In this master's thesis in collaboration with het Nederlands Oogheelkundig Gezelschap (NOG), or the Dutch ophthalmic society, I developed an industrial design concept to improve the ergonomic working conditions of Ophthalmologists.

25% of Dutch Ophthalmologists (surgical eye doctors) have suffered from musculoskeletal injuries (MSIs) during their careers, according to research by NOG. As a result of my research, including interviews with 14 Ophthalmologists currently employed in Dutch medical institutions, I concluded that 5 out of the 7 musculoskeletal injuries, experienced by Ophthalmologists, are in the back, shoulders and neck area. The concluded causes of these MSIs are equipment that does not accommodate for doctor/patient height differences, and neglect of personal health in favour of patient satisfaction.

Height Matcher is a redesign of the ophthalmic examination unit, integrating patient chair and equipment table, and upgrading their capabilities. The repositioning of components also allows the ophthalmologist to do standing examinations. The concept was validated through various user tests and expert interviews. By extending the height range that the unit can be set to, speeding up its adjustment, and introducing a separate eye height measurement, height Matcher enables the ophthalmologist to maintain an ergonomic posture during examination, without sacrificing patient satisfaction or comfort. With the concept, an ophthalmologist will have their eye height measured at the start of their career. This is done by a second person, ensuring proper posture and measurement. They measure the sitting and standing eye heights. When the ophthalmologist goes to work in the outpatient clinic, the two eye heights are dialled into the data profile using the interface panel on the examination unit. The equipment table moves to bring the eyepiece to the ophthalmologist’s eye height.

When the patient comes in, the ophthalmologist can adjust the patient’s chair forwards/backwards and up/down depending on the patient’s proportions. If the ophthalmologist wants to examine the patient in standing position, they press the mode change button, to transition from sitting to standing mode. The patient chair and slit lamp table move up proportionally, to maintain their relative distance, for seamless working. The doctor examines the patient as usual, with good ergonomic posture for both.

Sitwaking is an adaptive sport derived from wakeboarding, targeting wakeboarders with a physical disability. Although the sport is growing each year, the accessibility level of the sport is low. Investment costs are high and existing products are targeted towards experienced riders.
Relative to wakeboarding, a different setup is required to practice the sport. A sitwaker is seated in a seat, which is attached to a normal wakeboard with an aluminum frame. At the front of the board, a footpad is installed to strap the rider’s feet.
The project has been set up in cooperation with the Willem Hooft Foundation. This is an organisation aimed at improving the accessibility of adapted water sports. It builds forth on a concept design for an adjustable sitkite seat, developed by Marinke Callens. For her project, she did extensive research on the ergonomic aspect of the seat, creating an anthropometric database through measuring the target group and making 3D-scans, to create the shape of the seat. By doing this, she improved pressure distribution and optimized the fit. Her project ended with a fruitful concept.
The aim of this thesis is to take this concept to the next step, validating the incorporation of the research in her design. This is done by creating a design and making a working prototype of an adjustable sitwake seat for beginners with a physical disability, which is easy and quick to adjust. The switch from sitkiting to sitwaking is done to create a more controllable test environment and because the market is easier to penetrate. The end product should be used by both sitwakers and sitkiters. Furthermore, the lifespan of the seat should be extended as long as possible. This is done through a hands-on approach with several iteration cycles.
This thesis is approached with the double diamond method. The classic approach consists of four parts: Discover, define, develop and deliver.
The outcome of the discover and define phase brought valuable insights from extensive desk research, qualitative interviews with the target group, observations and testing comparable products. This led to a list of requirements and wishes. Through rapid prototyping and design by doing, concepts were brought to life to check for feasibility and evaluate with users. This hands-on approach resulted in valuable insights to increase the validity of the design.
The result of the project is a fiberglass seat, adjustable in width and optimized for usability. Emphasis is put on minimizing the footprint and extending its life span. The seat was tested in context to ensure its usability.
Optional straps are integrated to ensure the safety of use for both beginning sitwakers and sitkiters. The final design of the sitwake seat is tailored to the user, lowering the barrier to learning this new sport by decreasing the costs.

The goal of this thesis is to design a kite seat with optimal ergonomic fit for beginners in kite schools. Before designing, it is important to understand the context and create anthropometric guidelines for the target group.

The seat will be used for sit-kitesurfing, which originates from the sport kitesurfing. Its target group focuses on people with a physical disability such as SCI, amputees or spina bifida. The difference with kitesurfing is that the setup exists of a seat mounted on an aluminium frame. This frame goes onto a specially designed board for this purpose.

The project has been set up in cooperation with the Willem Hooft Foundation. This is an organisation aimed at improving the accessibility of adapted watersports, with a focus on kitesurfing. Research shows that accessibility to sports in general is lower for people with a physical disability. However, this is expected to be even lower for sit-kitesurfing. Currently, the availability of adapted courses is limited and people are left to themselves. This means buying all the gear before even trying the sport and learning the sport without qualified instructors. Improving the accessibility is done in cooperation with kiteschools offering adapted courses, where beginners can try out the sport in a safe environment.

