Immersive technologies are redefining user interactions in the evolving digital landscape, promising deeper and almost physical digital experiences (Alpers et al., 2020). Concurrently, the mobility world is undergoing a paradigm shift, with an emphasis on advanced autonomous solutions. Such autonomy enables users to reclaim and repurpose their commuting time, fundamentally altering how people interact with their vehicles and ushering in an era of enhanced on-road experiences.

Mercedes-Benz hopes to be at the epicentre of these tectonic shifts by incorporating immersive technologies into their upcoming fleet. Their goal is to fundamentally transform user experiences, not just technological ones. Realising this ambitious vision, however, necessitates an in-depth exploration of this domain to ensure that the proposed innovations provide tangible value to end-users. This thesis delves into the complexities of such plausible futures, focusing on users’ perceptions and expectations of these technological interventions.

This thesis combines speculative design and context mapping methodologies in a synergistic manner. The former allows users to empathise with potential realities by facilitating the creation and exploration of future scenarios. Context mapping, on the other hand, deepens our understanding of user needs, concerns, and aspirations, resulting in more nuanced and resonant solutions.

The thesis begins this investigation by delving into the theoretical underpinnings of XR in AVs, focusing on the intersections of autonomy and immersion levels. Following trend and stakeholder analysis, the existing tensions in this space were revealed. Five meticulously crafted future scenarios sparked conversations with selected participants during context mapping sessions. Thematic analysis revealed shifting vehicle perceptions, the changing nature of space within autonomous vehicles, and the criteria for successful XR integration in AVs. This process also shed light on the specific dynamics and implications of the tensions highlighted in the scenarios. As a result, some tensions were validated, new values emerged, and inherent biases towards certain values became evident.

Unsurprisingly, safety emerged as the top priority, with tensions especially high during control negotiations between systems and users, i.e. in Takeover (TO) scenarios. To address this criticality, the research focused on creating an ideal TO journey, with the goal of seamlessly transitioning a user from an immersive state to assuming vehicle control, all while minimising safety-related concerns. This design process, which was subjected to expert scrutiny, resulted in a comprehensive experience map and a detailed video elucidating the TO experience, capturing the intricate dynamics of user-system interactions.

The feedback from these expert consultations not only validated but also enriched the research, pointing out areas for further investigation and refinement. The resulting experience video was useful in focus group sessions, allowing the research team to identify elements that resonated and those that needed to be reconsidered.

Finally, the thesis emphasises the importance of collaborative problem-solving by highlighting key tensions, most notably the delicate balance between immersion and safety. Furthermore, it lays out a strategy for future research in this area, emphasising the robust potential of speculative design as an invaluable research tool, particularly in corporate settings. This study provides a blueprint for how companies like Mercedes-Benz can navigate the convergence of immersive technologies and autonomous vehicles, ensuring a future in which technology enhances, rather than dictates, the human experience. ... Read more

This graduation project emerged from an existing collaboration between the Delft University of Technology and the Responsible Sensing Lab; a project of the Amsterdam Institute of Advanced Metropolitan Solutions. The Initial Assignment had the goal of enhancing the feeling of safety in public environments through the use of responsible sensing. Following the method of Value Sensitive Design and its 3 core aspects, contextual research was conducted into 1) perceived safety as the value, 2) smart sensors as the technology, and 3) public spaces as the context of use. Subsequently, the project was narrowed down to focus on improving the design aesthetics and visual impact of camera sensors in public spaces, with the intended end result of enhancing the perception of safety with the Target User Group of heterosexual women, aged 15-25. Through the involvement of this Target User Group in 2 co-creation sessions, multiple informal feedback sessions and a Product Usability Evaluation in the Concept Development and Product Design phases of this project, a final design was created.

The final design, BL0.0M, is a reconception of the design, use and perception of current camera sensors. Compatible with both dome- and bullet camera sensor types, BL0.0M takes inspiration from a flower to serve both a functional and visual purpose to its public environment. Upon activation of the camera sensors, BL0.0M’s petals open up–clearly communicating its functionality to passers by, and can be adjusted to convey different product expressions. Its modularity extends to its petal modules, which can easily be interchanged to allow for further customisation and variety.

