The following report outlines a design project about self-tracking, a food diary app, with the goal of encouraging young adults to record and understand their eating behaviour. The project was executed for the graduation course, as part of the Master’s program at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at TU Delft. This report begins with an introduction to the project, including the background of self-tracking, assignment and approach. The design will focus on young adults who live alone and work full time. Next, from the literature research and user research, insights were drawn on the current experience of using food-tracking tools. Self-Determination Theory and Gamification Theory were applied to help with analyzing the user characteristics and contextual factors. Based on research, the design goal was formed: Engaging young adults who live alone and work full time to record and better understand their eating behaviour. Users should feel supported and competent when interacting with the design, reporting the food-related data without pressure and unpleasant feeling, and at the same, keep engaged through using. Based on this goal, I next explored the solution space, narrowing it down to three possible concept directions that would take the redesign in three different extreme directions. Evaluations for all three tests were conducted with seven participants. The results showed that a combination of various elements from the three concepts should be used for the redesign in order to optimize the user experience. Next, after a redesign workshop and a cognitive walkthrough, the final concept was detailed and a high-fidelity prototype was created. This prototype was evaluated in a user test with six participants. The results demonstrated the strength of many of the design decisions, while also showing areas of improvement; such as the need to better guide the user when choosing their weekly goal. The recommendations and limitations were discussed as well in the end.

The aim of this project was to stimulate young children with cancer to engage in physical play to decrease the stagnation of their physical development. Children from the age of 2 to 5 are in the middle of their physical growth and development. This is also the age group with the highest risk of being diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). The disease and treatment cause stagnation in the children's physical development. The body focuses on fighting the disease and that stops the children from moving and playing because they feel weak and insecure. Therefore, the goal is to create a (home) situation in which young children with ALL can freely play, while doing therapeutically relevant movements without professional supervision. What is missing from the current solutions like exercise programs from physiotherapists is a solution that attune to children’s natural way of engaging in physical activity, namely through play. Such solutions acknowledge the child as a child again, rather than a patient.

Hobble was created with the intention to hide the therapeutically relevant exercises and movements in the toy, so the children could freely play. Hobble can walk forward by means of two wheels that can be switched for others. Each set or combination of wheels changes Hobble’s behaviour and walking pattern. The result is that Hobble’s characteristics and role change, dependent on the child’s interpretation. Hobble can walk, chase, follow, stunt and get stuck. Hobble has a hard time walking straight and is intentionally clumsy so it needs help often. This stimulates locomotion and gives children a sense of control that boosts their confidence and motivation to play more. Thus, Hobble elicits therapeutically relevant movement that the physiotherapists want to seem. Ultimately letting the children play naturally like any other child while getting healthy.

This master thesis describes the outcome of the graduation project “Capitalizing the helping hand” which is executed for, and commissioned, by WeHelpen. The project aims to find new ways of helping in the informal domain in order to extend the services provided by WeHelpen, and to consider the interests of the stakeholders and members comprising cooperation WeHelpen. By doing so, it anticipates the desire to innovate in the informal helping context as researched in The Netherlands. A new angle on the interest group has been established, focusing on a type of behavior perceived as confused, rather than the underlying mental reasons for this confusion. This report presents the proposal doordraaischijf which is developed for cooperation WeHelpen. A first overview of the main elements of the product-service combination can be seen in here, accompanied by a brief summary.

This proposal will be elaborated on in more detail throughout the report, as well as the reasoning behind the embodiment and development. The project approach is a “lean” version of Vision in Product Design. It is an adaptation using specifically the context projection element to place an intervention in a future context. The researched contexts are presented. In the following chapters, different aspects of the design will be further elaborated on, and as of why this intervention is appropriate for the context of confusion. The proposal chapter will feature different aspects of the design are the interactions that are taking place, the context of use, the underlying working principles, shape, form, color, material, and finish. In the arguments, the reasoning behind elements of the development is explained additionally. The co-creation sessions with experiential experts are explained in the chapter focus group results. The relevancy for stakeholders of WeHelpen, the users, as well as society as a whole is argued. The user evaluation chapter presents the study conducted to answer the research question if people who should carry the intervention are able to formulate the scenarios and instructions related to their confusion. The journey-chapter focuses on the process in chronological order, also explaining the steps which did not contribute to the final proposal directly, but had influence on the process. A personal reflection considering several themes of the graduation project are included. The references present all the literature, multimedia publications, and the professionals which have been interviewed. The appendices provide insight in the materials that evoked insights as well as the results that served as a foundation for argumentation. 