What stops most kiteschools from offering these courses is the relatively high cost of the specialised gear. Currently, the biggest part of the costs consists of the kite seats. At least four out of seven different seat sizes are necessary to organise kite courses. Replacing those four to seven seats by a single, adaptable seat will greatly reduce the cost for kiteschools. Next to the financial aspect, there are practical and ergonomical benefits. An example is the time-consuming and difficult task of changing the right seat size to the frame. Ergonomically, the fit of these seats is often not optimised for the beginning kitesurfer of the target group.

The context, literature and desktop research resulted in key insights and points of improvement. Where information was still lacking, additional user or expert interviews were performed. Anthropometric data has been gathered through existing datasets on DINED. However, this information was not specific for the target group. Additional manual measurements and 3D-scans are performed with 9 people fitting the target group. This pointed out the differences between the target group and the existing datasets, but also provided lacking anthropometric data such as thigh width and location of the trochanter. Next to that the difficulties became clear, as everybody is different. The main design goals gathered from the research are improving pressure distribution through an optimal and tight fit. Challenges are the varying location of the trochanter, shape of the buttocks and the thighs.

The final design is an adjustable seat, reducing the amount of needed kite seats from at least four to one. This will greatly decrease investment costs, effort, time and storage. The project’s outcome includes anthropometric design guidelines for a kite seat and a 1:1 prototype to test the concept.

Boys with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy have a different life from most children. As they grow up, their muscles lose strength progressively. Around the age of 10, they lose their ability to walk, in their teens they slowly lose their arm function, in their twenties they often need respiratory support and their life expectancy is usually between 30 and 40 years old.

To support Duchenne boys’ physical functioning and contribute to their independence, a passive exoskeleton has been developed to support their arm function. The exoskeleton is designed to be physically most beneficial for boys with Duchenne between 10 and 17 years old, which is therefore defined as the target group. It is expected that, as the boys in this target group mature, both their physical and emotional needs regarding medical aids, such as exoskeletons, will change. However, the exoskeleton is not yet able to mature with the user, to accommodate for those changing needs. The design goal of this project is therefore to redesign the exoskeleton to increase its ability to mature, both physically and emotionally, with Duchenne boys from 10 to 17 years old. In order to understand the requirements needed to meet the design goal, both physical and emotional needs of Duchenne boys are researched through a literature study and user research.

Literature shows that the boys can physically benefit from the exoskeleton from the moment of wheelchair confinement (around the age of 10), but do not usually use arm supports until a much later age, or not at all, indicating a lack of perceived relevance for the target group. It also shows that there is a high variety in disease progression, so it cannot be predicted when the exoskeleton needs to be altered to fit and support the user physically.

User research shows that there are three phases of growing up with Duchenne (Naïve Playful Kid (10-12 years old), Anxious Self-Conscious Teen (12-15 years old) and Constrained Reluctant Adolescent (15-17 years old)), who differ on topics such as confidence level, attitude towards their disease, responsibility, social life, relation with their parents, and relation towards healthcare products. Products can have a positive influence on emotional development if they can improve independence and individual functioning. Products can have a negative influence if they feel like an imposition, if the user has no control or choice over them, and if the introduction or alteration of the products confirm further muscle decline.

For the exoskeleton to fit with the physical and emotional maturing process, it should therefore achieve the following design goals. The use of the exoskeleton should be made more relevant for each of the three emotional phases of growing up; the user should be able to focus on positive progress and anticipate on negative decline; the exoskeleton should accommodate for an increasing responsibility and independency of the user; and the user should feel like he has a sufficient amount of control and choice over the exoskeleton.

For the exoskeleton to achieve these goals, a new concept is proposed, which consists of three components. Firstly, the exoskeleton is given an added functionality of controlling devices in the user’s house, by making movements. Secondly, an interface containing a coding platform enables the user to decide which devices are controlled with which movements, and through a communication platform he can ask questions and share experience. Thirdly, a service in which an expert regularly checks the exoskeleton’s hardware (physical fit and support) and software (controlling functionality).

The concept increases the ability of the exoskeleton to mature with its user, because it ensures the exoskeleton fits well with the needs of all different ages in the target group and because the target group expects the concept to remain interesting for a longer period of time. They expect this because of the amount of possibilities and adaptabilities the interface provides, but also because of the combination of fun and extra independence the extra controlling function provides directly when using the concept. Furthermore, the expert service ensures the physical fit and support of the exoskeleton is regularly checked and updated, without confronting the target group negatively regarding their physical decline. By implementing the concept, the exoskeleton is expected to continue to be relevant for boys with Duchenne and give them a more positive experience as they mature from children to adults.