The reception of the Target User Group was both critical and auspicious. Future recommendations primarily include further design iterations in petal design and positioning, as well as looking into the internal– and external validity of the user group involved. From both informal feedback and the Product Usability Evaluation, BL0.0M elicited a high level of intrigue and enthusiasm. Its functional and aesthetic contrast with current camera sensor designs is one of the main drivers for this response. BL0.0M is a visionary design with an eye to the future, serving as the version 0.0 and a blank canvas for the next big steps and innovations in smart sensor design and implementation. For now, this is only the first step. ... Read more

Space exploration has historically driven technological innovation, resulting in significant advancements with applications in various industries on Earth. The exploration of Mars has emerged as a crucial objective, offering opportunities to search for signs of life and gain insights into planetary evolution. However, working on Mars presents numerous challenges, including the lack of a breathable atmosphere, different gravity, extreme temperatures, and the need for infrastructure development. Robots have proven resilient on the Martian surface but still require real-time control and decision-making from ground operators. To address this challenge, a promising solution involves astronauts in orbit around Mars controlling the robots, utilizing high-bandwidth communication techniques and autonomous capabilities.
This work focuses on the Surface Avatar project, led by the DLR and ESA, which involves the humanoid robot, Rollin Justin. The project aims to gain valuable insights into the efficient control of robots in future space missions, particularly through collaborative exploration and construction tasks. Rollin Justin, equipped with autonomous capabilities, features a user interface that allows manual controls through various input devices and autonomous operation through interface commands.
While the concept of an astronaut-robot pairing shows promise, several challenges remain. Error handling during teleoperation poses a significant issue, as error messages often lack specificity, leaving astronauts confused and without immediate assistance due to the distance between Earth to Mars and the associated communication delays. Limited situational awareness, unfamiliarity with robot constraints, and a large time gap between training and usage further complicate astronaut interactions with the robot. Addressing these problems is critical for optimizing astronaut-robot cooperation and reducing cognitive workload during Mars missions.
To address the challenges, this work adopts a research-through-design approach, specifically focusing on user experience research and design. Extensive initial research including sessions at the DLR and literature review, was conducted to identify key issues impacting error-handling capabilities. Based on the research findings, conceptual solutions were developed to address the identified core issues. These concepts were evaluated for feasibility and desirability, considering expert input. Selected concepts were further developed, drawing inspiration from game cues and elements for user interface design. High-fidelity prototypes were created to represent the refined concepts accurately: A third-person perspective including game elements to allow for better situational awareness and a debug page that guides the user through potential error reasons in the moment of an occurring planning error. The prototypes underwent evaluation using various methods, including user sessions at the DLR and a comparative study. 
The results for both prototypes reveal important enhancements in user experience and a reduction in cognitive workload compared to the existing system. The findings led to informed recommendations for further improvements in the interface design, the robot’s camera setup and the communication of errors to enhance error-handling capabilities for astronauts in future missions.  ... Read more

In a matter of decades, information technologies have become omni-present in the lives of more than a billion people. Whilst holding many promises for more efficient and therefore seemingly more sustainable practices, this fast-growing industry is expanding its footprint rapidly. Exponential advancements in hardware and software are kept in check by a quickly rising demand for data-driven products and services. With a climate and energy crisis on our hands, now is the time to ask ourselves whether this superfluous consumption of data is really necessary. By investigating the workings of the physical network and the interaction between humans and digital products, an inquiry is made into changing consumer behaviour to benefit sustainability. The resulting design demonstrates how a different approach to the way we interact with the digital world can facilitate new practices that are sustainable in the broadest sense of the word. By actively reflecting on their online behaviour, internet users are enabled to fulfil personal values that benefit people and climate.

