Reading is a cornerstone of intellectual growth and a vital skill for thriving in society. In the realm of design education, design-related books serve as crucial resources for novice designers, offering both in-depth knowledge and practical insights. However, in an era where information is increasingly consumed through digital channels like videos, podcasts, and social media, the traditional role of reading is under threat. Despite the wealth of information available online, the depth and credibility provided by books remain unparalleled. Yet, as research shows, many design students struggle with maintaining motivation to read, often finding the material daunting or unengaging. This raises a critical question: how can we motivate novice designers to engage with design books and sustain their reading habits in a digital age?

This project sought to address this challenge through comprehensive research, including literature reviews on reading motivation and gamification, as well as context mapping studies. The research identified several key obstacles faced by novice designers and pinpointed effective strategies to boost motivation. It became evident that while increasing engagement is crucial, fostering a sense of knowledge-building and self-growth significantly enhances the perceived value of reading, turning it into a more fulfilling activity.

The whole design process evolved through continuous iterations, culminating in the development of Milegrow, a unique concept that integrates physical milestones with a digital design growth map. Milegrow encourages readers to reflect, connect ideas, and track their progress, ultimately fostering a deeper engagement with the material.

Key features of Milegrow include:
1. Physical Milestones: These break the book into manageable sections, giving readers a sense of control and progress.
2. Reflective questions: Embedded within milestones, these prompts stimulate deep reflection, making the reading experience more engaging and thought-provoking.
3. Record thoughts and reflections: This helps deepen the understanding of the content, thereby maximizing the utility value of the book.
4. Design Growth Map: A digital tool that collect reflections and tracks intellectual growth across various design fields.

Final evaluations revealed that Milegrow effectively enhances the reading experience by making it more engaging, thought-provoking, and reflective. It also fosters a sense of knowledge-building and self-growth, thereby increasing motivation.

This graduation project concerns the prevention of bicycling head-injuries in the Netherlands, by overcoming the socio-cultural unwillingness and undesirability of non-sports oriented bicyclists to wear a helmet. Getting cyclists to wear bicycle helmets is a task that requires behavioral change as well as a shift in perception from society. The goal of this project is to develop a strategic bicycle helmet concept that changes people's and manufacturers' perceptions of what a bicycle helmet is and hopefully have an impact on helmet usage in the Netherlands. This concept is the result of research in the current and future bicycle helmet/ cycling context by doing market research, reviewing literature, interviewing stakeholders, analyzing trends and creating a future context map. In addition, quantitative user research was done in the form of an online survey, and qualitative user research was done through an emotion capturing exercise
Contextual research has pointed out that the current bicycle helmet market is oversaturated and has very little differentiation between products. Up to now, marketers and designers have been trying to sell bicycle helmets by emphasizing their functional product attributes which are primarily safety-related. However, research showed that safety is not an effective attribute to communicate to Dutch consumers. Instead, marketers and designers should focus on communicating the symbolical attributes of bicycle helmets and express/cater to the user's lifestyles. Using these guidelines, the Fabriqué helmet concept was designed for a target group called Bikes&Blazers. This target group consists of Dutch formally dressed urban cyclists that often ride E-bikes. The Fabrique helmet is influenced by several of the target group's fashion values and combines these into its visual design. This results in a helmet that fits the target groups' formal outfits and caters to their lifestyles. Lastly, several recommendations are given for how to market the Fabriqué helmet.

This graduation report covers the process and outcome of developing and designing novel photovoltaic (PV) products for architectural and design applications. The project aimed to find innovative solutions for seamlessly integrating photovoltaics into architecture and design and thus contribute to sustainable building practices. With a hands-on, material-driven approach novel PV customization methods were developed and showcased with a demonstrator. Four concepts were proposed based on PV products made with customization methods that were developed during the project. One of these concepts was worked out into a working prototype. This demonstrated the aesthetic qualities of a novel PV coloring technology. The outcome of Solar Style formed the basis of the continued development and commercialization of PV products.