The doordraaischijf is a handheld disc which allows carriers to communicate their needs in a moment of confusion to others. The specific shape is a reference to a parking disc, except this disc has two sides that hold content. One side (orange) holds the scenarios the carrier has formulated related to confusion, while the other side (purple) displays the appropriate instruction to the helping hand for improving the situation. A digital platform complements the physical presence of the disc.

The carriers are people prone to confusion; those with a history of confused behavior or a higher chance of developing confused behavior. As people in confusion might be temporarily unable to formulate those needs, the disc holds predefined personalized scenarios and corresponding instructions for improving those situations.

A lot of people would like to help another who might be in confusion, but do not know how to intervene. This disc provides a perspective for action to the helping hand: the personalized instructions assist the helper in offering the appropriate help. The helping hand can be anyone that passes by.
A carrier will rotate the insert disc to select the unfolding scenario in relation to confusion. The helping hand will consider the appropriate instruction on the other side of the casing, which is automatically and synchronously displayed when the carrier selects the scenario. The instructions are formulated personally by the carrier at a different moment in time, so the helper can rely on the content. This is also a safeguard for the intervention, as people in confusion might voice different options than when they are in a more accountable mental state. The instructions will leave room for interpretation by the helping hand, as the personal considerations as well as the variables surrounding the moment influence the interaction.

The digital platform facilitates all the support interactions. It allows for the creation of the personal content as well as the production and delivery. The helping hand can instigate contact through a personal connect code at a convenient moment.

Play objects designed for for rebellious play offer possibilities for physically and socially active play and derives its play value from balancing rebellion and conformism, rulemaking and rule-breaking. In doing so it is aimed to provide a setting where children can behave in ways that may not normally be stimulated. playing with a rebellious toy is meant to help children to explore the boundaries of how they can behave and the consequences that might derive from that, in a safe and playful way. The concept of rebellious play was introduced in the paper ‘Rebel by Design’ (Gielen & Van Leeuwen, 2013). BlockMe is a first attempt to methodically study an intentionally designed rebellious toy. The BlockMe prototype toy that resulted from this vision consists of a building block set that allows for quick creation of child-sized tower structures. Two of these blocks were made interactive and acted as a sort of time-bomb. these interactive blocks would respond to loud sounds, waking the block up. Subsequently it gets progressively more agitated over time. When the interactive block reaches a certain level of ‘agitation’ it starts to vigorously shake, causing the construction to collapse. Before this happens the block can also be calmed and ‘subdued’ by gently touching and stroking it. By doing so the construction can be saved. By offering these opposite play schemes the concepts plays on a perceived struggle between the inherent joy of creating something, but also the excitement of eventually destroying what was built. Offering these two possibilities is meant to provide an incentive to switch from one to the other when the urge arises to do so. It acts as an incentive for children to balance their individual desires with group expectations. This should result in a potentially difficult decision to make: do you (selfishly) act by reacting on these urges, or do you continue to be in service of the group and conform by doing what is expected of you? A study was conducted to put the BlockMe prototype to the test. To do so observations were conducted at a primary school, where four play sessions were organized. A total of 47 children, both boys and girls aged from 8-10 years old, participated in the study in groups of varying sizes. From the observations there were 38 relevant play situations identified. Only 4 of which were determined to have happened because of the prototype. It seems therefore clear that play with the prototype did not lead to any structural rebellious behavior. Fundamentally, it seems that the opposite possibilities for play that BlockMe is supposed to provide, do not actually manifest themselves as such in the prototype that was trailed. Seeing as this is the main mechanism that is supposed to trigger rebelliousness and conflict, the general perceived absence of these opposite possibilities in the prototype may provide an explanation for the lack of intended rebelliousness