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The goal of study 1 was to use a remote eye tracker to understand how eye movements change with 7 geometrically varied remote controls to determine design element saliency. 20 participants were used to measure the following eye metrics: number of fixations prior to first fixation of any AOI, time to first fixation of an AOI, number of fixations on an AOI, dwell time of the first fixation on an AOI, total dwell time of an AOI, and the percentage of time spent on an AOI. The results of the study showed that all participants spent between 75-85% of their time fixated on the button layout which was not defined as an AOI. No statistical differences were found in the values measured for all eye tracking metrics across similarly defined AOIs. In study 2, the objective was to determine attitudes towards appearance and usability of the 7 remote control designs using the participants from study 1. Participants were asked to rate their attitudes and preferences, using a Likert-based questionnaire, about the qualities of appearance and usability for the attributes of proportion, shape, and configuration. They were asked open-ended questions about their likes and dislikes regarding the qualities of appearance and usability. Lastly, participants were given a pairwise comparison survey where they chose their preferred remote design, based on appearance, for 10 paired sets of contrasting remote designs. The hourglass subjacent and hourglass round designs were rated highest for appearance and usability from the Likert questionnaire. The hourglass round design was ranked highest for the pairwise comparison survey. For study 3, the goal was to determine attitudes towards appearance and usability of the 7 remote designs with online participants. 300 participants were asked to rate their attitudes and preferences using the same Likert-based questionnaire from study 2. They were asked the same open-ended questions and administered the same pairwise comparison survey as in study 2. The results of the Likert questionnaire showed that the hourglass subjacent and hourglass round designs were rated highest for appearance and usability. From the pairwise comparison survey, the hourglass round design was ranked the highest.

This report consists of a conceptual development of a car awning, in collaboration with the company Thule. The main objective with was to create a convenient and easy-to-use awning, which offers a universal fastening solution for cars. Among others, the research done includes an analysis of the current market and observations to use as a basis to compile the requirement specification and function analysis. Furthermore, a moodboard and methods such as Kansei engineering was used to put emphasis on the design and aesthetics. The results display a conceptual solution to an awning that can be attached to any car that supports the use of a Thule roof rack with a T-track feature. It is easy to assemble, mount and use, with many options to be adjusted to the like of the user. High quality renders are presented, along with a full-scale prototype of the awning.  Research gathered in this report contributes to the field by presenting solutions forconvenience, usability, and adjustability regarding similar products. Discussion is had regarding the importance of these features, as well as the difficulties that exist when creating a product like this. Further work includes even more solutions to make the awning fully universal, as well as more resistance to different weather conditions.

This project's objective was to design and build 4 stages of the Audrey II puppet for the East Tennessee State University production of Little Shop of Horrors (Ashman, 1982). The puppets were to be created with consideration for the production space, budget, and operator ease, along with audience impact. This paper will present the design and construction in a step by step-bystep fashion using illustrations and photographic examples. Each puppet in the series was originally conceived using references to living plants and animals combined with an artistic vision of the designer. The puppets were built with light, modern materials using new and traditional techniques for puppet construction. Construction techniques and materials resulted in light, maneuverable puppets that can be manipulated with ease and with high audience impact.

Product development requires that engineers have the ability to predict product performance. When product performance involves complex physics and natural phenomena, mathematical models are often insufficient to provide accurate predictions. Engineering companies compensate for this deficiency by testing prototypes to obtain empirical data that can be used in place of predictive models. The purpose of this work is to provide techniques and methods for efficient use of empirical methods in product development processes. Empirical methods involve the design and creation of prototype hardware and the testing of that hardware in controlled environments. Empirical methods represent a complete product development sub-cycle within the overall product development process. Empirical product development cycles can be expensive in both time and resources. Global economic pressures have caused companies to focus on improving the productivity of their product development cycles. A variety of techniques for improving the productivity of product development processes have been developed. These methods focus on structuring process steps and product artifacts for reuse and efficiency. However these methods have, to this point, largely ignored the product development sub-cycle of empirical design. The same techniques used on the overall product development processes can and should be applied to the empirical product development sub-cycle. This thesis focuses on applying methods of efficient and reusable product development processes on the empirical development sub-cycle. It also identifies how to efficiently link the empirical product development sub-cycle into the overall product development process. Specifically, empirical product development sub-cycles can be characterized by their purposes into three specific types: first, obtaining data for predictive model coefficients, boundary conditions and driving functions; second, validating an existing predictive model; and third, to provide the basis for predictions using interpolation and extrapolation of the empirical data when a predictive model does not exist. These three types of sub-cycles are structured as reusable processes in a standard form that can be used generally in product development. The roles of these three types of sub-cycles in the overall product development process are also established and the linkages defined. Finally, the techniques and methods provided for improving the efficiency of empirical methods in product development processes are demonstrated in a form that shows their benefits.