In most food manufacturing research and design (R&D) projects, sustainability is not considered until the scalability testing or production phase, when cost reduction is the objective or when many consumers directly request it. However R&D teams are highly focused on their predetermined goals at the beginning of the process. It is therefore crucial to incorporate sustainability as a criterion at the start of the project during the ideation phase for sustainable product development. Consequently, the current approach of food manufacturing R&D teams needs to change. Sustainability needs to be incorporated at the start of a project, during the ideation phase. This report consists of two main parts, research and design.

During the research phase, literature research and many interviews have been conducted to discover the food manufacturing context in detail: the drivers and barriers for food manufacturers in developing sustainable products, a review of the current ideation activities of food manufacturers, an analysis of the possible sustainability measures that they can take to create more sustainable products, and an exploration of the trends and developments within the industry (see chapter 2 for elaboration). With the found insights, four opportunity areas are discovered (see chapter 3), and one is chosen to form a design brief (see chapter 4).

Following the guidelines from the design brief, several brainstorming sessions were conducted during the design phase, and the sustainable food product ideation guide was prototyped (see chapter 5). The guide encourages users to think creatively and frequently about sustainability throughout the entire food product development ideation phase. The guide provides value by stimulating creativity, serving as a sustainability exercise, and enabling product development teams to take concrete steps towards the creation of sustainable food products. See chapter 6 for elaboration on the ideation guide.

Then, the ideation guide was evaluated in one pilot session and three review sessions with designers, Accenture consultants and Accenture experts (see chapter 7). Whereafter, the potential use cases of the ideation guide was discussed with various experts from Accenture in chapter 8.

Finally, this report concludes with an implementation plan for the ideation guide, which is designed to encourage food manufacturers to develop more sustainable product ideas, instilling a sustainable mindset that impacts everything they do. The guide offers significant value for Accenture and its food manufacturing clients. For Accenture, the guide offers the opportunity to attract new clients and initiate early-stage conversations about sustainability projects, as well as provide a standardised workshop format with a modular toolkit that saves time and is scalable. Eventually, the digital version of the guide could be developed into Accenture’s own ideation platform for security and IP purposes. The guide provides a low threshold for food manufacturers to experience sustainable food product ideation sessions. It offers tailored workshops, new food product ideas, and concrete next research steps for the development team. Additionally, the digital version of the guide caters to remote employees and assists in integrating sustainability into their practices, helping to initiate company culture change.

Smartphones have revolutionized the way we live, giving us instant access to countless tools and apps (replacing dozens of single-function products), and this has made us more and more dependent on them. But there is another side, they are taking a heavy toll on our time and attention. Unpluq is a startup that aims to help people reclaim their time and attention from their smartphones and improve people's digital wellbeing. It was started by Jorn Rigter and Tim Smits (author of this graduation project). Unpluq’s first product is a physical key that users need to plug into their phone to access distracting apps. This physical distraction barrier changes using distracting apps from a mindless habit into a conscious choice. While the key acts as a successful hardware-based barrier, it is also a limiting factor in the growth of Unpluq, because of distribution and scaling. To overcome these problems this graduation project explores the development of a new software-only version of Unpluq as this opens up easy online distribution.

Smartphones have taken over control of our time and attention. It details how social media is hacking our primal brain because the business model behind the attention economy is driven to optimize for engagement, their advanced algorithms are designed to keep users scrolling. The reality is that the majority of the population has become addicted to their smartphone, with screen time reaching a 6-hour average each day in 2022. This leads to negative side effects like decreased mental wellbeing, attention span, self-reported life satisfaction, sleep quality, personal connection, productivity and more.

