Eating disorders are a growing problem in the Netherlands. Eating disorders are most prevalent among young adults between 18 and 30 years old and, on average, go undiagnosed for four years. There is no single cause for eating disorders, and are often accompanied by other mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. Because of the complexity, there is no ready-made solution. Eating disorders occur because they offer instant gratification to cope with emotional distress. Individuals often do not seek help because of denial, guilt, shame and stigmatisation caused by a lack of general knowledge.
The main aim of this research has been to explore the needs of young adults living with an eating disorder who seek support in addressing their disorder.
Throughout this graduation project, Redesigning Psychiatry (a project which details an ideal future vision of mental healthcare in the Netherlands) was consulted to provide guidance in making decisions for design directions.
The research consisted of a theoretical background study, contextmapping (a qualitative user research approach using generative tools and interviews) and research through design method (including activities such as rapid prototyping and testing).
The theoretical background and context mapping insights resulted in a theoretical model that provided detailed insights into factors that influence the help-seeking behaviour in young adults with eating disorders. The model created an overview of the research insights and Redesigning Psychiatry was consulted to highlight the importance of including the social network of young adults with eating disorders in the design.
Based on this design decision, the goal for the design was to design a tool that enables the initiation of a conversation about eating disorders between young adults with eating disorders and their social network so that both parties can set boundaries for their involved support while maintaining their original relationship.
The design should aim to:
Increase others understanding eating disorders
Increase openness in communication about eating disorders
Increase knowing how to communicate about eating disorders
Enable the development of personalised care
Creates a safe and controlled feeling over the interaction
The goal resulted in Food for Talk, which is a conversation game for young adults with eating disorders and their social network to communicate experiences, emotions and needs surrounding the topic of eating disorders. The conversation game facilitates the conversation through several game elements such as a board, conversation cards and tokens. Food for talk is intended to be distributed through therapists of young adults with eating disorders.
Finally, the game Food for talk has been evaluated with young adults with eating disorders and their social networks. The design was successful in supporting in-depth conversations between young adults and their social network, increased openness and knowledge and removed hesitance in the conversation. However, further research is needed to validate the effects of the final design. The final design should be evaluated between young adults with eating disorders and their social networks in a long-term study as well as with different types of social networks. ... Read more

Regular physical activity helps to improve the health, fitness and quality of life of people, and prevent or decline aging related health issues. The amount of physical activity in older adults with an intellectual disability is extremely low. Contextual research indicates that this physical inactivity stems, among other things, from previous negative experiences, the habit of being inactive, limitations related to the cognitive and physical disability, and interventions that are not taking into account these limitations. These barriers emphasize the client’s dependence on an external incentive to become physically active, but caregivers of the clients lack time to provide this stimulus. Along with an increased life expectancy of people with an intellectual disability, this increases the need for a physical activity intervention that suits the individual abilities and interests of the clients, while asking minimal time from the caregivers.

Many interventions that have been created for stimulating physical activity in people with an ID, are either not adapted to people of an older age, or not created in (creative) collaboration with the older adults. This project is therefore carried out in close collaboration with six older adults with an intellectual disability, and their caregivers.

Literature and context research showed the current barriers and motivators towards physical activity, from the perspective of the clients, the caregivers, and the physiotherapist in this context. A research through design approach, consisting of creative sessions together with clients, caregivers, and other experts, resulted in a design that is adapted and adaptable to the diverse group of older adults. The design intervention proposed in this project is called the ‘MakiMove’.

The MakiMove is a large, vertical game board that offers fun and active activities to older adults with intellectual disabilities. The product provides a positive experience to the older adults, and simultaneously increases their physical activity. The variety of activities and difficulty levels make the design adaptable to the abilities and interest of the individual client.

Although the MakiMove allows the client to move without much assistance, it is not possible to interact with the concept completely independent of a caregiver or other supervisor. With social contact and encouragement being valuable facilitators for the client, it is questioned whether independent physical activity is the road to take. On this basis, it is recommended to look into how to enable caregivers or other supervisors to play a role in increasing the physical activity of the older adults.

To create a successful experience, it is important to adapt a design to the client’s abilities and interests. To get to know the clients well, they should be involved in the design process. The experiences in this project have led to guidelines for collaborating with the target group, aiming to inspire future researchers and designers to involve this increasing population of older adults with an intellectual disability in their projects.
... Read more

The extraordinary working conditions caused by the first wave of COVID-19 patients caused stress, anxiety and lack of sleep in frontline nurses. This negatively impacted their psychological well being which is important for providing optimal care and maintaining long-term employability (Schoonhoven & Trappenburg, 2020). There is a lack of accessible and low-threshold support tools such as online peer support platforms for nurses. While storytelling driven online peer support is a promising tool, it is unclear how it should be designed. This project aimed to design a storytelling tool, specific to the psychological needs of the Dutch nurses, that best facilitates online peer support. This report describes the research, design and evaluation activities as part of the design process of SLOWLY - A tool that helps nurses reflect on their experiences, preparing them to write a story to be shared as part of online peer support. A context and target group analysis lead to the assessment of the thirteen fundamental needs (Desmet & Fokkinga, 2020). Fulfilment of autonomy, competence and relatedness, as part of self determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000), was found to be critically low. This was the primary source for the design requirements of SLOWLY. After using the design requirements to access a wide variety of design interventions, SLOWLY proved to be the most promising concept due to its potential to provide understanding about an experience in an accessible, low-threshold and safe manner. A detailed digital prototype was created, which used five storytelling prompts (character, setting, plot, conflict and theme) to guide nurses in a five day reflection process. Their responses were shown to them during the writing process to help them write stories with more details relevant to their experience. SLOWLY was found to provide increased understanding of the experience based on user testing with seven participants. It showed potential to fulfil all three critically affected fundamental needs. An additional expert review with one nurse yielded a positive response to the likeability, ease of use, clarity and benefit of SLOWLY. The results of this project provided insight into the potential role of storytelling in facilitating online peer support for nurses. Further research is recommended to evaluate longitudinal effects and possible interactions as a result of story sharing. ... Read more

The main goal of this thesis is answering the question: “How can immersion be achieved in an outdoor experience, using synergy between narrative, puzzles and location?”

