Community initiatives play an increasing role in addressing societal challenges, yet participation within these initiatives can remain uneven and difficult to sustain. While efforts often focus on activating engagement, less attention is given to the underlying social dynamics that shape how people contribute. This thesis explores how reciprocity influences participation within community initiatives in Amsterdam Nieuw-West and how design can support a more conscious engagement with these dynamics. An exploratory research approach was conducted, combining ethnographic methods, generative interviews, and desk research to gain insight into everyday practices of collaboration. The findings show that reciprocity, expressed through exchanges of time, knowledge, care, and resources, is fundamental to participation but remains largely implicit and unevenly recognized. This limits the ability of initiatives to actively reflect on or shape collaboration. Building on these insights, the project translates reciprocity into a tangible and accessible design intervention. Through a zine, supported by a manifesto and guidelines, the design enables participants to recognize and reflect on their role within networks of exchange. Rather than prescribing behaviour, it provides an open-ended tool for engagement within existing contexts. This thesis aims to inspire a relational perspective on participation, positioning reciprocity as a key element in understanding and supporting collaboration, and highlights the potential of design to make implicit social dynamics visible and open to reflection. ... Read more

The [energy renovation project] project is a collaboration between [housing corporation] and [company] to renovate social housing in The Hague Southwest, often in vulnerable neighbourhoods where residents already face various problems. Because of national regulations, all homes with energy labels E, F or G must be improved before 2029, meaning about 1,000 homes must be renovated yearly.
This graduation project explores how the renovation process can be made more just for social housing residents. ... Read more

The maritime sector is under pressure from emission reduction regulations resulting from climate laws such as Fit for 55. With the introduction of the FuelEU Maritime regulations, which have been active since 2025, shipping companies and fuel traders are confronted with new requirements and complex decisions to reduce emissions. Solutions include retrofitting and switching to low-carbon fuels. These regulations will also indirectly impact fuel suppliers and traders, as demand for alternative fuels and strategies will increase.

Regarding the above, larger companies have the resources and capacity to respond and adapt adequately. For smaller and medium-sized companies, there are barriers that hinder or delay the transition. It is important that fuel companies also participate in the transition. Within fuel and bunker trading companies, there are traders who can play an important role as intermediaries in promoting low-carbon transition fuels. However, traders also face obstacles in communicating about sustainable fuels and regulations.

Therefore, this research focuses on the development of a digital tool that can support traders in communicating fuel options more effectively and stimulate informed decision-making towards the adoption of low-carbon transition fuels among shipping companies. A digital tool can positively influence and facilitate substantive communication and understanding between both stakeholders. The research project follows an iterative Double Diamond Design process divided into phases.

The project started with an in-depth exploration of the context, internal processes, regulations, (behavioral) barriers, and drivers among the main stakeholders. This highlighted bottlenecks such as uncertainty or the lack of knowledge and tools. But it also showed opportunities and strategies that could be implemented to stimulate communication and adoption, such as nudging strategies, intervention moments and the need for stakeholder collaboration.

Based on the insights gained, a design scope has been established, and a design vision has been defined that offers direction and constraints for the project. From that, concrete design goals and requirements have been formulated to encompass all needs and design choices.

These principles translated into 3 envisioned scenarios (standard relationship processes between stakeholders), from which associated concept ideas emerged for a calculation tool that provides strategic insight into fuel, compliance, and costs.

These concept ideas were tested with traders and found useful, effective, and strategically valuable. Traders expressed a need for a flexible and effective tool with clear insights that supported various customer interaction moments regarding sustainability, costs, and compliance.

After this validation and further insights, a final concept tool was developed with additional materials such as a toolkit, roadmap, leaflet, and mail report. All are designed to ensure the implementation and communication of the tool and its adoption, and to maximize impact. The tool is designed to meet the process and interaction needs of stakeholders. It enables fast and low-threshold scenario analyses and strategic decision considerations. In addition, it stimulates and improves stakeholder relations, makes benefits visible, minimizes barriers, and can be utilized in multiple usage scenarios.