The project then shows the consumers' need for digital wellbeing and how this
need can be addressed through the use of tools that leverage behavioural change theories through interaction design. It explores how through the “rational override” behavioural theory it is possible to break the normal flow of smartphone usage, prompting the user to reflect and take conscious action.
Although 82% of people aspire to reduce their screen time, they’re struggling to do so. The built-in screen time features are too easy to circumvent, don’t change habits and miss a balance between giving up and having control.
From all the gathered quantitive and qualitative research, the graduation project establishes a list of principles of “interaction design for digital wellbeing”. The principles aim to guide interaction designers on designing for healthy digital behaviour by making users conscious, providing tools, setting intentions and finding the right balance between restoration and access to digital distractions. The design process is further guided by the insights from the research phase and follows an iterative process called the “Lean startup method” in which the designer goes through 7 Build /Measure / Learn cycles.

The main concept of the app is based on 6 distraction barriers (shaking your phone, tapping buttons and more), which have been carefully designed to find a balance between blocking access to digital distractions, while still allowing access with the right amount of conscious effort. The barriers work in combination with schedules, which let users select what apps are distracting at what time. To access the app within this time frame the user has to go through the “distraction barrier”. The distraction barrier acts as the rational override and helps the user to make a conscious choice: “Is this time well spent?”. The distraction barriers integrate the
principles of interaction design for digital wellbeing. It helps the user to make a conscious decision, balances restricting access and control and nudging towards healthier digital behaviour. The app also will include other features that are based on the principles like setting intentions, showing average screen time, time saved by unpluq, nudging notifications and suggested distracting apps.
In this graduation project, it has been established that digital wellbeing tools are necessary for overall human wellbeing as we increasingly spend our time in digital environments. Products like Unpluq can help people to improve their digital wellbeing and feel in control of their devices, making sure their time is well spent. This trend will continue to grow over the coming years, when the next major personal computer innovations like VR and AR become mainstream the necessity for digital well-being will only grow.

Bever is an outdoor chain store located in the Netherlands. Besides the Bever stores, Bever.nl was introduced in 2011, continuously growing to an extensive webshop enabling users to shop and explore online. Going to the Bever stores results in experienced staff supporting (novice) users with finding the right equipment for their activity. However, online this process is different. A user is designated to a webstore with (written) information about products. Moreover, details to express product features and performance of products can be found on a product detail page (PDP). The goal of this research is to ensure the right product in online searches at Bever.nl. Thus, the main design challenge is: “How to explain product benefits of outdoor jackets to novice users in order for them to make a more informed decision?”.

Discovered Insights
The novice Bever user can best be described as a user who needs much guidance in the selection process because of his low level of product knowledge and context about the activity. When a novice user is in need of a product for a specific activity he enters the web store with this specific activity and product group in mind. When little or no activity related content is shown, it is unclear to a user if a product matches his specific activity since the novice user has little or no prior knowledge or experience with the specific activity and the needed product. When a novice user is searching for his specific product, communication in familiar terminology is of great importance for making an informed and considered decision. Users need to understand the questions (filters), options and product differences in order to do so. Product features do not support the novice user in understanding a product. Therefore, product benefits are of great importance because they show the value a user will gain from a product. Subsequently this results in users understanding a product by understanding the values of the different features because they interpret what the product will mean for them.

Design Criteria
An interaction vision is created to improve the current online shopping experience of a novice user at Bever.nl. This vision focuses on the improvement of three feelings a user experiences when finding the perfect jacket: feeling in control, feeling confident and feeling surprised. This will support the user in a more goal-oriented search with control over the end result, while reading understandable and activity related information without feeling bored due to lots of non-visual long paragraphs of information. Besides the interaction vision several design requirements have been set up related to understandable explanation, activity information, visual presentation and faster exploration.

Concept
The final concept, Bever’s Jassen Kompas, is a decision support that ensures the right product in online searches at Bever.nl. It focuses on the visual aspect of the activity of the user (within his specific context) by answering understandable activity and context related questions. Subsequently a selection of the three best and good choices are presented to the user in order to guide the decision making.