Att uppleva distraktioner under studerandet är ett hinder mot både koncentrationen och inlärningsprocessen. Med insikt från målgruppen (Med hjälp av intervjuer och en observation) har projektets problemställning riktat sig till att fokusera på distraktioner som orsakas av andra människor vilket kan ske både visuellt och auditivt. Genom ett användarcentrerat designperspektiv har frågeställningen ‘’Hur kan man genom design underlätta fokus genom att hindra distraktioner för universitetsstudenter under generella egenstudier?’’ undersökts. I designprocessen har även målgruppens åsikter och medverkan utformat slutkonceptet och resultatet av studien är designförslaget ‘’Studietältet’’. Studiens kunskapsbidrag ligger i arbetsprocessen: hur man hanterar olika åsikter och preferenser inom användarcentrerade metoder. / Experiencing distractions while studying is an obstacle to the concentration and the learning process. With insight from the target group (students) through interviews and observation, the project’s aim has been focusing primarily on distractions caused by other people, which can occur both visually and auditorily. Through an user-centered design perspective, the research question “How can design facilitate focus by preventing distractions for university students during general self-study?” Has been investigated. In the design process, the target group’s opinions and participation have also been shaping the final concept and the result of the study is a design proposal “The study tent”. The study’s knowledge contribution lies in the work process: how to handle different opinions and preferences within the field of user-centered design methods.

Yes / Contemporary design decomposition and synthesis analytical tasks at the conceptual design stage reply on functional and structural modelling approaches. There is a wide diversity of elements used by various modelling approaches for information and representation of product architecture, which incurs difficulties for multidisciplinary engineers working across different phases of design in capturing, visualising, sharing and tracing consistent yet common knowledge and elements across the function and structure domains. This prompts for fixation of detail and common modelling knowledge across both functional and structural analytical approaches which is also critical from automatized software perspective. A limitation of existing approaches is that they tend to focus more on ‘what’ and less on ‘how’ (and vice versa). This paper proposes an integrated conceptual product architecting approach that combines and expands the functional and structural modelling approaches, enabling capturing and tracing knowledge coherently through a common binding domain. This is underpinned by the view that most interaction requirements amongst the physical components during structural modelling can be derived from functional modelling. The proposed integrated approach is underpinned by the critical analysis and synthesis of existing approaches in literature dealing with functional and structural architecture analysis, integrated within a Multiple Domain Matrix (MDM) to fuse the knowledge of both solution independent (functional) and dependent (structural) analyses. The proposed framework is illustrated with a case study of solar robot toy, followed by discussion and suggestions for future work.