The tool offers a scalable foundation for future digital solutions supporting informed communication and decision-making about sustainable fuel choices in the maritime sector. ... Read more

Group mood, often referred to as the "vibe" of the group, plays a significant role in organizational functioning, influencing team effectiveness, performance, outcomes, and workplace well-being. Despite its importance, group mood is often elusive—easy to sense but difficult to fully understand, describe, and manage. What if teams could actively regulate their group mood to achieve shared goals? Effective management would involve fostering group moods that are beneficial to group activities while preventing or mitigating those that hinder goal achievement. Designed products, services, or interventions may potentially support groups in managing their group mood effectively. A key challenge in designing for group mood management is the lack of contextual understanding of what group mood is and how different group moods manifest. To address this gap, this thesis conceptualizes group mood as an emergent concept with unique qualities and aims to develop a nuanced understanding of group mood in work settings, beyond the basic dichotomy of 'positive versus negative.' This serves as an initial step towards effective group mood management, taking the first step towards developing a dedicated typology. Through a series of studies, this research addresses three primary questions: (1) What types of group moods are experienced in small workgroups? (2) How can group moods be effectively communicated? (3) How can group mood reflection be facilitated? The research begins with a phenomenological inquiry, identifying and describing eight distinct group moods: Chill Flow, Fiery, Creative, Safe Haven, Slack, Tense, Confrontational, and Fuzzy. To communicate these moods effectively, we developed two sets of embodied mediums using an artistic approach—the 'Vibe Image Set' and the 'Vibe Video Set.' Finally, utilizing these mediums, we designed and tested two interventions to facilitate group mood reflection in the context of group work. Our findings provide insights into mood management within small workgroups and offer entry points for future efforts to support it. We envision this thesis as a foundational step toward understanding and shaping group moods within the design domain, offering insights and starting points for future research and practice in designing for group mood management. In professional practice, our research contributions can enable and support workgroups in their efforts to communicate and manage their group moods effectively.
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The number of cardiac patients (people with heart problems) is growing all the time. Given that any person who encounters a cardiac condition should undergo cardiac rehabilitation (CR), a program to rehabilitate the heart and learn to manage it in daily life, it is expected that the health system will also grow exponentially in order to meet the high care demand. However, this is not the case. Currently, only 28 percent of the eligible patients get referred to CR because the health system does not have the capacity to include all of them (Van Engen-Verheul et al., 2012). Moreover, the full take-in and supervision of the cardiac patients in CR lead them to find the transition to their daily life after finishing CR quite hard.

One solution to tackle this problem is to delegate some of the care parts at home, called blended care, so that more patients can enter CR while learning to manage their condition early on.

However, there are two main problems concerning this structural change in CR care. First, because of the loss of frequent contact with health professionals, implementing blended care risks losing personalization in care.Secondly, when delegating care at home, health professionals lose insights and feedback into the care delivered at home. Therefore, patient health outcomes might become compromised.
In this regard, this project proposes a design concept to support the blended CR care for the patient (with an app) and physiotherapist (with a dashboard) by homogenizing the care delivered at home and the CR center while centralizing the patients by making them active and responsible for their care. Moreover, it personalizes the CR care path, not in terms of exercises or changes in the workflow, but in a way that makes sense to the patient following their CR interests. The concept is composed of an intelligent solution with three different modules that utilize the feedback loops integrated into it to understand the patients’ input and adapt to them, realizing the personalization effect.

The first module concerns the personal goals that patients need to set as they enter the care path and explains the motivation and type of the goal the patient wants to achieve. The second module aims to engage the patients with their exertion data during the care path (a subjective score from six to twenty with which patients report how heavy they find an activity) by helping them actively reflect on their performance and goals to take necessary actions. It realizes this effect by understanding their exertion zones and asking patients subsequent questions to make sense of the data via a quick check-in after rehabilitation. The third module uses the outcomes of the previous modules to provide personalised insights and advice. ... Read more

Cardiovascular diseases are a prevalent cause of death worldwide. People with physically demanding jobs tend to have poorer cardiovascular health than people with sedentary jobs. In contrast to leisure-time physical activity (PA), occupational PA (lifting, pushing, and pulling heavy loads over a long period without sufficient recovery) seems to have detrimental health effects. This phenomenon is called the ‘PA Paradox’ and requires interventions that counteract these harmful health effects.
In the current occupational health research, interventions for this population are typically narrow, focusing on limited factors in a specific environment. These kinds of interventions are not effective for people with physically demanding jobs. Instead, an intervention for this population must respond to workers‘ complex context, fit their daily activities and preferences, and be integrated into their work and home environment. Therefore, this project aimed to explore these aspects to design a promising concept for a lifestyle intervention that shifts workers’ PA behavior in a healthier direction.

