' vulnerability and emotional needs.

This project aims to explore how to alleviate patient anxiety in teleconsultation contexts in 2030. The following sub-questions are proposed to structure the final RQ:
SQ-1: What are the key influencing factors of patients’ anxiety?
SQ-2: How can technologies be used to alleviate anxiety? / Where do the design opportunities lie?
SQ-3: How to align the technologies/ideas with the desired future vision?

The project is divided into five stages to answer these questions:

Understand: A literature review and expert interviews will be conducted to fully comprehend the research context. An opportunity map will be presented as the outcome of the first stage of research.

Explore: Future possibilities will be identified through Strategic Trend Research, Technology Scouting, and Future Visioning. At the end of this stage, a desirable future vision will be defined.

Empathy: To gain a deeper understanding of patients, thematic analysis and generative design research methods will be used to both understand current teleconsultation users' experiences and to profile different traits, thereby facilitating concept development.

Develop: At this stage, eight strategy proposals and a design roadmap are created. The roadmap and proposals are spirally iterated through evaluation.

Deliver: An online design guidance toolkit incorporating key project outcomes is being developed to guide designers interested in future teleconsultation experiences through the methods derived from this project step by step. In addition, a final roadmap is provided as the answer to the RQ.

To summarize, this project began by looking for ways to alleviate patient anxiety. However, the developed roadmap and strategy proposals are not only applicable to anxious patients, but also point the way forward for future teleconsultation evolution. That could be because considering any individual's vulnerability is a must-have feature of future healthcare. ... Read more

ICU is the place with the most advanced monitoring and support machines in a hospital. But surrounded by all these machines, ICU patients are also like machines instead of humans. Scientific advances have been proved to greatly improve the cure rate. Meanwhile, patients' well-being has been gradually treated as important as curing the disease itself. With the trend of human-centred intensive care, new services are required to better satisfy patients’
needs.

Artificial intelligence can be a strong force to improve the quality of care in ICU. Apart from taking advantage of the existing monitoring data and EHR data to improve the cure rate, A.I. also has great potential to promote social support for ICU patients.

The purpose of this project is to design a roadmap for A.I. to provide social support for ICU patients, in order to improve the patient wellbeing and contribute to a humane ICU.The design solution is an application called Cricare that includes nine services: 1. Orientation; 2. Autocomplete; 3. Voice Simulator; 4. Music Creator; 5. Environment adjuster; 6. Chatbot; 7. Virtual Psychologist; 8. Peer support; 9. Goal setter.

A questionnaire evaluation with nurses was conducted to test the desirability, importance, and effect on providing social support and effect on patient wellbeing. The results show Cricare is the potential to contribute to a humane ICU. After feasibility evaluation, a primary roadmap was created to develop Cricare. ... Read more

Hospitalized patients were found to sleep significantly worse in the hospital than at home. The lack of quality sleep can cause serious health problems and affect patients’ health recovery. Music as a low-cost sleep aid is a promising way to improve patients’ sleep. However, most available sleep music playlists are limited to generic, soothing songs. People’s personal preferences in relation to the effects of music are not well-considered and under-researched. Therefore, this project aims to explore how to design and deliver music that fits with patients’ sleep and music preferences with a profile-based personalization approach.
Literature research was first carried out to understand sleep knowledge, how and why music aid sleep, practices in music therapy and profile-based personalization. Through generative research, people’s preference data was collected and lead to four sleep music profiles: explorer, diver, hunter, observer. A design direction was proposed based on insights from the research activities. In the design phase, two brainstorming sessions were carried out and resulted in a feasible system concept. After two iterations, the final design DREAMe was proposed. DREAMe is personalized music modular system, including profile generation and music delivery. The profile generation logic allows the system to predict which profile users are based on a list of questions. Each profile comes with a sleep music module. To evaluate the music effects, sleep music samples were made under a summarized music design guideline. The music melodies of users’ favourite music come from instrumental covers of the songs participants provided. The resources downloaded online were used fairly and only for this evaluation purpose.
In project evaluation, results suggest that the product and profile experience are logical, intuitive, and easy to use. The four profiles can reflect people’s preferences, but they may not be stable. An eight-day evaluation was conducted to test the music effects on sleep. DREAMe music was found to reduce sleep onset latency and improve sleep quality. People could fall asleep more easily and feel more relaxed after two days’ music listening. The music design delivers a relaxing, enjoyable and immersive music experience. ... Read more

