The levels of income and employment rates of people with disabilities are often lower than those without them. An effective way to free disabled people from these circumstances would be to design proper job accommodation for them. Ordinarily, physical conditions severely restrict their ability to carry out their work efficiently unless they have are provided with appropriately designed assistive technology (AT). However, due to the physical conditions unique to each disabled person, understanding the requirements of a disabled person is often a challenge to an AT designer. The aims of this research were to develop a design model for an empathy tool that would assist in the process of designing AT for job accommodation, and to explore the relationship between the use of empathy tools and the improvement of design elements in job accommodation AT. The design models employed were developed by analysing interviews with AT users and examining the results of observations and a literature review. The model was then used to build an empathy tool to be used in designing job accommodation AT for a selected subject; the empathy tools were used in a series of assessments of designer users. The results show that, when compared with tools used in traditional design briefs, empathy tools can successfully help designers to improve design elements in terms, respectively, of their understanding of users' physical abilities (22 per cent), work requirements (26.6 per cent), ergonomic requirements (22.8 per cent), and environment characteristics (21.4 per cent). Meanwhile, it is difficult for the tool to improve upon other design elements, about which one must learn by gaining design experience.

In the context of internationally challenging economic, design has been regarded as a key factor in assisting design and manufacturing companies to survive. By using up-to-date computer-supported technology, the global design collaboration based on multidisciplinary and distributed environment is becoming a mainstream to new product development (NPD). However, during the process of collaborative design, risk is rarely mentioned. In particular, due to the complexity of design process and lack of efficient design decision-making, there have been some design collaboration failures across multiple companies. Some design projects cannot deliver the benefits as companies have expected through the collaboration. Moreover, a number of stakeholders, managers and designers expressed their disappointment at not seeing the projected savings in cost and time, which critically discredited the value of design collaboration. Many studies in academia and commercial cases have suggested that risk assessment can be applied as an effective means in the realm of design. Nevertheless, few of them conducted risk management research associated with design constraints under a collaborative environment from both theoretical and practical perspectives. In current risk practice, many risk practitioners simply report key risks to their management teams and no further analysis, which might subsequently result in confusion with excessive discussions. Consequently, to prevent the failure of design collaboration and perform a satisfactory risk assessment, it is important to perform risk management with an upstream perspective and at an operational level. An approach, called constraint-based design risk management (DRM) where a conceptual framework has been proposed on the basis of collaborative design features, risk management process and Theory of Constraints (TOC). Moreover, a DRM matrix has been developed to map, measure and mitigate collaborative design risk through evaluating the critical design constraints, and then specified design risk variables in the light of risk criteria. Design constraints are quantitative parameters that frequently affect main design processes and decisions. The combination of design constraints and risk criteria can be accessible and applicable by designers and design mangers. In addition, a Bayesian weighting method based on Bayesian theorem has been developed to measure collaborative design risk in a more efficient manner. Ultimately, a DRM tool has been created as a simulated scenario prototype, which incorporated with three case-study evaluations, to demonstrate the importance and effectiveness of using TOC and risk theory in the realm of design collaboration.

Museums have long been an institution of preservation and the collection of objects, art, and curiosities. Items safely stored and displayed for the public to look at, never changing. As a child seeing and learning about a museum’s objects for the first time is thrilling. However over time that thrill fades and what was once magical in the eyes of our five year old self is now lackluster and monotonous. As adults we cease to visit that museum we loved as a child. Why would we? Nothing has changed, there is nothing new. There is something special about the nostalgia of that feeling when you were five and first saw an exhibit that opened your eyes to another world. The traditional museum is still the foundation of museums in the 21st century and adapting to the new museum typology (the post-museum) is inevitable for continued success, but can it be both a traditional and a post-museum? With new technologies and research in the field of museums and how people learn in them there has been a shift in what it is and should be to its visitors. This practicum project aims to address the shift of the interiors and exhibits in museums of the 21st century. Many factors contribute to the changing of the museum; its design, exhibits, and social construct have all been adjusted to create more inclusive experiences. Through the examination of tourism, community, post-museums and exhibition design this practicum project aims to provide a balance between the traditional and post-museum typology. The result is a stronger connection with the local community and an enriching experience for museum goers. / February 2017

Project Report (M.Pub.) - Simon Fraser University, 2005. / Project Report (Master of Publishing Program) / Simon Fraser University. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.Arch.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 130-132). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (doctoral)--Technische Universiteit Delft, 2003. / Text in English; summary in Dutch. Includes abstract and vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. [259]-267).

Thesis (doctoral)--Technische Universiteit Delft, 2003. / Text in English; summary in Dutch. Includes abstract and vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. [259]-267).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 38-39). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 38-39). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.Des.)--Victoria University of Wellington, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.