At the beginning of the project, expert interviews with occupational health researchers and practitioners were executed. Moreover, literature was reviewed to comprehend the PA Paradox and current approaches to counteract it. It was found that an intervention should stimulate moderate-vigorous PA, variation, and sufficient recovery and that workers must have the capability, motivation, and opportunity to perform a healthy PA behavior. Therefore, an extensive field study was carried out to investigate workers’ PA behavior and the factors affecting it. That yielded an overview of factors influencing workers’ capability, opportunity, and motivation for a healthy PA behavior. It showed that it would be most impactful to tackle workers’ inadequate risk perception and over-exhaustion. Research through design was applied to explore how an intervention could address these factors in workers’ home and working environments and what interactions fit workers’ needs, preferences, and possibilities.

The generated insights were merged to ‘Shift it!’, a concept that makes workers feel confident about shifting their PA behavior in a healthier direction. ‘Shift it!’ consists of two parts: A health week and a digital buddy. The health week starts with a toolbox meeting to make the workers aware of the PA paradox and its consequences. Afterwards, workers can visit the company doctor to examine their current health state and future risks and monitor their heart rate for one week to get insights into the intensity of their PA and the effect of their breaks.
The digital buddy ensures that workers understand the issue and helps them to integrate recovery and PA into their daily lives. It offers them inspiration, helps them find a plan that fits their busy lives, and supports them to realize it by reminding, encouraging, and praising them.

Finally, the concept was evaluated with the workers and other stakeholders to explore its potential. Everyone was enthusiastic about the concept and showed interest in implementing its elements. The health screening and the digital buddy with all its functions were identified as the concept‘s core, but it is not yet clear which elements can be realized.
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This project is in collaboration with a start-up company: Thrivey. The product produced by Thrivey is an automatic tracking application (mobility tracker), also named Thrivey, that can track the movement of the user when they carry their smartphone with them. Furthermore, the future vision of Thrivey is to expand its user group and promote more sustainable mobility activities.Global warming and climate-changing are topics that raise many concerns at all levels in society. Many aspects result in the extreme condition we are facing now. Among them, mobility contributes to significant pollution on the air quality due to the emission of carbon dioxide and other substances, such as SO2. During the COVID-19 pandemic, people’s mobility activities have been reduced significantly. However, how people will travel after the pandemic ends is still unknown. Therefore, it creates an opportunity for this project to investigate how to support people toward more sustainable mobility decisions during and after the pandemic.The main objective of this project is to use self-tracking travel data to support people toward more sustainable mobility decisions.A series of literature research and qualitative user research was carried out. Through the research, the design goal and the final design direction were refined. The design also went through iterations, inspired by insights gathered from user-involved sessions. The final design presented four features that support users toward sustainable mobility decisions. These four features are: personalized advice & indicating restrictions (see chapter 5.3.1), community (see chapter 5.3.2), challenges (see chapter 5.3.3), and informed infographics (see chapter 5.3.4). Through the final design evaluation, the four features were evaluated. The community (with group challenges) feature was found out to be the most motivating feature that can keep the users engaged with the mobility tracking application and hold on to their sustainable mobility goals. Moreover, personalized advice was found out to be the most supportive feature that enables and guides users to travel more sustainably. Additionally, the “indicating restrictions” feature provides a feeling of being understood by the mobility tracker.Furthermore, the informed infographic provides users with insights about their travel behaviour they usually do not aware of. By showing how much restriction the users were facing and what keeps them from travelling more sustainably, users were given a new perspective into their travel behaviour. As a result, this supports, motivates and inspires them to make sustainable mobility decisions. ... Read more

This master thesis report is the result of a six-month-long graduation project for the Design for Interaction master track at the TU Delft. The goal of this project is to improve the interaction between teenage girls and sexualisation on social media. It does so by generating awareness and empowering them to avoid negative influences that affect them on a personal level.

Teenagers grow up surrounded by technology. They live by social media, an environment in which they are constantly exposed to sexualised content and behaviours. Sexualisation occurs when a person’s value comes only from their sexual appeal or behaviour, to the exclusion of other characteristics. Exposure to big amounts of sexualised content and reactions online influences teenagers. They reproduce such behaviours, unconsciously post content that can be sexualised, and learn to believe sexualising is the norm. They are also not capable nor experienced to deal with the consequences of their content being sexualised.
Therefore, I identified an opportunity to design an intervention that proposes a solution to those issues.