Research
The inquiry into the various stakeholders related to data consumption depicts an infinitely complex network with various players. Together they share a responsibility to for the social impact that the internet has on our society but in the current situation these individual parties mainly act out of self-interest. Digital services providers and their users behave in immoral and unethical ways to satisfy immediate cravings which stands in the way of fulfilling social values. All stakeholders are put under enormous stress by this fast consumption pattern which the project categorises as somewhat uncivilized. This uncivilized behaviour is further defined in three ‘pillars’ that lie at the root of the current value conflicts.
Norms & regulation
Perverse pleasure seeking, deceptive technologies and social misbehavior threaten the individual on the web. 
Moderation & modestyConstant distractions and the acceleration at which we increase productivity lead to an overload of information that humans are not capable of handling.
Active involvementThe lack of physicality of data infrastructure combined with a generally apathetic mindset leads to a loss of autonomy and control.

Design
From experiments with possible interventions it is concluded that to start making a change towards a more civilized behaviour, data consumption needs to be made more concrete in a way that facilitates debate about the topic. A final concept is proposed that embodies this philosophy by encouraging KPN customers to start caring about the impact of data consumption on themselves, their close peers and the environment. It does so through the following set of criteria:
1.Installing awareness about data usage by educating and framing
2.Eliciting a social frame of reference for internet users to adhere to
3.Helping consumers commit to purposeful decisions
4.Affording inconvenience when users want to engage in meaningless behaviour
5.Materialising the benefits of data reduction
6.Making low data use standard in daily practices
Besides this intervention targeted at consumers, the design and research also hold various implications for the other stakeholders within the project context.
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Growing up, social constructs like roles, norms and values are being internalised and naturalised. Despite offering a sense of stability, such constructs also prohibit equality, justice and diversity, by pushing people into categories, roles and norms they do not represent. However, once internalised, social constructs fall under the surface of awareness, making their mitigation and re-framing a complex task. This also poses a great challenge for designers, who often aim to create fair and inclusive futures for those marginalised and discriminated against.

Attempts are made to mitigate bias by introducing artificial intelligence (AI). Technology however, often acts as a double-edged sword, having the abilities to both identify and mitigate bias, or amplify inequality, reinforce existing stereotypes and increase injustice.

Recognising both the potential but also the limitations of AI, this thesis explores the idea of reflexive designer-AI interactions, as a new form of human-machine collaboration towards more reflective design practitioners who are able to surface and dismantle and rethink personal and collective imaginings. Seeing a key role in reflection, often criticised behaviour of AI, like inconsistency, unpredictability and confrontation, are being explored as potentially meaningful for triggering critical and self-reflective thinking and decision making in design.

Following a speculative and introspective research through design approach, this thesis explores such reflexive interactions in the context of gender representation in child toys. The hypothesis is that the introduction of reflection and a change in mindset when engaging with AI, can be productive in terms of mitigating gender bias in child toys. In order to envision the situated designer-AI interactions, a speculative vision of the first gender fluid child toy company is introduced. This vision serves as a tool for presenting queer future AI-design practices, but also as a critique of current gender stereotypes in the design of children's toys.

Technological exploration insights are translated into four design tactics, resulting in designer reflection and bias awareness. Those tactics are applied and explored in practice, by designing three gender-ambiguous child toys. Each toy represents a new reflexive design-AI workflow. Each workflow differently illustrates human and non-human collaboration that surfaces, de-familiarizes and dismantles personal and collective imaginings of gender in toys. Additionally, these speculative practices also challenge the status quo in design, raising awareness about design and AI issues that need to be addressed further in the future.

Taking into account the insights from the experiments, as well as prototype testing with children and evaluating expert interviews, this project concludes that reflexive interactions – as proposed alternative to traditional human-AI interactions and in addition to the current design practice – are potentially productive to surface, dismantle and re-familiarize personal bias and collective imaginings. Furthermore, does this thesis suggest that AI’s often negatively described behaviour like confusion and inconsistency, also carry the power to trigger reflective practices that help surfacing and challenge bias. However potentially limiting factors like ecological, economical and social cost as well as ethical concerns are discussed.
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Today many products exclude users from different sociodemographic groups such as ethnicity and race. Examples of these in physical products are automatic soap dispensers and airport body scanners. The digital era has appeared and there are still digital products excluding users of different ethnicities and race, for example, dating apps and algorithms used to find racism and discrimination on social media. Therefore, both physical and digital products continue to cause exclusion among users, mainly caused by the designer’s implicit biases. Yet, the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering (IDE) at TU Delft has a scarcity of resources and courses available to integrate an inclusive design perspective for its students and staff. This project aims to raise awareness for inclusivity and set an example for the type of tools needed to carry out an inclusive design perspective in the IDE faculty.

