In today’s world, the advantages of data-enabled design are undeniable, increasing the performance of organisations drastically by informing and inspiring the design process. While organisations seem to be more experienced with quantitative data for evaluative purposes, they do struggle to use data as creative material to inspire the design process. Choosing the right type of data representation is critical for using data for creative purposes. Data visualization has proven to be highly effective in increasing understanding of data, as it is fast, accurate and flexible. Data physicalization, on the other hand, remains unexplored in comparison, especially its effect on creativity. This paper presents the results of two studies (one preliminary and one follow-up study), which explored the use of data physicalization in creative settings. The preliminary study enabled to collect initial requirements for the development of a physicalization toolkit, while the follow-up study investigated its impact on the design process, in comparison to data visualization. From the studies, we developed Concreate, a collaborative data physicalization toolkit designed to lead to creative insights from quantitative data. Our results show that Concreate can potentially stimulate creative thinking, by encouraging intense, tangible interaction with data leading to increased reflection-in-action and a deeper understanding of data. The two studies and toolkit development were carried out at a multinational automotive company, interested in innovating by incorporating data as creative material. Besides the immediate practical implications, we conclude this paper with a discussion on future recommendations for using data physicalization in the design process.

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There is no vehicle segment where personalisation is as common, as for Light Commercial Vehicles. These vehicles are used for a large variety of tasks, supported by an ever-increasing number of new services. For Light Commercial Vehicles, one of the most interesting market segments from the perspective of service innovation and product personalisation is the handymen market. Handymen have a very strong relationship with their vehicle, highly specific mobility needs depending on their specialisation, and spend a lot of time personalising their vehicle.

This paper presents the Plugs concept. The Plugs concept is a new open-source approach to deliver personalised services for Commercial Vehicles to the handyman market. The concept was created based on user research and service innovation done by the TU Delft Design School in collaboration with Ford stakeholders from the Research and Innovation Center in Aachen. To deliver a broad variety of personalised hardware- and software-based services, called Plugs, to small handyman businesses in a cost-efficient way, Ford should build a strong open-source platform strategy around the core Ford Transit product, involving third-party developers and handyman lead users in the creation of these Plugs.
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