The Sexualisation Dialogue is a program consisting of an educational plan, the Learning Journey, and two tools to educate and empower teenage girls in their interactions with sexualisation on social media. The Learning Journey proposes weekly and monthly sessions for secondary school students, where they reflect and discuss sexualisation, sexualised contents and reactions, posting content, feeling empowered, and other topics. Through exercises teenagers learn to be aware and reflective when interacting with social media content. The two tools, the Awareness Sticker and Power-App, help the teens apply the learned lessons in practice. The Awareness Sticker, placed on the back of their phones, prompts a reflection moment at the time of sharing content, to think about one’s reasons for posting and how people could react. The Power-App promotes the use of stickers and hashtags to feel empowered by communicating how they feel about themselves and the content they post.
The design was field tested with twelve teenage girls, and evaluated with two educators. The Sexualisation Dialogue shows promise to generate awareness about sexualisation among teens, to inspire a reflective attitude in their interactions with social media and to help them feel empowered and in control. Although further testing is required to evaluate and completely detail all aspects of the design, it shows potential to fulfil the design goal. The Learning Journey should be evaluated in its entirety and the two tools fully developed and tested to assess their effect over an extended period of time.

This project followed a human- and society-focus. I arrived at the final design after multiple rounds of field research and design activities including a field study with the target group, contextmapping sessions and evaluations with experts. The domain of this project is complex, and involving multiple stakeholders has made the process richer and the insights more comprehensive.

In conclusion, the knowledge gained throughout the project, and the results obtained from the field test indicate that The Sexualisation Dialogue is a good intervention to tackle the issues of social media sexualisation. After following the final recommendations and evaluating the remaining elements of the design, The Sexualisation Dialogue should be ready to be implemented into the context successfully.

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When working with the Youth Initiated Menter (YIM) approach, youth workers have to collaborate with an adult from the network of the youth. Starting to work with this YIM approach is not easy for youth workers. Codesign approach this project has looked into the experiences and struggles of youth workers in working with YIM. Based on the five personas were developed. For three personas two concepts were developed to support them in working with the YIM approach. One concept was a product, an interactive map. The other concept was a service, a YIM event.
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Because of their over-concern with body shape and weight, chronic dieters may eventually damage their physical and mental health. Typical problems include hair loss, extreme hunger, depression, and food obsession. For the sake of their health, they have to get rid of chronic dieting and change their restrained eating behavior. This project will focus on chronic dieters who have been aware of the harm of a long-term restrained diet and are willing to change their current eating habits. Specifically, I will tackle the Chinese college female students who are in their 20s.
This project aims to develop a product that guides chronic dieters to counter their fear of eating and to finally formulate a personalized food ritual. Getting rid of restrained eating does not mean they will end up eating a lot of junk food and have a disastrous life. But they will be more mindful about the food they eat. Their focus will be shifted from calories or nutrition of food, and how food makes them gain weight to the essence of food and their internal feeling due to eating. In this way, they will receive positive experiences and memories that will confirm their decisions of giving up dieting to pursue a healthier lifestyle.
The result turns out to be a product that accompanies and guides the user to be more mindful throughout the eating journey. Foodpal is a product with a pair of chopsticks linked to a plant-growing app. The pressure sensor on the head of the chopsticks can monitor the user's eating speed, thereby affecting the growth of plants on the app. The interaction with the app encourages the user to be more mindful of the eating process. The growth of the plant on one hand is a metaphor for the recovery of the user's body due to eating. On the other hand, it is the reward for the user’s courage to fight against their fear of eating and gaining weight, so that they can be motivated to keep eating in a new mindful way. ... Read more

