Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI), also known as Work-Related Upper Limb Disorders (WRULD), surged in the early years of this millennium due to computer work. In this thesis, the magnitude, causes and consequences of this phenomenon for the student population of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering (IDE) at the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) are investigated and described. Longitudinal surveys on RSI amongst IDE students over a 15-year period (2000-2014) show the trend in prevalence and severity of the complaints. From the year 2000 to the present, a multidisciplinary RSI prevention group is active to create awareness, provide information and practical sessions. The organised prevention activities and their scientific basis are introduced and discussed. Furthermore, ideas for products and product-service systems, aimed at preventing or reducing RSI and based on medical insights and understanding of RSI risk factors, are presented. These ideas, developed in IDE master graduation projects and one from industry, are evaluated in user tests and physiological experiments with potential users. The knowledge and insights gained in this thesis are not only valuable for design students to realise healthy computer working, but also for other educational and professional computer workers.@en

BACKGROUND: Former studies on work-related upper limb disorders (WRULD) within university education report substantial prevalence rates. In this study, developments in WRULD amongst students in the period 2004-2014 were investigated. Our findings can be a benchmark for future studies, in particular when there are major societal changes as in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE: Differences in time (academic year), how long students have been studying (year of studying), relations with computer time and societal changes were points of interest. METHODS: 2254 students (average age 20.0 years) responded to a questionnaire on WRULD. Students experiencing complaints were further questioned about the severity of complaints and associated body locations. RESULTS: The average percentage of students experiencing complaints was 57%. The highest prevalence rates and severity scores were found in the first and last recorded academic years. The neck, shoulder, back and wrist were most often indicated. The prevalence of complaints raised from the 1st (49%) to the 4th (75%) year of studying. Two seriousness measures showed highest scores in the 5th/6th/7th year of studying. Relations were found between both the prevalence and seriousness of complaints with reported computer time. CONCLUSIONS: After an initial decreasing trend from the academic year 2006/2007 to 2010/2011 there was an increase in WRULD amongst students from 2010/2011 to 2013/2014. Limiting financial and study time factors may have played a role. Structural attention for WRULD prevention and risk factors seems to be effective in reducing prevalence and severity of WRULD. This seems to be even more necessary due to recent COVID-related changes in the students' lives.

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Providing athletes with real-time feedback on their performance is becoming common in many sports, also in speed skating. This research-by-design project aims at finding a tool that allows the speed skater to get real-time feedback on his performance. Speed skaters often mention a so-called “good feeling” when skating behind a better skater. It is the feeling nearly every speed skater is after when skating alone; skate with less power while maintaining the same speed and feeling of ease. A longer push-off phase at a constant cadence has proven to contribute to this ideal situation but is hard for the coach alone to influence this. Therefore, a system was designed that measures the skating cadence and challenges the skater to change his skating stroke by means of vibro-tactile feedback. Four subjects have tested the feedback system. From this test, we concluded that the system provides meaningful feedback towards changing the skating cycle.@en

For the interior design of a flight simulator, the ergonomic software MDHMS has been used to test different interior layout issues. The MDHMS program includes an accomodation analysis capability which generates a digital sample of the specific target group. This paper shows the data required for this analysis. Since there are just a few reference files available for only parts of the Dutch population, some methods to derive data from related files in order to make the chart complete are presented.

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