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Talent project

Speedbubble

A toolkit for stimulating interaction amongst passengers of autonomous vehicles, applied in a design for the autonomous floating Seabubble.

A futuristic research and design project in which the different experiences of travellers in shared autonomous vehicles have been explored by means of testing with low fidelity prototypes. It resulted into a design for travellers sailing the new mobility concept Seabubble, an autonomous floating water pod, but the project also delivered a set of design criteria that are applicable to other shared autonomous passenger experiences. The low-fidelity prototype testing showed that a certain amount of (cooperative) control provides a motivation for passenger to undertake interaction. The designed concept facilitates interaction by requiring passengers to cooperate, since the amount of control on the sailing speed depends on the amount of collaboration.

UniversityDelft University of Technology
Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering
Project typegraduation project
StudentIlse van Zeumeren

Extra information

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Talent project

The Making of a Smart Pillow

Designing an object with intent through a data-enabled design process

For my graduation, I did research on designing intelligent artefacts, their interactions and how data could be used in the process. This was done in the context of leisure in the living room. The result of this was a smart pillow that could actively provide comfort to users through hugging and by helping them to avoid slouching. To get to this result I created an IoT prototype of a pillow that was used during user observations and interviews. This IoT pillow could sense the pressure applied on it, how it is positioned in space, and how warm it is. This allowed me to generate an extra layer of data (machine data) on top of recordings of observations (behavioural data) and transcripts of interviews (subjective data). In order to analyse this, the machine data was visualised and connected to the behaviour and experience of the participants. This visualisation is a 3d representation of the pillow with the sensor data projected on it. By placing a video of the user next to it, the direct relationship between the usage and sensor data could be seen. This allowed data to be used as a creative material and sparked a constant back and forth between sensor, behavioural and subjective data. Based on this and other insights the interaction with the pillow was designed.

UniversityDelft University of Technology
Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering
Project typegraduation project
StudentTjapko Vermeulen

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Talent project

Ethics Compass

More diversity, please! The Ethics Compass, an interactive workshop concept, helps to foster diversity and inclusion in the context of tech

Whenever we design or develop something, there will be someone on the other side who will use our product or service in the end. Do we want those people to feel discriminated by our work? No! But there are still lots of bad examples out there that do discriminate against people. And in most cases this discrimination could be avoided. The graduation project Ethics Compass is an interactive workshop concept that was initially created to foster and encourage diversity and inclusion in the context of Artificial Intelligence. However, the concept can be extended to technology (also IoT) and design in general and is relevant for everyone who works (or will work) in the design/tech industry. With the Ethics Compass we want to sensitize everyone, who is involved in the creation process of a tech product or service, where possible discrimination has its origin and what we need to change in order to avoid it and foster diversity instead.

UniversityUniversity of Applied Sciences Darmstadt
Project typegraduation
StudentsJulia Metzmaier
Jessica Hammer
(Jessi is not taking part in the IoT Talent Award but we did this together)

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Talent project

Digital wellbeing

Using IoT as an ambient, reflective and tangible medium for designing a human-centered artifact that stimulates digital wellbeing

Uncontrolled, brief smartphone revisitations are a crucial, prevalent issue. Much of typical smartphone usage is shown to consist of short, repetitive revisitation habits which can have negative consequences for mental health. Despite its prevalence, uncontrolled revisitation remains largely untapped in digital wellbeing interventions.

To fill this gap, this project crafted the “Revisitation Reflector”; an ambient, internet of things artifact designed to help users take control of their digital wellbeing by becoming aware of and reflecting on their smartphone revisitation patterns. Fully functioning prototypes of this artifact were subsequently deployed in the field to study the sensemaking associated with the device, and to study the role, design and impact of the IoT device.

Based on the field study, a number of findings were uncovered. Together, these findings provide guidelines and future opportunities on designing for digital wellbeing through employing the untapped, pertinent metric of revisitation; and through an ambient, reflective and tangible medium that has so far not been widely adopted for the digital wellbeing domain.

The project aims to spark a new narrative on what it means to use IoT as a medium for designing responsible, human-centered interventions for digital wellbeing and what it means to design for experiential human-data interaction.