A smart home can be defined as a system of connected devices that are controlled remotely from one central place. Smart home solutions used to be for early adopters who like the novel and fun part of this new technology. Currently the smart Home market is moving to mainstream users. Hombli is a smart home brand established in 2019 in the Netherlands. The initial goal of Hombli is to address this mainstream market. They want to make smart home accessible to everyone, by offering a simple and affordable smart home solution. An analysis of the smart home market show that most smart home brands claim to offer a simple solution. Most brands also have another special focus in which they set their brand apart from the rest. The strong competition in the smart home market requires a stronger brand position for Hombli to stand out from the other brands. The new focus on the wellbeing of the user by providing “a carefree live with Hombli” is a promising new direction for Hombli. It is a unique direction in the smart home market and fits the current product portfolio. Users can create this carefree life by automating their Hombli devices using smart scenarios. However, a survey filled in by 149 current Hombli users show that only 23% say that creating scenarios is easy. Of these people 39% do not use scenarios at all. Besides these current Hombli users, also people without experience with smart home devices were analyzed using sensitizing booklets with daily assignments. The participants described their routines and used smart Hombli devices. This experiment showed that it is hard to come up with ideas for smart scenarios and that the process of adding new scenarios is difficult for some people. To make the new mission of Hombli possible, all users should be able to create scenarios that can improve their wellbeing. Therefore, the design goal for this project is to help Hombli users with little technical experience, to feel guided and in control when they add smart scenarios, so they can automate their routines. Three concepts are developed to explore different ways to create scenarios. These concepts are turned into prototypes and evaluated. The results of these user-tests can be summarized in three aspects: - Control: The user should have a clear overview of the scenarios, be able to control important settings in an easy way and scenarios should be visible at the device page. - Comfort: The design of the app should be calm, the user should feel guided through the different steps and should be able to get help when it does not understand something. - Convenience: The app should provide example scenarios which offer clear benefits to the wellbeing can be added conveniently to the app of the user. The final design combines these three requirements in one single experience. User tests of this final design show that people get inspired by the example scenario in the app and start thinking of different ways to automate their smart home devices. With this new app, Hombli can set itself apart as a brand that not just sells connected devices but cares about the wellbeing of their customers. Besides validation with users, the new app is also validated on feasibility for the company. Because developing a brand-new app from scratch requires a big investment, a better strategy is needed. The current app is based on the Tuya platform. Talks with Tuya developers explain the possibilities in changing the current app to create quick first steps in improving the experience in the current app by adding an extra section in the app with example scenarios. In a later stage, device panels can be improved to match the panels of the final design concept. After these short-term steps, Hombli should invest in developing their own services to create added functionalities to adapt to the evolving smart home market. New communication standards are in development that will make it possible to control smart devices from different brands using the same standard. The long-term strategy ensures Hombli will deliver a unique experience to users that value wellbeing by offering a carefree life with smart automations for every connected device at home. ... Read more

The thesis aims to investigate how the Sleep Robot system (a Sleep Robot, its application, and servers) can adopt a data-enabled loop to make optimal use. The research has three main objectives: (1)understanding the needs and concerns of using the Sleep Robot system in different user profiles, (2)building a data loop of the Sleep Robot system with subjective and objective data, and (3) identifying the design principles of long-term engagement in a data loop.

To answer the research question and fulfil the objectives, the thesis adopted a four-diamond design process. In the discovery phase, the research reviewed the literature on personal informatics and sleep solutions, then plotted the Somnox data ecosystem. In the refining phase, the user research was performed to obtain profound insights, create a journey map, and user profiles by using a sensitizing diary, fetching data from servers, creating data visualization, and conducting interviews. The user research found that users stick to standardized breathing settings without engaging themselves in self-experimenting with breathing settings due to the lack of guidance and support. Thus, the project’s design goal is to let users feel guided and at ease during self-experimenting different breathing settings.

By going through creative sessions and user testing in the developing phase, the research found out four essential design elements to achieve design goal: (1) step by step learning experience, (2) dynamics of breathing rate, (3) growing together through empowering the breathing recommendation system, and (4) breathing with a specific goal which reflects causes of poor sleep. Eventually, the proposed design integrated these four elements into three levels of personalized breathing rhythms, including customized breathing, optimized breathing, and contextualized breathing.