From literature research the following definition of immersion is formed: Immersion is a state where the interactor feels as if they were located in a different reality or world with an overarching specific theme. A narrative, interactions and location each contributes to this.

To find out what the players experience during an escape room, two indoor games and two outdoor games are played and evaluated to see what does and does not work for their immersion. The main takeaway is that the narrative, and the interaction play a major part in immersion.

After finding out what is considered immersive, an outdoor escape experience is built to function as a case study. Here, designs are tested and iterated upon to find out what improves players immersion even more.

Two final tests are held to find out if the entire experience is as immersive as can be. From these tests conclusions will be drawn to see how each individual aspect of the experience influences the total experience.

The conclusion of this thesis is that there is a synergy between narrative, puzzles and location. As having a location that fits the story, or the other way around, works great for storytelling and immersion levels. Also if the puzzles have a matching theme, Players experience more immersion, fun and excitement. ... Read more

In order to support the development of children, they are continuously monitored at all types of care they go to. The goal of SWKGroep is to improve this support of the development. In order to do this, and enrich their portfolio, they want to know the possibilities of measuring the development with the use of a physical game.

This report describes the design process of this game and the research to the possibilities of implementing the measurement in this game. Research, interviews and observations have shown that the social and emotional development domain at 6-8 year old children shows the most potential for a development measuring game, both because of the large changes in this domain for this age and the fit with the values of SWKGroep.

In current monitoring systems for the social and emotional development, supervisors observe children and score them on a list of statements. However, the supervisors do not always have time to monitor each child individually. Because of the role of the supervisor, this can also create subjective outcomes. Therefore, it is concluded that the game must measure independently.
By combining two current social and emotional measurement systems, a full understanding of the social and emotional spectrum was created. With this, a list of 23 categories was setup which the game must include to measure.

By performing brainstorm sessions, current game analyses and collaborating with experts, a variety of game ideas have been created. After testing, improving and combining those, three concepts were created. By testing these with the target group, the most promising concept was selected.

After this, through a process of testing with the target group and iteration, the game was improved to be an entertaining and understandable game. In the game, teQ’s adventure, the players have to work together and execute assignments. Each assignment requires skill points, which each player has assigned to himself, to fit him best. The game can both be played on a board as in a ‘life size’ version.

After the entertainment level and understandability were confirmed, the focus shifted to the measurement. Throughout the entire design process, the 23 social and emotional categories were taken into account, but could now be improved further. The categories are implemented in the assignments. The decisions that the players make and the answers that they give to questions, create the data for the measurement. During the game, the players use an app to log their process and insert their answer and decisions. These are then used to transfer into measurement scores. The supervisor can now process them in the same way they do with the current system.

After the design of the game was completed, the game was evaluated. Because in the game the data is collected in a consistent way, through the app, the results have a high reliability. However, because this way of measuring is new and the implementations were created by a non pedagogical expert, the validity has to be assured through further research.


... Read more

Smartphones and digital devices are ingrained within modern family life. While they provide many benefits they also create a social gap between parents and children. Interests of parents and children often do not align, as parents tend to prefer physical activities, showing a reluctance towards the prefered digital play of children (Hoika, E., Wu, Z., Alexander, J.J., & Thomsen, B.S., 2018). This creates a barrier in shared digital play. It would be valuable to break this barrier, as adults and children are more likely to be happy in general and feel more connected with their family members when they spend more time playing together (Ginsburg, K. 2007). In order to achieve this goal, a promising area to explore is the type of play that involves the interest of both parents and children. By combining tangible and digital elements a type of fluid play can arise, capable of breaking the digital barrier, resulting in family connection.UNGA is a loyalty campaign specialist which has shown interests in creating this type of play. Dutch loyalty campaigns, often targeted towards families and children, provide a context in which this fluid play will be explored, offering a platform to reach thousands of families. This leads to the project assignment of designing a fluid interaction with a smartphone to engage families in play, within the context of a loyalty campaign. Various design methods and tools are applied within this thesis, mainly following the research through design principles and exploring the possibilities of animation as a design tool. After exploring UNGA as a company to define its context, insights on family connections from the perspective of Dutch families are gathered. Furthermore the context of fluid play is explored by hands-on experimentation and desk research. By analyzing the results, a design focus is created, with the following design statement: fluid family play should encourage “poking fun” at each other, where parents and children are equally involved in a personal & physical activity.Subsequently, concepts are developed through multiple rounds of experiential prototypes, involving internal and external stakeholders in the process.“FliereFluiters” is introduced as the designed fluid play experience. By carefully utilizing tangible and digital elements in one fluid play experience, FliereFluiters compels to both children and adults, breaking the digital wall amongst family members. By combining a personal, physical and humorous activity within this experience, FliereFluiters manages to enable family connections, one surprise at a time. A loyalty model is proposed in which the concept reaches families through multiple channels. Supermarket interaction and social media aspects are proposed as means to introduce the concept to consumers, while the involvement with the concept takes place primarily at home.The design proposal is validated through the involvement of families and experts from different backgrounds. To fully validate the long term family impact of the concept however, a long term study involving the participation of Dutch families with a fully operational prototype is recommended. ... 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