Mathenesserplein, a large square in Rotterdam-West, has long been seen as an underutilised space with potential to contribute to sustainability, climate adaptation, and social cohesion. This graduation project explores how participatory design can support neighbourhood transformation by centering the voices and experiences of local residents.

The project combined literature review, site observations, and ethnographic research with field activities developed together with residents and students. These activities included a card-based conversation tool with parents at the local school, a public flower vote to discuss greening proposals, a prioritisation matrix co-created with stakeholders, and the design of the Community Chronicle as an ongoing communication and feedback platform. Each method was prototyped in context to test how residents could be engaged in ways that fit into their everyday routines, while also creating opportunities for dialogue with municipal actors.

Findings show that participation in neighbourhood transformation requires more than one-off consultations: it depends on gradual trust-building, repeated interactions, and visible feedback loops that allow residents to see how their contributions shape outcomes. Tools such as the Community Chronicle demonstrated potential to sustain engagement beyond individual activities by providing a recognizable and accessible channel for updates and input.

The project delivers both a set of participatory tools and an iterative engagement growth model that municipalities can adapt in similar contexts. It contributes to the field of participatory urban design by showing how design research can scaffold inclusive, situated, and ongoing processes of co-creation in neighbourhood transformation. ... Read more

Digitalisation is regarded as an essential factor in solving the challenges facing healthcare systems today and enabling more efficient patient-centred care. This graduation project aimed to create a mapping tool to help professionals in the healthcare sector evaluate the fit between context and service when implementing digital health services. Service design mapping methods can make the impact of these changes visible and actionable for all stakeholders, but professionals in healthcare lack specific tools and design expertise.

The project combined a literature review, stakeholder interviews and iterative prototyping to create a functional tool and conceptual roadmap detailing the adoption journey of the tool within the healthcare setting. Interview and user test participants included design researchers in healthcare, implementation managers, and clinicians, primarily from the Leiden University Medical Centre. Insights from these activities shaped the functionality, usability, and collaborative potential of the tool.

The outcome is an online implementation tool centred on a shared service map. It enables future service users to analyse their current and future workflow with a focus on their evolving roles and responsibilities. By embedding service design principles into the process, it addresses one of the key barriers to digital health implementation: uncertainty about the real-world impact of change. ... Read more

Patients staying in the oncology department have to deal with fears and worries about their treatment, diagnosis and the effects it brings on their life and those around them. These fears and worries remain often hidden, due to patients needing time to open up about them and healthcare providers not immediately noticing these. They take these fears and worries with them when leaving the hospital, creating a negative discharge experience that provides a lot of stress in a setting where they can familiarize themselves again. The current discharge takes a clinical approach that favors time efficiency with a focus on the direct patient’s needs while missing out on discussing hidden fears and worries of the patients, and no new knowledge is provided on how to effectively do this. This asks for new approaches and tools that can make these hidden fears and worries noticed by healthcare providers, being able to talk about them and prepare the patients and their close loved ones to leave the hospital with a confident feeling of being able to take care of themselves and provide the care necessary. This project aims at finding such new approaches and providing tools that can help turn the discharge experience more positive. A mixed method approach is used where in four phases the context of the oncology department is explored, analysed and designed for. This is supported by an empathy framework, discharge journey map and other models in order to provide a human soft touch to the discharge process. A good understanding of the current discharge process is formed and insights are gathered that influence the discharge experience. Concepts are created that incorporate the insights to evaluate the effects on the discharge process. The hidden fears and worries of patients and their close loved ones are the care not being of the same quality outside the hospital as within, their home turning into a second care home and them not being able to take care or provide the care. Healthcare providers hold on to their existing working methods due to their attitude of it working for some time without any form of self-reflective feedback. Six factors have an influence on the discharge experience that determine how everyone involved interacts with each other, of which confidence and expectations can be improved. A concept goal and direction are formulated that focus on the two factors and additionally raise awareness, allow everyone to share their fears and worries and give confidence to be able to take or provide care. This has given two concepts which in a total of six tests have been evaluated on their influence and changes to the discharge process. A final concept proposal is given with an implementation plan for future design that expands on the first steps created in this project. ... Read more

The assignment for this graduation project was to develop a tool for residents to “step into each other’s worlds”. The project is a side track of the Bubble Games project, here VR technology is used to let people step into each other’s world to understand each other better. My challenge was to develop such a tool, but without using VR technology. Through research about the neighbourhood, including interviews with residents and professionals, the assignment was reformulated into developing a tool that guides residents of Woonontwikkeling Vredeoord to open up to the different flavours of living in together in their neighborhood.