In the evaluation phase, the proposed design was evaluated through user scenarios and high-fidelity prototypes. The results showed that users highly appreciated the guidance and ease through measuring personal conditions to tailor three-level breathing rhythms. This study emphasizes the transition role of the proposed concept from three-level of personalized breathing with a data loop and, ultimately, toward the adaptively synthesized breathing.
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Aito has developed a technology that can be placedunderneath surfaces to give haptic feedback. They make use of piezoelectricdiscs to sense a pressure difference and actuate a pulse if this differencereaches a certain level. This system is possible because of the piezoelectriccrystals in the discs. These crystals create current from movement for thesensing action, and create movement by adding current for actuation action.These properties, combined with the way Aito layers the structure to supportthe piezoelectric discs, allow for this type of haptic feedback which mimicsthe press of a button. While the technology of Aito currently focuses on asingle pulse to simulate the feeling of a button, it is possible to send acontinuous stream of vibrations through the piezoelectric discs. This streamcould be a pulse that is being repeated over and over, or it could be avariation of pulses which creates music. This last possibility is explored inthis graduation project by a state-of-the-art review, objective measuringtechniques and subjective measuring techniques. With Aito’s current structure, it seems possible to create aspeaker in which the surface is vibrated to create audio according to thegathered literature in the state-of-the-art review. The literature describestwo types of speakers with a similar structure as Aito, which are the distributedmode loudspeakers and multiactuator panels. These speakers use a vibrationmodule (an exciter), to move the surface they are attached to. The differencebetween these two speakers is the placement and number of exciters. Both thesespeakers have a different designing approach than the standard design processof coil-based speakers. The design approach for distributed mode loudspeakersand multiactuator panels is used in this project but incorporates sometechniques from the usual procedure. The main elements that are adopted fromthe standard audio engineering approach relate to the validation of the setupwith users and measurements.The traditional approach of audio engineers to involve usersinto the design process, is by letting participants participate in listeningtest to define the audio quality perception of the speaker. This approach isadapted in this project into an approach which allows users to define theiraudio quality expectations; this involves users earlier on into the designprocess. By letting users participate early on in the process, the audioquality experience can be changed efficiently. The perceptions could improvethe experience at the end of the process, while the expectations change it inthe beginning. The expectation that is explored during this research involvesfoldable laptops and tablets. This approach shows that the audio quality of foldablelaptops is expected to be higher than foldable tablets. The whole foldablegroup is expected to perform lower than a laptop, but higher than a smartphone.The expected speaker placement also showed a difference between foldablelaptops and foldable tablets, which shows similarities to their non-foldable devicegroup. Therefore, a speaker that is integrated into the surface would ensurethat the speaker location is most optimal in both the laptop position as wellas the tablet position of a foldable device.  For the measurement validation, various tests were donebased on the approach of audio engineers to define how Aito’s structureperforms for audio functionalities. This approach was chosen to compare theresults to the requirements of the industry; these take volume levels andfrequency range of the audio into account. When these requirements arecombined, a grading system is created to help in selecting the correct speakerfor specific experiences. The tests were done with simplified models of afoldable tablet because this product group is the best fit for a haptic andaudio combination. In total, there were eight individual models used during thesystem performance testing. All these models originated from one basic model,which was a simplified foldable tablet structure; this model can be seen infigure 1. Its structure is separated into two identical halves to be able tocreate stereo audio when both halves are used. In the individual models,changes were made to test the effects of different surface materials, surfaceedge fixtures, piezoelectric disc layouts and uses of the space behind thesystem. These changes were mainly based on the design principles of distributedmode loudspeakers and multiactuator panels but were combined with some designprinciples dictated by Aito and the speaker industry. This research was a first step in the direction of audiowith Aito’s current setup. From the performance of eight models in combinationwith the user expectations on foldable laptops and tablets can be concludedthat the technology is not yet there. However, for less demanding products,such as intercoms, the audio quality can be deemed good enough as is with somesmall improvements. There is also the possibility to use the system only forhigher frequencies and haptics and add another speaker to generate lowerfrequencies.  ... Read more

This graduation project starts from the big scope of weight stigmatisation on social media. At the beginning of research, primary research about weight stigma and social media was conducted to collect background knowledge and form an initial scope for further exploration. Explorative research was conducted to map out the situation and problems of weight stigmatisation on social media. Then the project scope was refined as weight stigma internalisation in the context of fast fashion, and focuses on the problem that female social media users internalise weight stigma when shopping for fast fashion products. In the next step, I did user research to better understand how do social media influence people in their daily life, and how do people cope with stigmatising information. Then I did context research to understand the collaboration of social media and fast fashion (social shopping), and the internalising circle of weight stigma was concluded from the research. Based on the research findings about social media and fast fashion, this design should enable young social media female users to be aware of the subtle but prevalent stigmatising contents, and therefore avoid internalising stigma, in which way a more supportive environment could be built for more people.
With clear design goal and qualities defined, the design starts with making use of the relevant elements in the whole shopping experience, including online interactions and in-store experience. The concept is developed through user- participatory iterations and evaluations. The final concept is a trans-media experience aiming to make the user encourage them to embrace the body shape diversity actively, and aware of the stigmatising environment on social media.
Finally the evaluation was conducted to validate if the concept fulfilled the design goal and reach the interaction qualities. A workable prototype and video were used to facilitate the evaluation online and offline. ... Read more