The European furniture industry manufactures approximately 28 % of furniture sold worldwide and accounts for about 10 % of the European Union manufacturing GDP. The industry heavily contributes to environmental burdens and is currently undergoing a transition influenced by scientific research supporting developments within European policies and directives. Despite this development, integration of environmental considerations is lacking among companies in the industry. This can partly be explained by the complexity of the ecological design (EcoDesign) tools and frameworks available to support designers in their work. Therefore, this research seeks to minimize the gap between research and practice by testing existing EcoDesign practices on a furniture product. The research was conducted in conjunction with a Swedish company and analyzed one particular desk along with its packaging material. A comparative life cycle assessment validated two designs of the same desk and showed that the global warming potential was reduced by 44 % for the redesigned desk and 33 % for the redesigned packaging. Compared to the original design of the desk, the redesign achieved a 35 % energy footprint reduction and the redesigned packaging a 9 % reduction. The results demonstrated that EcoDesign implementations can reduce a product’s environmental impact but are best applied in combination with complementary evaluation tools for quantification and evaluations. / Den europeiska möbelindustrin tillverkar cirka 28 % av de möbler som säljs globalt och representerar runt 10 % av Europeiska unionens tillverknings­BNP. Branchen bidrar kraftigt till miljöbelastningar och genomgår för närvarande en omställning påverkad av forskning som stödjer utvecklingen inom europeiska policyer och direktiv. Trots denna utveckling saknas integrering av miljöfokus bland företag i branschen. Detta kan delvis förklaras av komplexiteten av de verktyg och ramverk för ekologisk design (EkoDesign) som finns tillgängliga för att stödja designers i deras arbete. Den här studien syftar därför till att minimera klyftan mellan forskning och praktik genom att testa befintliga EkoDesign­strategier på en möbel. Studien genomfördes i samarbete med ett svenskt företag och analyserade ett särskilt bord tillsammans med dess förpackningsmaterial. En jämförande livscykelanalys validerade två designs av samma bord och visade att den globala uppvärmningspotentialen minskade med 44 % för det omdesignade bordet och 33 % för den omdesignade förpackningen. Jämfört med den ursprungliga designen av bordet uppnådde den nya designen en 35 % minskning av energifotavtrycket och den omdesignade förpackningen en 9 % minskning. Resultaten visade att enkla EkoDesign­implementeringar kan minska en produkts miljöpåverkan och tillämpas fördelaktigt i kombination med kompletterande utvärderingsverktyg för kvantifiering och utvärdering.

Damage to the brain can lead to different types of long-term motor impairments like hemiplegia. Children with hemiplegia have difficulties performing everyday activities that rely on the coordinated use of both hands, such as feeding or dressing. Therefore, arm-hand therapy is important to improve the child’s motor skills to gain more independence in their daily life activities.  Specialists usually recommend additional home therapy to maintain the skills and extend the therapeutic benefits. However in many cases, there is a lack of continuity of progress in the home environment. The problem with therapy is that it consists of repetitive exercises that a lot of kids may stop doing out of boredom. This project was approached with a user-centered design perspective to understand the field of rehabilitation in children with hemiplegia motor disabilities and explore how design can spark motivation and playfulness in this context. The solution was developed through extensive research including field research, observations, literature research and interviews with specialists from Sweden and Argentina as well as with parents.  Several different design directions took shape during the process, they were then evaluated and validated with specialists, parents and tested with kids.  The result of this project is a hybrid therapeutic toy composed of physical controllers and digital therapeutic games. By interacting with the controllers, children can improve their hand motor skills while playing different digital games designed to allow the repetition of hand movements with therapeutic effect. By turning repetitive training into playful therapy exercises, hemi makes long-term home therapy possible for children without thinking they are exercising.

Going through an assisted reproduction procedure treatment might be physical and emotionally demanding. In vitro fertilization is a complex treatment that usually requires a significant amount of patient care and attention, including the administration of self-injections. From a design standpoint, this project explored ways to improve the well-being of patients during their fertility treatment journeys, with a focus on women. The study took a holistic approach, involving several interviews with cis women from Brazil and Sweden who had undergone various assisted reproduction treatments, primarily IVF, with the goal of identifying the major challenges they faced during their fertility treatment journeys. Ovarian stimulation medications and the need for a support system were often mentioned among several other identified challenges. Interviews and feedback sessions with fertility specialists, nurses and psychologists were conducted.Patients may feel overwhelmed by the number of medications and instructions, the strict medication time schedule, the need for cooling storage, and the fear of having to self-inject. Trine, the project's result, is a brand providing ovarian stimulation medication kits. The concept ecosystem consists of three components: a unified solution for ovarian stimulation injectable medications, a kit containing all the needed items for taking the injections and a digital platform that provides a clear overview of the treatment and connects peers. When the physical and digital concepts work together, they can provide a unified source of information and medications for patients, resulting in a smoother experience. Design methodologies that are patient- centered have a great potential to benefit the fields of fertility treatments and assisted reproduction by creating more positive experiences.