Throughout the project, stakeholders were actively involved. During the design phase, multiple prototypes were created and tested with residents. A brainstorming session with residents helped defining the concept direction, resulting in Babbeloord.

Babbeloord is a phonecell where users are guided through different tasks via a phone. First, you discover your own needs regarding living together in the neighbourhood through the fundamental needs cards on the wall. Then, they are asked to explain their needs, to then listen to the stories of their neighbours. At the end, a question is asked about what they have learned from this chat (Babbel), encouraging residents to reflect. This question is also displayed on a mirror hanging on the third wall of Babbeloord. Follow-ups take place after two and six months to inform residents about the insights gathered and how they will be used.

Babbeloord encourage residents to think about what they believe is important about living together. Babbeloord also provides valuable insights for the municipality. Since Babbeloord was designed for and with residents, it fits well within the neighborhood. The stories collected can provide new entry points for the municipality to act upon. Babbeloord was evaluated in the neighbourhood and validated with two residents who participated in this test. Furthermore, it was discussed with professionals working in the neighbourhood and colleagues from the municipality. These chats provided valuable insights for recommendations on the future use of Babbeloord.
... Read more

Uitvoeringsinstituut Werknemersverzekeringen (UWV) is a Dutch government organisation that assists Dutch citizens who are unemployed or unable to work by finding employment and by providing benefits.

For various reasons, it can happen that a client is overpaid and needs to repay the excess amount to UWV. If the excess amount cannot reasonably be deducted from the client's monthly benefit, UWV's internal department, Verwerking Financiële Verplichtingen (VFV), handles the repayment process and assists clients in finding suitable payment options.

In addition to being unemployed, some of UWV's clients have financial debt that affects their ability to take action and be in control of their finances. These clients, in particular, face great difficulties during the repayment process with VFV. UWV would like to better serve these clients by giving them more control over their financial situation. While UWV has already conducted research on how clients experience the repayment process and is already developing digital services to support them, further insights were needed on how to address these clients' needs, how to develop solutions that serve these clients in a supportive and inclusive manner, and how to address their underlying needs.

In this design project, I used a User-Centered Design approach to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying needs of clients with financial debt and the difficulties they encounter during the repayment process. I discovered that clients with financial debt can perceive the initial notice about the repayment as a great and unexpected shock. These clients have an unmet need for more personal and proactive support from UWV. They do not feel seen and heard during their interactions with VFV and UWV's general helpdesk, and they lack perspective throughout the lengthy repayment process.

Through various design activities, including a co-creation session with clients from UWV, I designed a service concept tailored to the needs of VFV's clients with financial debt. This concept offers clients a kinder, softer introduction to the repayment process from VFV and provides personalized and proactive support through face-to-face or online service meetings with a designated employee from VFV. For this service concept, I designed four service touchpoints: an invitation card to kindly and personally invite the client to the meeting, a checklist for clients to prepare for the meeting in manageable steps, a note-taking sheet for clients to record expectations and agreements made during the service meeting, and several card designs to provide clients with a monthly overview of their payments to UWV.

Once UWV further develops and implements this service concept, I expect that clients with financial debt will feel more supported, seen, and heard by employees of VFV. Furthermore, I expect clients to be more inclined to get in contact with VFV due to the kind invitation beforehand and the personal relationship built with their designated contact at VFV after the service meeting. Consequently, this service is also expected to work preventively to avoid bigger financial problems in the future as a result of clients staying in contact with VFV. ... Read more

Academic design research often fails to contribute to design practice. This dissertation explores how design research collaborations can provide knowledge that design professionals will use in practice. The research shows that design professionals are not addressed as an important audience between the many audiences of collaborative research projects. The research provides insight in the learning process by design professionals in design research collaborations and it identifies opportunities for even more learning. It shows that design professionals can learn about more than designing, but also about application domains or project organization. ... Read more

Society is increasingly faced with complex and wicked problems (Hervieux & Voltan, 2019). As a result, organisations face complex and open challenges and design has become more popular as an approach to address this (Dorst, 2011). Due to these global changes, the social design field is growing (Tromp & Vial, 2022). Participatory design is part of this field and has also gained more acceptance over the years (Smith & Iversen, 2018). The concept of citizen participation is experiencing growth due to rules and regulations that encourage this in government projects (e.g. the Omgevingswet (IPLO, n.d.)). Municipalities hire design studios like Zeewaardig to help guide these participatory processes, because of their expertise in the field of participatory design. Literature shows that there is often still a need to demonstrate the value of design to clients (Schmiedgen et al., 2016). This research is commissioned by Zeewaardig, a design studio working on participatory design, who also want to demonstrate the value of their approach. However, little is known about the impact of a participatory design approach on participating residents.