The following report outlines a design project about self-tracking, a food diary app, with the goal of encouraging young adults to record and understand their eating behaviour. The project was executed for the graduation course, as part of the Master’s program at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at TU Delft. This report begins with an introduction to the project, including the background of self-tracking, assignment and approach. The design will focus on young adults who live alone and work full time. Next, from the literature research and user research, insights were drawn on the current experience of using food-tracking tools. Self-Determination Theory and Gamification Theory were applied to help with analyzing the user characteristics and contextual factors. Based on research, the design goal was formed: Engaging young adults who live alone and work full time to record and better understand their eating behaviour. Users should feel supported and competent when interacting with the design, reporting the food-related data without pressure and unpleasant feeling, and at the same, keep engaged through using. Based on this goal, I next explored the solution space, narrowing it down to three possible concept directions that would take the redesign in three different extreme directions. Evaluations for all three tests were conducted with seven participants. The results showed that a combination of various elements from the three concepts should be used for the redesign in order to optimize the user experience. Next, after a redesign workshop and a cognitive walkthrough, the final concept was detailed and a high-fidelity prototype was created. This prototype was evaluated in a user test with six participants. The results demonstrated the strength of many of the design decisions, while also showing areas of improvement; such as the need to better guide the user when choosing their weekly goal. The recommendations and limitations were discussed as well in the end. ... Read more

This thesis presents research on data and healthcare and proposes a design vision that enables collaborative use of self-tracked data. This work was developed within the Cardiolab as a graduation work in Strategic Product Design. It aimed to identify the needs and aspirations of practitioners and patients and, then, embody the findings on a design vision.
To develop the design vision, literature research was carried and user research was done with healthcare professionals and patients. Mixed methods were used to collect and analyze qualitative data.
The results have revealed that trust plays a key role in a data-based collaborative system. It enables users and professionals engagements and provides value to other stakeholders involved. Furthermore, the research has revealed that ethical uses of data are critical to unlocking interactions in such a system. Based on that, a platform called "Insight .me" was designed.
From a design perspective, this thesis emphasizes the need for enabling data as material for personal reflection and collaboration, besides, it reinforces the need of designing ethical and trust base businesses to deal with self-tracked and personal data. ... Read more

All human beings eat food, but not always with the same intention. For many people, food can bring a feeling of comfort, at least in the short-term. As a result, some people turn to food in an attempt to heal emotional problems. The term ‘emotional eating’ has been defined as eating in response to emotional cues, often as a coping response to negative emotions like stress, boredom, loneliness, chronic anger, anxiety, frustration, and so on. Emotional eating behavior can affect the overall healthiness of a person in both the short and the long-term. If untreated, it may lead to food addictions and even obesity. The aim of this project is to transform the current mindless and impulsive eating practice into an experience that cultivates awareness regarding emotional responses and eating behavior. The human-centered design approach will lead to come up with design interventions creating attitudinal and behavioral change on emotional eaters. As a result of this self-initiated research & design project, two interventions were designed to tackle emotional eating behavior; Smash & Crack. These are special snack containers which work as mediators between impulsiveness and food by bringing a physical interaction. They aim to enable emotional eaters to express/alleviate current emotional distress before reaching craved food via behavioral expressions. Thanks to interactions, impulsiveness is transformed into mindfulness. As a conclusion, 'a mindful moment of indulging' prevents overeating of comfort foods and eliminates accompanying negative feelings. ... Read more

The goal of this project is to increase the food literacy of people with low socioeconomic status by conveying food knowledge in an enjoyable, indirect, and unforced way. This master thesis proposes a mobile game which enables the target group to receive food literacy and report their diet through gameplay. The game is about dragon raising; it builds a connection between the game world and the real world by encouraging users to feed their dragons with what they buy and eat in real lives. The project started with literature research and a user survey in the supermarket to explore the factors that influenced people’s food choice. The result showed there were mainly two reasons why low SES people were not having healthy food behavior, unwilling to learn food knowledge or report diet: lack of motivation or lack of ability, which is in line with Fogg's Behavior Model. After further research on the characteristics of people with low SES and contextual factors that influence food behavior, the reason became more specific: 1. People didn't have motivation due to the lack of direct feedback about the short-term and long-term benefits of having good food behaviors. 2. People lacked the ability to learn food literacy or report their diet because they were hindered by more pressing matters in their daily life, e.g., financial difficulty, busy lives. Self-Determination Theory and Persuasive Game Design Model were applied together with Fogg's Behavior Model to help with analyzing the user characteristics and contextual factors. After that, the design guideline was made that the design should focus on simplifying the using and learning process (to increase ability) and deliver food knowledge in an attractive and enjoyable way that may relate to their basic needs (to enhance motivation). Before entering the design phase, an analysis of existing food informatics products, including dietary apps and gamified healthcare apps, was conducted to find the typical functional features and most frequently used game elements. Personas and scenarios of two types of user groups were also created based on the research results, leading to the design requirements. During the design phase, creative sessions were carried for idea-generating, followed by two rounds of prototyping test and iterations. Two game concepts with different game elements and design focuses were further developed and tested with users to check to what extent could the concepts meet the design goal and requirements. The final concept was created according to the insights from users' preference and feedback. In the last phase, the design concept was evaluated with experienced designers and dietitian in related fields to get critical feedback and suggestion. The recommendations and limitations were discussed as well in the end. ... Read more