Recommendations
Further studies could evaluate the real case usage of the Bever’s Jassen Kompas with a buying intention of users compared to fictional testing. The second recommendation would be to validate and discuss, together with experts, the questions asked in Bever’s Jassen Kompas. At last, further development and testing of the usability, back-end and mobile design of the Bever’s Jassen Kompas can be explored.

The research on “Accelerating twin transitions through a liminal strategy”, with Barco explores the topic of customer centric sustainability. It addresses the problem of “How might we span the distance between representatives of Barco and the end customers (in the context of sustainability)?“. The proposed solution is a liminal strategy (bridging strategy) and a tactical manifestation of the strategy in the form of an AI-chatbot that facilitates integrated interactions. Unlike the other chatbots, this faces both Barco end customers and Barco employees. These interactions enable Barco to activate customers, collect timely customer input to create value, and make sustainability tangible for both customers and Barco employees. It demonstrates a way to give Barco competitive advantage while increasing Barco’s reputation to drive purpose and profit together.

This thesis describes the design journey that resulted in a post-pandemic vision for distributed teams and the development of a concept to fulfil the lack of spontaneous encounters in hybrid working environments. The research follows two different approaches, the double-diamond and the Dive method and includes extensive literature review, remote user research, future context definition, generative and creative sessions and a final round of ideation, prototyping and testing. The whole process keeps the user experience and interaction at the core of the research. The project involved a Consortium of three experts in the realms of businesses, people perspectives and technology from three different companies: Muzus, Ford and Miro. Their participation was vital to generate knowledge at the verge of their fields of expertise and evaluate the ideas generated during the different phases of the study. The initial section of the project was devoted to understanding the past and the present by focusing on the effects of forced remote working caused by the pandemic through literature research, interviews with experts, workers and students. This helped to identify relevant gaps in knowledge for further research, as well as potential opportunities for design purposes. The first phase highlighted a new way for workers to perceive remote working, an increased sense of responsibility rising from the work from home practice and an evolved connection with the team. To approach the future exploration, a generative session with the experts investigated the insights collected and explored some future scenarios. A series of context factors were used to develop a Future Vision, useful to contextualize the next research steps. Two creative sessions were held to explore the future vision and analyse the differences between hybrid and remote. The last design phase was meant to communicate the future vision by creating a fictional future Magazine published in 2030 and by designing a vision concept, a physical token that connects workers through a virtual office. A proof of concept of the vision was prototyped, showing that it is possible to create serendipitous encounters and connect dispersed workers by means of a physical token and a video call platform. In conclusion, the next future will see a rising trend of hybrid workspaces and, in order to keep the work efficient, it is imperative to facilitate collaboration with the help of people and tools designated for this scope, as well as fulfil the gaps of time zones, cultures and expertises.

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.

This graduation thesis report describes the research activities investigating the education on filter bubbles in Dutch secondary schools towards teenagers between 14-16 years old, and the design to improve this through including critical thinking techniques.
During this research the context and two main target groups were explored through literature research, observations, generative sessions and interviews. Insights from this research led to the design brief containing the design goal, interaction vision, design criteria, and learning objectives.
The design brief was formulated after exploring the context, media literacy, and stakeholders and target group. From this research, it was found that Dutch secondary schools are still at the beginning stages of implementing media literacy in itself in their curriculums, which means that filter bubbles are even less discussed in schools. Teenagers are confident about their media literacy and often confuse this with tech-savviness. This results in that they often think they learn more through Social Media. But even though teenagers nowadays in 2021 are raised alongside Social Media, teenagers are not necessarily media literate. Especially when it comes to critical thinking about the media consumed. To stimulate critical thinking in education, pupils have to be encouraged to come up with their own ideas and opinions and be able to discuss the different ideas with other people. Pupils also have to be able to connect subjects to their daily lives. For this to happen, a safe space needs to be created for pupils to be able to share perspectives with each other.
Following these insights, the design goal was to design an intervention that can be used as an addition to the “social studies” course in secondary schools in The Netherlands. This intervention should teach teenagers to critically think about the content they consume within their filter bubbles, through meaningful conversations with other teenagers about the content.
Ideation involved creative sessions and individual brainstorming and soon went into testing and iterating concepts. The final concept was evaluated with Social Studies teachers and teenagers. In conclusion, the Pop your Bubble: Lesson plan has created an opportunity in class for pupils to explore their own filter bubbles and discuss them with each other. Though further testing in context and research on the long-term effects of this lesson plan is required, teachers and participants agreed that this is a useful way to teach pupils that filter bubbles can have an influence on opinions and that it helps teenagers discuss them.

