A visual impairment can have immense impact on the wellbeing of affected people. Depending on the degree of the impairment they often rely on the support of their close ones and have to live a very restricted lifestyle. Worldwide there are around 285 million people living with some kind of visual impairment caused by a number of different diseases. 39 million of these are blind and 246 million have a low vision. Common causes of blindness include diabetes, macular degeneration, traumatic injuries, infections of the cornea or retina, glaucoma, and inability to obtain any glasses. The deprivation of vision often makes it hard for visually impaired people to maintain a healthy lifestyle. The accessability to sport is beneficial to stay physically but also mentally fit. A recent survey showed that nearly 70 percent of visually impaired children in the US do not participate in physical education. Despite many existing aids for visually impaired people, this shows that there are no significant technical solutions yet that enable them to overcome the barriers to do physical activities. Nevertheless there is a growing market of assistive technologies for visually impaired people which is expected to double almost within the next five years. With huge technological developments that are strongly driven by the shift of the automotive industry to autonomous driving, many technologies like depth imaging will get much more affordable. This in combination with the implementation of artificial intelligence and faster networks will make it feasible to develop assistive technologies for visually imapired people that empowers them to move independently. The aim of this master thesis in Advanced Product Design was to design a wearable solution that involves assistive technology and enables visually imapired people to do sports independently and thereby get easier access to physical activities.

With this thesis, I have been looking at opportunities for improvement of childbirth in Scandinavia with a focus on prevention of perineal tears and levator injuries during labor. I have aimed to help couples during their pregnancy by giving them a more active role to avoid tears during childbirth. I have strived to help pregnant mothers to improve their well-being as well as improve cooperation between pregnant couples for them to have a better birthing experience. My goal has been to develop a concept that could improve today’s situation and that in theory could be implemented today in Scandinavia. Another goal was to create a discursive design topic, to question childbirth as it is today and show a new vision for how it could look like in the future. I wanted to show the importance of quality of life and that childbirth both could and should be questioned and looked into more to improve it.

The project started looking at the broader spectrum of remote education during research. After a field trip to Dublin and brainstorm workshops the decision was made to focus on the teachers and students at home as this area showed the need for improvement to the current standard. Bringing the classroom home focuses on the transition of switching from on-campus to fully remote education at home and the hardware solutions that can help improve these situations for both teachers and students. Teacher’s pedagogical education does not prepare them to be online teachers and does not focus on things like the need to create engaging content and live lectures that includes and interact with the students on the other end of the screen. The Classmate Live is an all-in-one solution with optimized camera and audio to serve the live streaming and content creation needs of the online teachers. The device is adjustable in height and together with its extra wide curved display allows for ergonomically improved freedom whether you want to sit down or stand up during your lectures. Running Webex UniversityOS, inspired by streaming platforms such as Twitch, allows the teachers to easily transition between programs and input from external devices like a laptop. The Classmate Live allows for interactive and engaging live sessions without the clutter of various products on the desk. Keeping the workspace clean and easy to use, even if you are not a tech wizard. The students are challenged by the fact they tend to feel alone on the other side of the screen, lectures are not built for remote learning in the first place. Keeping a student’s attention and engagement level up can be quite challenging. The Classmate Connect products allow the user to transform a TV or display into an extended online learning environment in one’s living room. It consists of the Connect Hub and the Connect Camera combined together with Webex University app on one’s smartphone or tablet allows for remote control and transforms every living room into an interactive learning experience. a digital assistant allows for voice control and the Connect camera recognizes in session gestures like raising one’s hand to imitate classroom interactions as much as possible.

Technology plays a big part in our lives, and our phones give us access to it anytime and anywhere. As technology becomes more and more integrated into everything we do, it can sometimes distract us from the things that matter the most to us. Logi Buds is a hearable concept made to bring in new experiences that could help reduce screen dependency in our daily lives. Through new experiences, the product makes people more aware of their surroundings, enables users to focus better, and to reduces stress. It brings in new features such as Object Trigger, Do not Disturb mode and Easy-Switching. Logi Buds is a hearable that allows you to interact with the outside world.

Most interactions with physical objects are based on three senses: Sight, hearing and touch. Although we highly rely on visual communication nowadays, haptic feedback is not only involved in every single interaction, but plays a significant role in how we perceive our surroundings. One major reason why there are only few applications available incorporating active haptic technology is the complex design process, which requires a profound understanding of electronics, coding, physiology and psychology. Unfortunately there is currently little support and guidance available to get you started and help you during the process. In this thesis I explored the opportunities of haptic feedback and how we can ease access to the field for designers. The outcome is called hapticlabs.io and consists of two parts: A prototyping kit which allows you to design, evaluate, and integrate haptic feedback without requiring any expertise in coding or electronics. A knowledge base which provides condensed and easy to understand background information, opportunity areas showcasing capabilities, as well as a collection of design principles guiding you through the process. Hapticlabs.io provides an ecosystem to democratise haptic design. It simplifies the process of modulating the feedback, creating functional prototypes and taking full potential of the capabilities.