Asthma is one of the most common chronic diseases worldwide, and it is expected that the prevalence of asthma will only increase in the coming years (Masoli et al., 2004). Medical self-management by asthma patients will be of essential importance to keep the burden of disease as low as possible.

Medical self-management is critical in obtaining asthma control. Research suggests that the majority of patients can obtain asthma control, yet most adults are still living with uncontrolled asthma. Both extensive literature research and qualitative research with asthma patients and healthcare providers were executed to uncover what the barriers are that asthma patients face in medical asthma self-management.

The research uncovered three main problems that form barriers to efficient self-management.: beliefs, low motivation, and inability. Each of these problems has its underlying causes. Beliefs are caused by (1) paternalistic care, (2) lack of stimulation, (3) shortcomings in knowledge sources. Low motivation is the result of (1) paternalistic care, (2) lack of awareness, (3) discouragement due to inadequate tools. At last, inability is caused by (1) lack of knowledge, (2) lack of skills (3) lack of insight.

Several opportunity areas to enhance the self-management of asthma patients were discovered: (a) patient education, (b) self-tailoring, and (c) increasing competence.

Patient education can be enhanced by creating awareness and providing a better knowledge source through (1) personalization, (2) spreading knowledge. Enabling the patient to self-tailor can induce more active participation of the patient. Increasing the asthma patient’s competence can be done by (1) increasing self-knowledge (2) enabling action.

To overcome the barriers to self-management a design was proposed: vea. Vea consists of an app and a physical product.

The app enables the user to set goals and supports the user to achieve these goals. Through working on the goals, the app learns about the user and gets personalized. The physical device supports the app by measuring the air quality in the home of the user and gives feedback on this.

Key user benefits of the design are:

Personalization
Vea is designed to match the patients’ needs. Through personalizing its approach and content, the app becomes relevant to the user.

Being in control
The user is in charge of the goals they want to achieve. The app assists them by making the once invisible complaints and effects of self-management explicit.

Increased capability
Vea provides structured tools that increase the capability of the user to self-manage their asthma. Through seamlessly collecting data and providing relevant feedback and tips, the user is motivated and capable of acting.

User evaluation demonstrated that the proposed design is undoubtedly promising. Both asthma patients and general practitioners indicated that the design could lead to increased insight, motivation, and enhanced competence of medical self-management.

The main limitation of this master thesis is, however, determining the long-term effect of the design. Although the design has shown to be promising, unfortunately, no statement can be made of the long-term effect of vea on the actual improvement of medical self-management. To be able to do so, the design should be further developed and tested in the long term.
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Being mindful in the evening is overlooked for sleep-deprived parents with young children, especially with tv's and smartphones grabbing their attention. This graduation project explored in the context of personal energy care to unlock evenings for parents and found out that mindful and secular rituals can energize them. The core elements of a ritual consisting of a focus, mood, and space, led to analyzing what the focus and intention behind the rituals were. Seeking relief, restoring balance, seeking control, and nurturing relationships are four secular ritual intentions/focus in the evenings to re-energize tired parents in the evening.
These findings result in the mobile application: Tada. A gentle and guiltfree tool that suggests personal rituals with the four ritual intentions to energize parents in the evening. The direct way of choosing rituals creates moments of frictions that make you reflect what your current energy level is in the evening. It motivates you to try out new rituals you have not tried before. Tada does not make choices for you, but it only supports your choices. In this way, Tada makes you slow down and mindful to recharge you for the next day. ... Read more