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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

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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

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

Categories
Talent project

Data Gates

A dynamic set of symbols that allow us to interact with smart devices on our own terms

A dynamic set of symbols that allow us to interact with smart devices on our own terms. Inspired by George Boole’s logic gates, these RFID stickers allow us to create our own logics on trust in the IoT. This project re-imagines the idea of a Trustmark for the IoT, allowing users to act as the certifying authority. A series of RFID/NFC stickers let users control the sensors in everyday IoT devices. The system allows users to define their own contexts for privacy, surveillance and trust in the IoT.

UniversityNorthumbria University
Project typePost Graduation
StudentNamrata Primlani

Extra information

Project website: https://namratap.cargo.site/Data-Gates

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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