This report describes a graduation project for the MSc program Strategic Product Design. The client in this project is the Erasmus MC in the Netherlands and commissions this project incorporation with the Critical Alarms Lab (CAL) of the TU Delft. The Erasmus MC and CAL want to improve the experience of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) both for patients and for the stakeholders surrounding the patient. They are also interested in using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data to benefit ICU patients. A research project is set up to find how the experience for ICU patients can be improved and how AI can play a role in the ICU. Therefore, the research questions of this project is defined as: “How should the intensive care unit of the Erasmus MC innovate in the coming years to give critically ill patients a humane experience?”. The research resulted in a future vision that describes different values for the ICU of the Erasmus MC. Also, it is described what consider concerning humanization and Artificial Intelligence in the ICU of the future. Secondly, the research results in design guidelines that can be used by the Erasmus MC or designers to design for the ICU and ICU patient. The investigation into the ICU, the ICU patient, stakeholders with influence on the ICU and the future vision come together in a website. This website can be used to retrieve information, used as a guide or function as an inspiration for designers for healthcare. ... Read more

The close app is a concept of a mobile application designed to help COVID-19 patients feel less isolated and lonely, therefore, closer to their loved ones with whom they cannot meet. The main principle of the application lies in fulfilling the fundamental needs of the patients and its family identified throughout the research. An isolated patient feels detached from his environment and unfamiliar with the new one, which can be defined as a lack of relatedness. Other essential needs are stimulation - to be distracted and security - to be informed. On the other side, the family members want to feel close with their hospitalized loved ones. The identified needs are relatedness, competence - to know patient’s feelings and state of health and foremost to have a purpose defined as a meaningful connection and knowledge on how to help. The goal of the project is to reduce the feeling of isolation to Covid19 patients by creating an unobtrusive connection with their family and a warm home environment. The project intended to be a rapid answer to the current pandemic and resulted in the isolation of vulnerable patients. The process started from the market research phase, where the main categories of projects, concepts, services, and consumer products were evaluated. The outcome showed that the majority of identified solutions that tackle the problem of closeness are mobile applications. The main principles of interaction derived from the market research are: sharing the same activity, sharing an experience, evoke memories, share memories, develop a relationship. The exploration and ideation had been made based on those outcomes resulted in the creation of three concepts: Evoke memories, Ambient participation (share experience), Active participation (share an activity). Concepts were evaluated throughout the interviews. Additionally, participants were asked about the meaning of closeness. After every iteration, the list of requirements had been updated and led to developing two concepts the mobile application -Digital Closeness and the physical concept - Modular Closeness. The decision needed to be made; two concepts were evaluated using the Harris profile method. Results have shown the possible higher improvement of perceived closeness with faster development and implementation process than the other concept. The Close app focuses on the discreet way of sharing memories which are the source of positive emotions and moments to send short updates to the patient, that both can serve as a distraction for the patient. App provides the patient’s family with the purpose by showing them the importance of creating meaningful content. The patient is also able to send short reactions that will give the family information. Additionally, the Close app offers an ambiance connection that is based on the family location. The familiar picture will be displayed on the patient’s TV during his inactivity, representing the location of the patient’s loved one. Firstly, the concept had been evaluated with the AttrakDiff to assess the hedonic and pragmatic qualities and its attractiveness. Secondly, the evaluation was conducted with hospitalized ex- COVID-19 patients, a family member of the hospitalized patient, and the healthcare professional. The concept had been received significantly positively by all of the stakeholders. ... Read more