This research proposes the concept of empowered citizenship as a key form of impact that can be made on residents through a participatory design approach. It further details this concept in a framework that outlines the various components that make up empowered citizenship and the participatory design activities that are related to this impact. Empowered citizenship consists of two components: citizen empowerment (which consists of voice, agency and opportunity structure) and responsible citizenship (which consists of a sense of collectivity and citizenship abilities).

This framework was evaluated with designers. Furthermore, it was used to explore how the framework could be used to evaluate impact through a case study analysis. The findings from the case study further validated the framework, but also provided more learnings on participatory design and the measurement of impact.

Based on the learnings from literature and the case study the ‘Are we making impact?’ tool is introduced. This impact demonstration tool consists of a poster and a booklet. Both are set up around the same three elements: 1) What is impact in the participatory design context, 2) How to think about impact in participatory design projects, and 3) Demonstrating impact, step by step. The first two elements use the framework and impact considerations to help designers become aware of impact in their projects, better understand it, and be able to make informed decisions about it with clients in a kick-off. The third element provides an overview of the steps designers need to take to demonstrate the impact of their participatory approach.

The tool was evaluated with Zeewaardig and other participatory design studios. This demonstrated its value as a tool that helps designers to make more effective agreements at the front end of a project. This in turn will give them more freedom to work towards empowered citizenship. In addition, the tool helps to demonstrate impact and thus improve their practice and have more credible arguments towards (future) clients.
... Read more

Young adults with Concerns about their mental health issues (YAMHI) seeking support in the Dutch mental health system struggle with long waiting times.
Enliven aims to develop a virtual peer mentor support platform for YAMHIE to bridge these waiting times. This thesis explores the design process and development of a concept with the following design goal:

To Enable young adults with concerns about their mental health issues to engage with a peer mentor through interaction in a virtual reality environment while waiting on the professional health care, with the aim to support them in addressing their problems.

The design process involved participatory design methods like contextmapping, co-design sessions and prototyping. The tools used for prototyping consisted of Minecraft to design the virtual environments, Figma and paper prototypes.
The outcome of this project is:

A design concept:
1) consisting of ten virtual environments that can be used to design a virtual peer mentor support platform.
2) An experiential prototype to demonstrate the intended interactions between YAMHI and peer mentors of some of those environments (6 of the 10)

As an addition on the side:
3) Because the platform does not exist yet, a manual to support the design team to further integrate these environments in their platform has been created.

... Read more

Crooswijk is a neighbourhood in Rotterdam that has been dealing with issues regarding trust in the municipality, and residents have not been participating much anymore. Crooswijkers feel unheard and left in the dark whenever plans are developed and executed. The main challenge that the design should solve: Improve the low level of trust currently present in Crooswijk, and set the residents up for more participation activities and overall engagement, by utilizing and building upon the newly elected neighbourhood council. The concept entailed seven interactive poles, each matched to one of the newly elected neighbourhood councilmembers. The poles would make these members visible in the neighbourhood, and let residents interact with it and give some low-threshold input, while also getting feedback on this input quickly. The concept aimed to build upon the strengths of the neighbourhood council, namely the personality of the people on it, and the recognisability that they possess, being neighbours of the other Crooswijkers. The concept was validated with residents and candidate councilmembers, leading to some important input for iterations. Besides this concept, an overarching strategy was developed that focused on using the poles as a stepping stone to slowly get Crooswijkers more involved and used to participation, and gradually nudging them over to the other participation contexts, namely the municipality’s digital participation platform MijnRotterdam, and the physical neighbourhood hubs. ... Read more

Project Motivation
In 2013, Dutch politicians longed for more rigorous actions against fraudulent applications for financial support. They were all done with residents taking advantage of the system and decided to adopt an all-or-nothing approach. Child support applications would be assessed thoroughly and mercilessly. Consequently, that would also mean that the good can suffer from the bad, as stated by the state secretary of finance Frans Weekers (Frederik, 2021).