This thesis aims to help teenagers, aged 14-16, feel confident to express their thought and feelings. By doing so, we aim to create an environment in which teenagers can seek help. Where they can learn how to cope with uncertainties before they turn into bigger and long lasting mental health issues. The thesis does not aim to solve the problem of mental illnesses nor be a solution that prevents it. It aims to create an environment where this changes just enough to move in the right direction and offers a space for solutions with bigger changes.
The thesis starts with research. The research phase consists of literature, interviews with people who work with teenagers and a workshop with teenagers themselves. Four cornerstones are selected from the research to build the design upon. These cornerstones are: the tool will help teenagers discover their talents, give them control, show teens they are not the only ones and use gaming to increase motivation. Based on these corner stones the tool is designed through ideation, first testing, development and prototype testing, phase. The tool consists of three elements: a game, amulet and application. The first test consists of 23 teenagers in three sessions in which the assumptions and first ideas are tested. The prototype testing is done during 8 sessions of 6 teenagers. The 48 teens played the game. 42 Interacted with the amulet and 15 offered feedback on the application as well. The teenagers show excitement in discovering their talents through a game. They like the fun and social aspect and the fact that they did not have to assign talents to themselves. However, they experienced that the initial size of the amulet as too big. In the next iteration the size is reduced. Furthermore, the application is given more attention and function. The teenagers express that simply having an object to touch was too abstract. The teenagers also express a need for practicality and understandability. The designed tool helps teenagers discover their talents through a story based game. The game is played with six teenagers and facilitated by a teacher. The teenagers explore these talents over the next week. Through touching the amulet when the teens use their talents, it functions as a non-intrusive cognitive offloading. Later, the app will send a notification and ask them to explain more about the activity during which they used their talents. The app provides guidance in exploring those moments. It breaks the moments up in smaller pieces. It also covers moments in which teens cannot use their talents. After a week, the teenager can use the application and data they stored during a conversation with their mentor. I chose to ask feedback from more teenagers during a short session rather than testing the tool over a week. This is the proposed next step of the project alongside development of the app and working together with experts on the story and questions of the game. The test should be validated to start the implementation phase.

Smart homes have existed for decades, with Bill Gate's home built in 1997 being a notable example. The rapid developments in technology have made all electronics cheaper and made the Internet of Things possible. The Internet of Things has brought many new products and services to the market and revived the dream of a "smart home" for the average person. There seem to be two main types of smart home systems. The first type of smart homes are built using proprietary, subscription-based services and “black box” hardware devices that work exclusively with these services (e.g. Nest and Sonos). This type takes less time to set up, but offers little ability to customize, adapt and control the system. This type also has limited possibilities of combining hardware and services from different vendors, while raising questions about data transparency and privacy. The second type are smart home systems based on open source software (e.g. OpenHAB and Home Assistant), which are typically used by enthusiasts. This type requires a lot of time and specialized knowledge to set up and use, but gives the enthusiasts a lot of control, transparency and full ownership of the system and collected data. While these days enthusiasts have access to a lot more products to build their smart home, they are rarely the sole inhabitants and their co-habitants are not likely to share the same level of enthusiasm for new technologies. Instead of a home making their lives easier, they encounter automated systems that are not tailored to their behavior and that don't react the way they would expect, causing confusion and exclusion.
Neither of the two types of smart home systems offer sufficient support for being used and adapted by multiple users with varying needs and skills (such as different family members or roommates). This project investigates how a smart home may combine the control and flexibility of an open source platform with the convenience of a proprietary service-based system, while inclusively catering to a diverse group of inhabitants. See an interactive summary here: graduation.emilflach.com