UniversityUniversity of Twente
Human-Media Interaction Group
and Interaction Design Group
Project typegraduation project
StudentSuhaib Aslam

Extra information

http://essay.utwente.nl/82200/1/Aslam_MA_EEMCS.pdf

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Talent project

Connectek

We all have a need to balance our time between being together with others and being alone

We all have a need to balance our time between being together with others and being alone. For each and every single person the ideal balance is different. Technology (in all its complexity) influences our ability to keep this balance. What happens if we make our own social technologies? What do we learn about our social needs and our use of technology?

UniversityAmsterdam University of Applied Sciences
Master Digital Design
Project typegraduation project
StudentsVeronika Radenkova
Wendy Plas
Pamela Nelson
Jasper Bunschoten

Extra information

See also the project website:

https://radiowendy26.github.io/Roboticssocial/index.html

Categories
Talent project

The Butterfly in the Room

A Meditation about More-Than-Human-Centered Design

The Butterfly in the Room takes visitors on a journey through the hidden networks of actors that surround us all. It was created with the intention to serve as an object for discourse on more-than-human design, to give designers the opportunity to explore the subject and related consequences of their own design. The project deals with the question of how the invisible networks of actors are influenced by human design and how these consequences and the networks themselves can be made visible. Based on the previous research project, Entangled Interfaces, a network of actors surrounding an unnamed Internet Of Things (IoT) device was explored and analyzed.

UniversityHochschule Darmstadt
University of Applied Science Darmstadt, h_da
Project typeGraduation project
StudentsMaximilian Brandl
Philipp Kaltofen

Extra information

See the project website: https://butterfly.brandlmax.com

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Talent project

Cube

Caring through the language of the voice companions to mediate privacy concerns

As humans, we have an innate ability to care for the things around us. This care often mediates the relationship we build with them. These relationships took an interesting turn as we started interacting with connected digital things, raising the question of how care defines our relationship with these digital ‘beings.’ Do we really care for them? or does the relationship evolve to a more cautious one that leads to obsessions and concerns about their presence? This made me wonder if there is a way we could care for the digital things around us and if this care also reflects in the relationship we build with them over time.
In my research, I focused on voice assistants. Often called ‘assistants,’ the way we interact with these things is often less compassionate. We interact with them in the language we speak, and when we give these objects space in our intimate surroundings, it can often create a sense of intrusion into our private moments. I wonder if there could be a new type of voice companion with its own language and is alien to the language we speak. Will this unfamiliarity make it inherently virtuous to our private conversations?

UniversityUmea Institute of Design 
Project typeGraduation project for ‘Fluid Assemblage course’ 
StudentManu Revi Poovakkat

Extra information

See the project website: https://medium.com/designing-fluid-assemblages/cube-caring-through-the-language-of-the-voice-companions-to-mediate-privacy-concerns-da2a70f70d71

Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences Bachelor Thesis Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design Delft University of Technology graduation project individual project Minor project Northumbria University post graduation Team project The Hague University of Applied Sciences Umea University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt University of Twente

Categories
Talent project

Aura

An explorative experience to create chance encounters

As our mobility solutions evolved, our travel experiences became more isolated within the bubble of our vehicles. We go from one point to another with no other intention but to get to our destination. As we do, we miss opportunities for new connections and engagement along the way. The project challenge is to find a sustainable and feasible mobility solution for visitors and residents in a sparsely populated Biosphere Reserve, along Road 363 and the Vindeln River Valley, to create a fair and balanced rural development. The solutions aim to solve the mobility challenge and provoke a behavioral change towards a convivial society.
We explored diverse ways of establishing a connection between the visitors and the residents. This helped us understand the lack of awareness of the presence of what is surrounding you while moving from one place to another. Aura is an explorative experience that facilitates engagement opportunities for visitors and residents by raising awareness of the presence of people, local businesses, and nature along the way.

UniversityUmea Institute of Design
ProjectGraduation project for ‘General Product course’
StudentsManu Revi Poovakkat
Nancy Valerdi
Lea Bachmann
Connie Jehu

Extra information

See project website: https://www.manurevi.com/aura