In the years that followed, about 30,000 parents were wrongly labeled as fraudsters by the tax authorities. These parents had to repay their allowance in full at the slightest mistake. In some cases, a single missing receipt was enough to make parents pay back tens of thousands of euros. To this day, some parents are experiencing the financial, mental, and physical consequences of the fraud hunt. We now label this the Toeslagenaffaire (Eng: The Child Welfare Fraud Scandal). Within public organizations, every effort is made to prevent these kinds of debacles in
the future.

The Toeslagenaffaire shows that the government sometimes imposes unrealistic demands on residents. Policymakers assumed that residents understood the rules for applying for benefits and had sufficient capacity to submit applications fully and correctly. However, not all parents can submit monthly forms and indicate changes in their wages in practice. Sometimes they are not even aware of the conditions. Here we see a difference between the policymakers’ expectations (the rationalistic perspective) and the capacities of the resident (the realistic perspective). Adopting a realistic policymaking perspective makes public services accessible to more residents, reducing process costs and stimulating residents’ self-sufficiency (NL: redzaamheid).

Within a realistic policymaking perspective, civil servants create realistic assumptions about the mental capacity of residents. This mental capacity consists of two components: the ability to understand the process (NL: denkvermogen) and the ability to act accordingly (NL: doenvermogen). When the procedures of implemented policies match these abilities, the resident will be able to follow the process. If the cognitive load of the policy exceeds the denkvermogen and doenvermogen, the resident faces more difficulties. They might require a customized process, which is costly and inefficient. Assessing the cognitive load of the context and the residents’ mental capacity supports policymakers in creating realistic assumptions about residents.

De ‘Erkenningsmethode’ (Eng: Acknowledgment Method) supports policymakers in creating this realistic assumption. Through empathy exercises and context assessments, stakeholders realize the different mental capacities of residents and consider the challenges they face in the policy process. Some residents might not be able to enter the process or get stuck along the way. When participants experience the challenges of certain residents, they can make an informed decisions for the innovation approach.

First, participants can choose to let the current process’s cognitive load and the residents’ capacity remain the same. This might be the case when resources are scarce, or not all profiles receive the same prioritization. Alternatively, the next phase can increase the mental capacity (stimulating residents) or make the process easier (less complexity and more support). Whatever option is chosen, the stakeholders should all be aware of the prioritized approach, acknowledging the consequences for the self-determination profiles.

This way, a more diverse image of residents can be considered when innovating public services. Understanding these residents and acknowledging their problems is the first step in creating more realistic assumptions about the mental capacity of residents. ... Read more

In 2019, close to one million Dutch citizens lived below the low-income threshold. Their monthly income averaged below €2.110 for a family of four (SCP, 2019). Many poor citizens struggle to improve their situation, with almost half of them remaining in poverty for more than four years on-end (CPB, 2019).

Luckily, Dutch national- and local governments and their supporting organizations are continuously trying to support citizens in poverty. These parties offer financial and qualitative aid, coming together in “the poverty reduction system”.

However, the municipality of Utrecht has identified that this system does not always sufficiently support citizens. The system can be complex and bureaucratic, making it inaccessible for some citizens. Cognitively challenged women with a non-Western migration background are extra vulnerable to the complexities of the poverty reduction system. They struggle with low-literacy, communicative skills, and cultural barriers. The Municipality of Utrecht, Stichting Al Amal, and Buurtteams Utrecht want to improve accessibility of the system for this group. This project is the result of that collaboration.

In this project, I aim to design an intervention that makes Utrecht’s poverty reduction system more accessible for cognitively challenged women in poverty with a non-western migration background. Throughout my research, the experiences of citizens and the social workers supporting them have been the focal point. I explored the cause of the target group’s non-participation in the system through multiple creative sessions, interviews, and context explorations.

From my research, I learned that the issues already start before these women come in contact with the system. The target group refrains from requesting help altogether because they feel overwhelmed by the many available options, lack clear information about their options and rights, mistrust the authorities, do not feel that their situation is urgent, or feel ashamed. They let their financial struggles go untreated because of these factors, often making their situation progressively worse with time.

I focused my design activities on this early stage, looking for ways to improve accessibility early on. This was a co-evolutionary process, where learnings from design explorations inspired new directions to chase after. In this search, two themes arose. First, the theme of ‘motivating growth’ allowed me to explore alternative ways
of making the target group rediscover their own aspirations to improve their situation. How can we make people believe in their own potential again? Through this exploration, a new theme arose: “Opening up”. I found how the target group pushes the topic of poverty away. However, the network of people around them could probably be of great help. All this knowledge and support could be unlocked if people just opened up towards each other. I challenged myself to find
a way to let these people open up about their experiences, in a way that felt comfortable to them.