The Delft Inclusive Design (DID) platform was designed to bring together inclusivity resources available in the IDE faculty. To learn how to carry out an inclusive design approach, the DID platform offers resources and guidelines created by the IDE faculty members. These resources focus on creating awareness about inclusivity and how personal experiences shape our designs and guidelines, to carry out inclusive design practices. With a questionnaire among 13 students and interviews with 2 staff members, the DID platform proved the significance of the topic and contents of the DID platform. It also proved the student and staff interest in the topic of inclusivity, the effectiveness of the platform and its envisioned content, and the willingness of students and staff to contribute to the platform. As part of the DID platform, an awareness activity was designed for students to reflect on the influence of implicit biases in their design work. This awareness activity was tested in 3 sessions to grasp the knowledge acquired in short-term, medium-term, and long-term effect. Each session was carried out by 6 student participants and took place every 2 weeks. The outcomes show that a 3-session process is essential when creating awareness as session 1 creates new knowledge that students need to grasp, session 2 ‘reminds’ students of their learnings and by session 3 students are able to recall the information learned in session 1. Additionally, a guideline to inclusive imagery was created to aid students and staff when selecting inclusive imagery. These guidelines proved useful and provided knowledge to all 6 student participants and 4 staff participants. The awareness activity and image guideline set an example to how these can take form, in order to promote inclusive design perspectives at the IDE faculty.
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This report first discusses the phenomenon of aging, how it is commonly understood, and the state-of-the-art of the technology for aging people (gerontechnology) (chapter 1). In the analysis, the author briefly describes the origin and development of the notion of aging through medical, social, and cultural lenses. How the negative narrative around aging has hamstrung the innovation for older people is presented by enumerating three types of design pitfalls identified in today’s mainstream gerontechnology. Drawing on a body of literature (e.g. the ‘successful aging model’ and the ‘personhood turn’ in the ‘care model’) and projects, the author shows new voices attempting to overturn this negative narrative. The Capability Approach (CA), especially Nussbaum’s capability theory which provides a concrete and substantive normative foundation for probing into older people’s lives is introduced (chapter 3 prologue). Interviews are conducted to obtain in-depth understanding of people's needs, wants, and challenges (chapter 3). Based on the literature research and empirical studies, a gap between the real needs and wants emerging in the aging process and what is provided by current mainstream gerontechnology is identified (tension 1) (chapter 4).
Informed by several inspiring design frameworks or theories (e.g. design for appropriation, end-user development, ambiguity in design, meta-design), the author proposed design for openness as a potential design strategy to address the first tension (chapter 5 prologue). What is so powerful about ‘openness’ in design is its potential to satiate various needs over time, in the meanwhile, promote autonomy in users. A theoretical model is theorized to provide firm design handles (chapter 5 prologue). Next, co-speculation sessions are conducted to gather situated knowledge and to experiment with the idea of design for openness (chapter 5). Findings from the sessions reveal the potential risk of leaving the design completely open: ineffective appropriation caused by misalignment between use and design (chapter 5). How to lower the seemingly paradoxical misalignment between design and use while still maintain the openness in design becomes the focus of the rest this research (tension 2) (chapter 5).
A concept artifact is crafted as an explorative attempt to address the misalignment between use and design (chapter 6). Next, the evaluation of the concept artifact is conducted which results in rich design implications (chapter 7). Insights from the evaluation sessions also help further develop the theoretical model (chapter 8). An alternative design process that's different from the traditional one is put forward and limitations are discussed and directions for future research are sketched out (chapter 8). The report closes by reflecting on the whole project and summarizing the main contributions of this project (chapter 9).
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