In his book, Whatever, Michel Houellebeque wrote: “I observe right away that people generally go around in bands, or in little groups --- Next I notice that all these people seem satisfied with themselves and the world; it's astonishing, even a little frightening. They quietly saunter around, this one displaying a quizzical smile, that one a moronic look. Some of the youngsters are dressed in leather jackets with slogans borrowed from the more primitive kind of hard rock; you can read phrases on their backs like Kill them all!or Fuck and destroy!; but all commune in the certainty of passing an agreeable afternoon devoted primarily to consumerism, and thus to contributing to the consolidation of their being.”i The quote illustrates the condition of our current time where culture and meaning has been negated by the process of consumption. From the quote we can clearly see ambivalence towards identity. Houellebecq's book has captured perfectly the pervasive emptiness of human life. Fashion has always been a mirror of the society, and what does it says about our society today when fashion has turned so banal that it is almost impossible to tell one from another. What does it say about our society when people's identity changes as the season changes with exponential acelleration. The idea of this project is to create a critical commentary on how the fashion world and the world in general has changed. During the last decades, fashion changes so fast, seasons come and go and the old Spring/Summer, Fall/Winter collections are not enough anymore. Now we have Resort and Pre-Fall as an addition to the original instalment. Customers expect new goods at least every month if not every week. Trends changes so fast to the point if you observed a fashionista she will look schizophrenic because of how often she changes her persona. Fashion has ceased to become creative or critical. The pressure on commercialism has led the industry into a machine with no substance geared to churn up more products with little regards to creativity, sustainability and the environment. The direction this change is going is frankly alarming, yet, with all the rigid system and the pressure on commercialism there is only so much that one can do. Referring to Michel Houellebeqc and his book Whateverii, with this project I'm trying to bring more awareness to the state of our time. iMichel Houellebeqc, Paul Hammond (translator), Whatever, Serpent's Tail, London,1998 iiMichel Houellebeqc, Paul Hammond (translator), Whatever, Serpent's Tail, London,1998

This work explores upcycling with a focus on unconventional materials and craft techniques/DIY. Today, countless designers are working with upcycling, yet there are many directions of it that have not been explored. The motive behind this work lies in the importance of finding and presenting sustainable ways of working with fashion. However, the main focus is on the aesthetics, meetings between materials, shape, techniques and contexts. It was important to add something new to the field of upcycling. Hence, a focus has been on finding and working with materials and techniques that have not been used for upcycling in a fashion context before. All different kinds of materials are considered and they are all treated equally, whether it was plastic trash or crystals, textiles or non-textiles. Potential is seen in everything. Another thing that differs this work from others in the area, is that the whole collection is made without using any machines. The focus is on the handicraft. Similar to materials, techniques are not seen as something that is intended for a specific purpose. The motto is that anything can be made out of everything. Through careful craftsmanship and detailing and with a focus on decorative materials, context crossing and meetings between material and technique, the hope is that this collection will present a new and fresh take on upcycling.

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Self-driving is a technology that has been envisioned in science fiction movies or in speculative design for quite some time. However, it is one of the few future technologies that is relatively easy to imagine, but very difficult to implement it into reality due to complexity coming from variability in AI. This discrepancy between reality and imagination is what makes achieving trust in self-driving vehicles more challenging, especially regarding the fact that driving is regarded as a daily task for some people. Keeping into consideration how most of the other projects done to enhance trust in automation deals with full automation, this thesis focuses how trust can be defined in semi autonomous vehicles. This middle ground setting with humans and AI systems working together needs more factors to be considered to make it autonomous, at the same time requiring a higher level of trust from drivers. An additional layer of a takeover situation from driver to AI and vice versa in a semi-autonomous setting would require more level of trust than a full self-driving vehicle where drivers do not have to control anything.Volvo Cars, an automobile manufacturer brand that has its strong focus on safety, was collaborated with in this project to support developing a notion of trust in autonomous systems. The purpose of this collaboration with Volvo Cars was to receive support in any expert knowledge in the mobility field and to create a project that is relevant to the current development state and future vision of autonomous vehicles. In order to provide an environment where drivers can calibrate trust inside vehicles, FiDO, a tangible driving assistant for building trust, was designed through a participatory design process. FiDO provides an environment for setting mutual expectation between driver and vehicle through communicating vehicle’s status and driver’s feedback with poetic visuals. FiDO learns from driver’s behaviors and their direct feedback, which provides personalized content and autonomous driving as an outcome of learning. FiDO’s usage can be adjusted based on driver’s trust level and characteristics of the service of where automation technology is used.This thesis does not cover the entire notion of trust in automation, but focuses particularly on building trust from a driver’s point of view. With including users throughout the process, this is a proof of concept how automation technology and notion of trust can be built with driver’s participation. Although detailed technological feasibility of including both humans and AI in one place to build an autonomous system were not considered into practical levels, this thesis emphasizes how we can also establish trust voluntarily from a user’s point of view.

Kids are spontaneous and creative. They are imaginative and honest. They are playful. Kids can be assigned many positive traits, and in many ways they are exemplary as they engage in the world without prejudice or a particular goal in mind, allowing for that unique open-ness and present-oriented approach to life that characterizes most children. Fortunately, a lot of these traits follow us into adulthood and help shape how we experience life. But when an adult is being playful, that person has the playfulness of a child, or similarly, when adults are being referred to as carefree it’s often suggestive of immaturity or a childlike behavior rather than an association with light-hearted playfulness.When and why did this attitude become exclusively reserved for children, especially seeing as the benefits of playfulness are arguably just as significant, or even greater, for adults. This project is an exploration of how design can help adults rediscover and rekindle this fundamental and universally applicable attitude. Derived from extensive user involvement the result is three experiments that each manifests key aspects of adult playfulness, to help facilitate individual exploration and reflection of playfulness in adulthood.