The concept that came fort is “a tea box full of stories” (figure 1). This concept is a low-threshold conversation starter that motivates citizens to open up about poverty-related experiences during tea time. The tea packets have questions and quotes printed on them, inviting the users
to start a conversation about these topics over a pot of tea. The quotes, which are written by other Utrechters, show them that these problems are universal, and that being vulnerable is okay.

The tea box unlocks and activates an informal network of knowledge and care, where friends, neighbors, and family together explore how they can support one another. It shows citizens that they do not have to carry the burden of their troubles alone. The tea box also offers multiple different links to U-Centraal; an organization that can help citizens find the right professional support once they are ready for it.

Al in all, the tea box offers a first low-threshold stepping stone towards a more accessible system. Firstly through an activated community that shares knowledge and support, and secondly by offering professional support in a pro-active yet unforced manner. ... Read more

The current gap between what municipalities do and what citizens expect, is demanding a new approach for creating public services. This is portrayed by the amount of complaints that the Nationale Ombudsman received about municipal actions which have increased with 15% in 2021 in comparison to 2020.

An opportunity to make room for the citizens’ perspective is to apply the design expertise in the policy-making process. Since design has shifted towards Human-Centered Design in combination with co-creative practices, it has become highly suitable in addressing the challenges that municipalities face (Norman, 2013; Camacho, 2016). Consequently, Human-Centered Design has become valuable in the context of policy-making, because of its tools and methods which can carefully consider the human perspective throughout the policy-making proces.

Together with the municipality of The Hague, a project was set up to research how the design team contributes to human-centered policy-making in collaboration with policy and policy execution experts. The research revealed that some challenges arise within the collaboration between designers and experts. Among these challenges are the fact that the working procedures of designers and experts are diametrically opposed to each other, and that the true value that design offers is not entirely seen within the municipality. Therefore, the design vision for this project is that before designers can take on a larger role in policy-making and add human-centered value to policy-making at the municipality of the Hague, policy and policy execution experts need to truly understand and see the added value of applying design.

The insights from the research have led to the design of the Ontwerpwijzer, a conversation tool which aims to build a bridge between the two worlds of design and policy-making and to guide the collaboration in its early stages. The Ontwerpwijzer is used during the intake meeting, in which the details of the project and potential contributions of the designer are discussed. Consequently, this forms an interesting opportunity to show why, what and when design has something valuable to offer to the policy-making process. ... Read more

The value of customer relationships appears to be a hot topic at the moment as companies need to move from competition to collaboration, or how I will largely refer to: from transactional to relational. However, the value which current customer relationships generate is far from the claimed collaboration. For many years, transactional relationships kept companies in a stable comfort zone with easy cash flow, measurements and ongoing linear chain processes. However, they need to survive, but large corporates might find difficulties in acquiring new approaches to their relationships but start recognizing that their internal operations may be the key reason (Junginger, 2017). Looking at my personal motivation towards interactions and relationships between people, I see customer relationships not as on the interaction between companies but people. Although the word “customer” is largely used along with the thesis because of the Philips terminology, a relationship between people from different companies - a partnership, should equalise both sides of individuals as partners. Removing the roles of customer and provider helps to step out of the unwanted transactional approach. The same happens with customer-centricity. Although customer centricity seems to be the saving boat, companies struggle to apply it. Because it is not the company itself that needs to be customer centric, but the employees. To overcome the transactional approach of Account Management, Philips needs to understand that there are external factors to account managers that influence the behaviour of these and consequently, the outcomes of the customer interaction. Incentivisation on new deals and commercial education takes a big role within the context but this project will focus on the education side - training. Companies deliver education to their employees so that they perform under the assumed company strategy. In the case of Philips aiming to improve customer relationships, the organisation provides training to its account managers to sell better. This project aimed to develop a solution space to reframe the approach, knowledge and behaviour gaps in the dialogues between Philips Account Managers and Philips customers - hospitals. ... Read more

