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Delft Design Stories

19 November 2024

Card game addresses sexism within police

IDE alumnus Noortje Kwakernaak visited two police stations to investigate the role of female officers there. During her visits, she was struck by the use of humour – much of it crude or sexist. To address the topic, and perhaps change behaviour, she developed a quartet card game that makes players reflect on these types of jokes.

09 October 2020

The circular economy needs your old phones (and other things)

The transition towards a circular economy (CE) requires that products be returned for reuse, refurbishing or recycling. But getting people to follow through is not always easy. Looking at this issue from the user perspective, PhD candidate Flora Poppelaars researched ways to increase the return of mobile phones after use, helping to close the CE loop.

07 October 2020

How circular business models keep consumers in the loop

The circular economy is a hot topic these days. Moving away from the old linear model of take-make-consume-throw away, the circular model is a closed-loop system that involves more than simply recycling waste. It’s a process that involves several inter-dependent phases, including sustainable design – or designing out waste. And there are many actors involved in making it work. For her PhD, Vivian Tunn looked at things from the consumer perspective to investigate how circular business models can be designed to enable sustainable consumption.

30 September 2020

What a comfortable seat

How can you objectively determine whether a car seat is comfortable? Develop a measuring instrument that imitates human skin. Max Wegner will be awarded his PhD for his work on this measuring instrument, which could prove to be a real breakthrough.

01 September 2020

Training for surgery? Get (more) real

The field of general surgery has been transformed over the past few decades with the rise of minimal access surgery (MAS), making it possible to perform major surgeries via small incisions. But as with any rapidly developing technology, there are often challenges related to training and implementation. Through his PhD research, Sandeep Ganni set out to explore the key elements required for designing safer and more effective training methods related to MAS.

28 August 2020

Designers need to catch up on their user data

“Designers don’t know how to use data,” says Péter Kun, who recently defended his PhD thesis ‘Design Inquiry Through Data’. In it, he developed a framework for guiding designers through incorporating data in their research practice.

15 July 2020

A breakthrough in 3D printing

Although 3D printing may sound futuristic and creative, results so far have often been rather recti-linear. Chengkai Dai just obtained his PhD at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at TU Delft for his work on a new method of 3D printing, which might just become the standard practice.

14 May 2020

Talking the walk: tailored healthcare

Hospitals want happy and satisfied patients. And they need them, because healthcare is a competitive market. Especially when it comes to non-life threatening procedures, public hospitals face serious competition from private clinics, where there is an increasing focus on the patient experience, or the ‘patient journey’ as it is called. But how do you create the right patient experience and good, manageable tailored care? Bob Groeneveld researched this question using one common procedure as an example: a total hip replacement.

Delft Design Stories

Read the stories of researchers and students at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, and discover the scientific questions on which they work and the solutions they present.

Mental health: from disorder to interaction problem

Waiting lists. Treatment coming to an end. The closure of clinics. Our mental healthcare system needs help. How can a design approach help deliver better care. Delft Industrial Design Engineering researcher Nynke Tromp is examining the future of the mental healthcare system from within the Redesigning Psychiatry programme.

We\Visit: combatting loneliness with video-calling

Visiting a loved one who’s critically ill: normally that’s possible, but due to the coronavirus, visiting ICUs is no longer permitted. The result is a lonely fight behind closed doors. In an attempt to combat the loneliness, researchers at Delft University of Technology have come up with We\Visit: a tool that facilitates video-calling by appointment. And it was developed at lightning speed after the Reinier de Graaf hospital sounded the alarm.

We\Visit: combatting loneliness with video-calling

Visiting a loved one who’s critically ill: normally that’s possible, but due to the coronavirus, visiting ICUs is no longer permitted. The result is a lonely fight behind closed doors. In an attempt to combat the loneliness, researchers at Delft University of Technology have come up with We\Visit: a tool that facilitates video-calling by appointment. And it was developed at lightning speed after the Reinier de Graaf hospital sounded the alarm.

A meaty trick: plant-based deception for good

Eating meat is deeply rooted in habits, status, culture, and identity, so it is difficult to reduce our meat consumption. What if instead of viewing the ubiquity of meat in our meals as a problem, we see it as the key to the solution? Just by using a couple of tricks that are already found all around us. Charlotte de Wit, recently graduated student of Industrial Design Engineering at TU Delft, accepted this meaty challenge.

Recycling mouth masks

In the fight against the increasing shortage of mouth masks, researchers from TU Delft developed in collaboration with Van Straten Medical B.V. a new way of sterilizing used masks and testing their quality. This could be a successful solution for the rising demand.

Project Safeguard

TU Delft students of Industrial Design Engineering and Technical Medicine have joined forces to develop a smart protective wall that enables testing of possible COVID-19 patients without using scarce personal protective equipment and in any desired location.

Looking over Vermeer’s shoulders

In 2018, Johannes Vermeer’s world-famous Girl with a Pearl Earring underwent a total ‘body scan’: using state-of-the-art techniques, the painting was studied in painstaking detail from top to bottom. It provided a wealth of new insights about the painting and the painter. Four TU Delft faculties worked on the project.