The quality of oral care among frail elderly people in nursing homes is low. Due to reduced mobility or cognitive functioning, elderly people fail to complete the oral care ritual sufficiently. Once this happens, caregivers are obliged to take over this task. Unfortunately, in many cases this does not happen due to the difficulty of the task, the uncomfortable feeling of intimacy for both the elderly person and the caregiver, and the high time pressure caregivers experience during the morning care ritual.
Dental Robotics aims to improve the quality of care among frail elderly by developing an automatic toothbrush that takes away these pains. The Dental Robotics toothbrush simply requires the elderly person to bite in a mouthpiece. This enables the caregiver to brush all teeth at the same time while applying the right pressure and angle without skipping any teeth. The toothbrush completes this task in only 10 seconds, helping to reduce the total amount of time of the oral care ritual.
However, for people with dementia such a product, bringing along new and different interactions, is difficult to comprehend. This lack of understanding can lead to problematic behaviour. This can be apathic, anxious, aggressive or agitated behaviour, all of which is difficult to overcome by the caregiver. Currently, the most common solution that caregivers use to overcome problematic behaviour is skipping the oral care altogether. When this happens, the care ritual cannot be completed. This is a major challenge for Dental Robotics, leading to the following design goal:
Increase the acceptance of the Dental Robotics toothbrush among people with dementia and their caregivers, by creating a more pleasant experience for both.
Person-centred care is a way to avoid problematic behaviour in the long term. This is an approach that puts the client with dementia in the centre of their own care, and uses the preferences and habits of the client during the care ritual. Since everyone has a different history, the way in which care should be approached should be different for everyone as well. In addition, the symptoms and severity of all clients are different. In order to apply this person-centred care, it is important to have a good understanding of the person in question.

Blink is an app that aims to enable caregivers to apply the person-centred approach over the entire care ritual. This is supported by the theory that, when the entire care ritual is executed without any problematic behaviour, the client with dementia will be put at ease and be more prone to accept such a difficult product as the toothbrush.
Every time Blink is used for a specific client, the content changes. It will adapt based on the connection between the client and the caregiver, the severity of the dementia and the specific tool preferences for both the caregiver and the client. This helps to keep the use of Blink engaging. Over time, the connection between the caregiver and the client will grow. At the same time, the dementia gets more severe, making it increasingly difficult to connect and have conversations. The focus of the app will be on establishing a connection in the beginning, and slowly shifting towards more active help, such as an easy way to turn on music or videos.
Together, this will help to create a more pleasant care moment for both the client and the caregiver, ensuring an increased acceptance of the automatic toothbrush developed by Dental Robotics.

Every 3 minutes, someone dies in a domestic fire accident. The Comics for Safety Foundation aims to improve worldwide fire safety with the help of entertainment. In this thesis, the effectiveness of the communication strategy Entertainment Education is tested for the use of fire safety. 
A qualitative research was performed on Dutch children between 12 and 15 years old to determine their values and needs during their entertainment consumption. The results included a strong need for self identification in entertainment and the need to share their entertainment with friends and be able to enjoy it together.
A quantitative research was performed on the same target audience to measure how know-ledge, attitude and behaviour are affected by comparing education provided in comic book form versus education provided in plain-text form. It was found that children who read the comic book significantly learned and remembered more knowledge after two weeks compared to the group that received the education in plain-text form.
To create a successful campaign, elements were designed to reinforce the strength of the comic books. An app was designed that functions as a digital reading environment were children can enjoy the comic books together with their classmates, using AR features to enhance the reading experience. The education will be provided via secondary schools on a thematic fire safety day.
The goal for the next five years is to successfully implement the campaign and improve fire safety by reaching 200.000 children in at least two countries.