Youth care in the Netherlands has faced quite some problems in the past years. It is organised only by adults who mostly have nothing to do with it, and it shows — both youth care workers and youth themselves have had enough. Every solution to the youth care problem in the Netherlands leads to new problems, making it a wicked problem which does not have one apparent solution which works. Therefore, the best solution to tackle it is to work with bottom-up organisations. De Garage2020 is such a bottom-up organisation, working in multidisciplinary teams all around the country to design innovations which focus on youth care prevention. They work together with youth to get to the best solutions, but unfortunately that still leaves a gap between them and youth they are designing for, especially because they themselves are adults and they still make the decisions. Therefore, de Garage2020 Rotterdam wants to start a new youth initiative, completely led and executed by youth: the JongerenGarage (translated to English as ‘Youth Garage’). The goal of the JongerenGarage would be to design for the utopian youth care in the Netherlands. This thesis is aimed on providing insight into how and if design can facilitate the empowerment of youth in youth initiatives. In this thesis, I am presenting a framework which shows the complex mechanisms that take place. Through this framework, concepts are presented, from which a prototype is developed and used as a case study of a trial youth initiative. This trial went differently than expected, which shows that the perception of what is good and what is bad differs between youth and adults, but also between a non-designer and a designer. Therefore, two things can be concluded: The first is that when designing for the empowerment of youth, an adult cannot expect youth to behave like adults. Youth go through several developmental phases and therefore may have a complete different view on what is right or wrong in terms of working and communication. Second, when conducting a diffuse design process, in which a designer enables others to co-design together, a designer cannot expect non-designers to go through the design process as the designer intended, as they have far less experience. All in all, both of these conclusions imply the same: Expectations have to be let go when designing for others’ processes. This can be done through constant reflection and self-awareness. ... Read more

It is our human nature to create, and we must continue to create what we need in a constantly changing world. This project was also started by a world that turned because of Covid-19. Due to the Coronavirus, the online environment's importance is increasing, and a digital transformation is happening worldwide. Under these circumstances, when we involve users in the design process as a designer, we need an online tool to facilitate fluent communication. With this increasing needs, both ID Studio Lab at Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology and Ford Research and Innovation Center need a proper online collaboration tool for involving users in a design process. Involving users in a design process has many benefits, to improving the quality of the products or services, and it helps to avoid waste of cost in organizations. The main opportunity is to develop a new online possibility of user engagement in a design process for Ford and ID Studio Lab. The challenge is to create a fluent tool for both users and designers in a user-centric research project. Therefore, this project aims to develop a guideline which allows proceeding fluent participatory design process in online for Ford's Smart Vehicle Concepts team. This project started with one main challenge was that"To create a fluent tool for users and designers in a user-centric design project in a digital environment." The final concept-Sketcho-is an online meeting web application that enhances a sense of togetherness and evokes positive emotions such as fun and joy in online collaborative works. The app is an example of the various potentials of an online environment. Sketcho strengthens a sense of togetherness with the main features of sharing space together, which ultimately boost people who participate in online collaborative sessions full engagement to their activities. ... Read more

Empathy is one of the 8 design competences of the study Communication & Multimedia Design at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. However, there is a gap within the curriculum regarding actively teaching students what it means to be an empathic designer, and it has not been completely clear what it actually means to be an empathic designer. Based on my research, I came up with the following design goal: to help students use empathy consciously throughout their design projects. Within this context, I came up with the following design focus: Offering structure and clarity within the development of empathic abilities.Based on literary research, field research and designing by doing, I came up with my final concept: the Empathic Habits program. The Empathic Habits program clarifies the meaning of professional empathy in design, helps students reflect upon their own abilities, and helps them increase their abilities in an easy way At the start of the second year, CMD-students who join the program participate in their first Empathic Habits workshop. At this point, most students are not aware of what they have yet to learn; they are unconsciously incompetent. Before the workshop, students do an empathic abilities-test in which they are rated on 5 empathic sub-abilities. Together, these abilities make up what it means to be an empathic designer. At the start of the workshop they analyse their results: what are their strengths and weaknesses? In this introspection process, students move from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence. During the next part of the workshop, students get to practise their weakest empathic ability by interviewing each other. They are to use at least 3 mini-activity-cards corresponding with the empathic ability they are going to practise. These cards contain short, simple assignments which students can use in any user research setting. At the end of the first workshop, the students reflect upon what they have learned and how they want to further develop their empathic abilities. For students who join the follow-up program, it continues over the next 6-8 weeks with weekly or bi-weekly reflection sessions with fellow students and a teacher. Every week, they are to try new activities and reflect upon what works for them and why. By adding mini-activities to their repertoire one by one, they develop empathic habits, making them more empathic designers. They move from being consciously incompetent to consciously competent. Assuming students keep using the mini-activities, through the years that follow, the mini-activities will become second nature: they will become unconscious habits. In this process, students and/or graduates move from being consciously competent to unconsciously competent. ... Read more

The COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on the daily routines of families in the Netherlands. From March 2020, strict measures were taken by the government to prevent the spread of the virus; The Dutch population was under quarantine. This caused many changes in the everyday life of families. Using an exploratory process with six families, research was conducted over six months into what families could learn from this quarantine time. Remote Context Mapping, a Corona-proof co-creation session, Zoom-interviews and iterative prototype tests ultimately led to a design which incorporates the lesson learned. The exploration with the families showed the quarantine made the worlds of the families smaller. As the world became smaller, families began to appreciate other things; the little things in life. This was because there were fewer possibilities, creating new standards. Comparing yourself to others became harder, so they were more satisfied with their own lives. Finally, less pressure was experienced from others and themselves, therefore the families were living more in the moment. As the worlds of the families were experienced as smaller, the relation between parent and child changed. The lesson families have learned from the Corona times is that we must continue to give valuable meaning to the moments of being physically together at home. The defined design goal from the conducted exploratory research is: To make family members aware of the moments of togetherness and spend those moments in a valuable way, even if rhythms and routines are less synchronized and when living less in the moment. Based on the interviews and prototype tests the PIN Light is designed. The PIN Light is designed to consciously experience the moments of togetherness and to use these moments in a valuable way, despite the busy lives which will return. It helps families to stay abreast of each other’s lives, it allows families to appreciate the moments together and it connects family members by creating a “moment of light”. The PIN Light can be implemented within a broader context as well. It could be implemented in social work, within family homes and it could help to connect blended families. Therefore the learned lesson from daily routines during Corona times adds value in an even broader context than traditional families only. ... Read more

In Europe and Asia, people face a significant aging society(Gilroy, R., 2007). In Asia, Taiwan underlies one of the most aging countries (Chan, A., 2005). To give care to elderly citizens, some Taiwanese elderly people live at home, while others live in a care institution. For those who live in institutions, they may lose the connection with their family member. Some problems were defined in the context:
 1) Due to distance, busy work, or Covid-19, when visiting is not accessible; young people can' see caretaker.
 2) Elderly people may not be familiar with a touchscreen, which lead to a barrier with younger people
 3) Residents who newly moved to an institution lose the connection with their family members, and have less and less shared moments with their family
The objective led to the design goal :Establishing shared positive moments between an elderly caretaker and family members.This thesis involves exploration, conceptualization, and evaluation phases. An iterative design approach was taken to gain relevant insights from the user and context in the conceptualization phase. Several experience prototypes (Buchenau & Suri, 2000) were designed and made to understand the current context and user experience, evaluate ideas, and communicate with stakeholders.The exploratory activities had lead to the main insights:
 1) Elderly people who live apart from their families experience a happiness drop after a big family meeting.
 2) The camera position affects the engagement of a video call.
 3) Elderly caretakers rely on a caretaker's help to contact. They may lose their one on one personal relationship after they lose their autonomy of reaching people.
 4) The usability problem for Elderly people to interact with a smartphone can be lead by the lack of haptic feedback on buttons, less agility on fingers, and the massive information on the screen.
 5) Remote talking with visual reference is a handy way for young people; it triggers more shared topics to talk about with elderly people.
 6) Elderly people can be engaged more in family members' life from video calling.
Thus, I envision the future scenario to have more tiny enjoyable moments for an elderly caretaker to establish shared moments by video calling with family members."Tiny Moments" is a product-service system design that comes out of the project. It involves a control panel and a software concept. It establishes the connection for elderly caretakers and their families enables more engagement for each other's lives.The research led to five scenarios of use in the future:
 1) Providing for confidence with a better look for an elderly caretaker
 2) Remote selfie with beautiful scenes
 3) Picture as a reference to talk about (Family members)
 4) Activate a link again
 5) Polite refuse when busy
For elderly caretakers, the shared positive moments can bring them to the novelty of family members' lives, have more bonding from loved ones; for family members, they bring memorable moments for them. For family members, it brings the moments, and the pictures can be the memories in the future. ... Read more

Even though there has been an enormous effort to tackle the problem of gender-based violence against women in Mexico, within legal terms, the landscape still seems uncertain, and the need for innovative approaches that bring new meaningful ways to look at the problem becomes highly relevant.

In those lines, the University Center for Dignity and Justice Francisco Suárez, SJ (CUDJ for its initials in Spanish), is working in making a diagnosis of the problem to propose strategies that ensure a life free of violence for women by triggering the discussions with the authorities in charge.

This report presents the research, analysis, design and development process of a proposal that seeks to provide tools to foster dialogues for an empathetic perspective, which encourages the emergence of shared knowledge and meanings, unveiling new perspectives to drive innovation and promote change.

Through a service design study, a set of dialogic visual tools translated women’s experiences into visualizations that enable the viewer to understand, empathize, and take an active responsibility towards women’s needs.

At the end of each chapter, a summary of the key insights that drove the design process is presented. The project aims to contribute to the discussion of the role of visualization in the emerging design landscape and how it is possible to contribute to the understanding, in human-scale, of complex contexts such as violence against women. ... Read more

The rapidly aging Dutch baby boom generation threatens to overwhelm the healthcare system in the Netherlands (Hoedeman & Koki, 2020). The elderly, more than any other age group, are more prone to experiencing a steep decline in physical and cognitive health during hospitalization (Brown, 2020; Mathews, Arnold & Epperson, 2014). 61% of the elderly Dutch are unnecessarily admitted to emergency wards (G. de Kousemaeker of Fluent, personal communication, January 16, 2019). Likewise, the elderly, especially those from rural areas, are fueling more than a 50% increase in the number of persons 65+ who require nursing care at a home (CBS, 2019). A complex network of stakeholders interacts in the healthcare value chain to provide interventions for this vulnerable group. Yet, healthcare providers (HCPs) who collaborate together to diagnose, treat or adjust medications for the elderly are under immense pressure (SCP, 2019a). With its technology-enabled services, DiaMediPort aims to solve the shortages of HCPs by sending triage nurses to the homes of the elderly in distress and by virtually connecting them to general practitioners and medical specialists via information logistics. The research section of this project highlights the advantages of ensuring person-centered triage care in the Dutch elderly person’s home during the period of 2020. I conducted secondary and primary research (e.g. ethnographies, contextual maps, qualitative interviews) with an elderly couple in their extramural home, informal caregivers, district nurses and elderly care specialists from intramural facilities, ambulance and mobile night teams and elderly call centers. Five key conclusions are made based on the insights generated on triage moments, information flow, technology and the healthcare value chain. 1) There is an obvious disconnect between the government’s response to the elderly and what the elderly want. The Dutch Minister of Health, Sports and Wellbeing stated the role of each Dutch person is to care for other persons in the community; while the elderly interviewed state that independence is a core value and it must be accounted for during the development of an elderly triage service. 2) Triage moments are a source of needless and redundant suffering for the elderly person who lives in an extramural home. The informal caregiver must communicate with HCPs during these moments so that the decisions made on behalf of the elderly person are dynamic. Although nurses can handle a litany of triage moments, the healthcare system prohibits them from taking action without the supervision of a medical doctor. 3) The mobile night team becomes a part of the traditional medical system. When an informal caregiver or district nurse is unavailable, triage nurses perform unexpected tasks at night. 4) Information flow and open communication reduce the usage of human and financial resources and improve the elderly person’s medical outcomes. 5) The nurses who work at elderly care centers rely on ICT system information. Often the elderly’s digital records and other necessary information are not yet entered or updated. Hence, triage nurses must act in an information vacuum. The appearance and complaints of the person suffering from old age is the only information at their disposal. It is very difficult to read him. Sometimes, he lacks the words to express what is wrong. As a result, nurses cannot make informed medical decisions. DiaMediPort is ideally poised to tackle these issues and concerns. Besides, its services give reassurance to beneficiaries (e.g. elderly person and informal caregiver) and facilitate their independent living at home. The design section offers 2 tools that I created for DiaMediPort. Their 2 objectives were to 1) visually inform how HCPs and beneficiaries interact within the existing healthcare system and 2) convince HCPs and decision-makers (e.g. insurance providers, hospitals, governmental bodies) to adopt DiaMediPort’s services. The tool Stakeholder Perspectives has two components: 1) “DiaMediPort in Film” presents short films of elderly persons in triage situations; these stories are produced with cartoon cutouts and voice-overs. And 2) “DiaMediPort Platform” will be used in a co-creational workshop. It gives an overview of the DiaMediPort beneficiaries and stakeholders, their social context and how DiaMediPort acts as intermediary. The tool Layered System Overview illustrates the triage phases wherein DiaMediPort is capable of providing services. ... Read more