This qualitative thesis work investigates in which way an immersive,embodied and interactive computer-based simulation can lead to an easierunderstanding of programming concepts. It also presents a concept for VRprogramming learning tool that could turn learning into a fun and engagingexperience for the students. The target group is Interaction Design bachelorstudents – programming is an important tool to create innovative andinteractive artefacts and interfaces, and yet, the students have hard time tounderstand many of the programming concepts. The current research relieson concepts such as embodiment and tangibility, which reflects on theprototype developed – a highly immersive, embodied VR platform with astrong illusion of tangibility. Additionally, the prototype was inspired byfeedback from students and teachers, result of a participatory approach.Finally, the research showed through usability tests that the studentsexperienced that the application made the concepts more graspable and morefun to learn.

Globalisation and fast evolution of technologies have driven people to immigrate and live outside their home country. The multicultural society is no longer extraordinary. This thesis project explores the role and form of technologies and interactive design in assisting the parents with an ethnic background to introduce their culture and language to their children, as well as in maintaining its application in their everyday lives. The primary focus group are parents whose originated from Indonesia and have been living in other countries for more than two years. This research has utilised the user-research method employed in the design research process. The result suggested that persistence, consistency and community support are primary in promoting the preservation of the parents’ cultural background and language. Therefore, technology and interactive design have a significant impact to support it. The design outcome is a physical prototype combined with digitalised media support such as a website and an application.

Discrimination and marginalisation are still problems, both on a societal level as well as within the field of technological development. Discourses such as HCI and design often fail to deal with the dynamics of race, even when using participatory approach, co-design. This design study aims to tackle and explore the possibilities of co-design using dialogue on the matter of concern, structural racism. The study aims to answer the questions; what could be the role of co-design when facilitating a discussion about structural racism? And how can we use digital mediums to co-design and create dialogue? The theoretical framework of this study, stems from ‘design thing’, where extended knowledge is produced collectively based on subjects’ experiences and Latour’s view on ‘matters of concern’, which is understanding the political situation from a holistic standpoint. The methodology derives from Sanders and Stappers framework called ‘say-do-make’ including an online survey and three digital creative sessions with participants. The results of the study propose guidelines on how to create dialogue about structural racism through a co-design setting. As a result of the proposed guidelines, this study suggests that interdisciplinarity is fundamental in order to integrate the matter of concern into the co-design discourse.

Social distancing due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused designers to rethink how they engage with users. This project involves a designer and users co-creating a digital workshop for ideating solutions through the use of information and communication technologies (ICT). The context of COVID-19 was used as a means to engage with users through digital co-design activities. However, the aim of the project was not to solve their problems of information sharing, but to understand what participants need from a facilitator in order to have more meaningful dialogues and contribute to the ideation process. The importance of trust and a sense of empowerment were identified as what participants need to better ideate and innovate. Trust and empowerment are valuable in any co-design situation, physical or digital. However, when interacting with participants through strictly digital means, it requires more time and energy to nurture trust between a designer and users. The knowledge gained through this digital co-design project resulted in not only a co-created digital prototype for remote co-design, but guidelines for how to develop trust with users when co-designing remotely.

Traditional news providers struggle to reach young millennials. Current research states that one reason for this is the growing divergence between news providers’ current online news presentation and how young millennials want news to be presented online. To explore possible ways to avoid a further growth of this so-called news gap, this study explored how young millennials like news to be presented online. For this purpose, generative sessions and semi-structured interviews were conducted within the framework of a co-design study with a service design approach. The results showed that there are three critical factors in online news presentation, which are trust, balanced opinion and time efficiency. Further, the results showed that features such as multimedia options or interactive infographics are ways of online news presentation that the participants would like to see more in online news offers. The results of this thesis were also presented in a prototype in the form of a digital application. The prototype makes the results more practical in order to support news providers in the practical implementation of the suggested steps.

In a contemporary world saturated with technology, where data has become a means tounderstand and optimize almost everything, the educational sector seems reluctant towards it.In order to change that, it is argued that formative assessment is a sustainable way to monitorfeedback data for the purpose to improve school environment. Used in the classroom, it shiftsthe focus from the outcome of pupils’ learning to their real needs.This study elaborates on the lack of feedback for teachers and the referring potential oftechnology usage in schools. Due to, inter alia, a co-creation workshop, novice teachers anddesigners collaborated to create several prototypes, which were used in a real classroomsituation afterwards. Those prototypes enabled a deep understanding of the current perceptionof feedback as well as the technology awareness of students and teachers.The research results were discussed from various angles, including young teenagers’and experienced teachers’ views. The outcome analysis led to the need of a student-centredcurriculum which offers explorative access to technology and feedback for everybodyinvolved in a school environment.

Les masques de phase sont des dispositifs réfractifs situés généralement au niveau de la pupille d’un système optique pour en modifier la réponse impulsionnelle (PSF en anglais), par une technique habituellement connue sous le nom de codage de front d’onde. Ces masques peuvent être utilisés pour augmenter la profondeur du champ (DoF en anglais) des systèmes d’imagerie sans diminuer la quantité de lumière qui entre dans le système, en produisant une PSF ayant une plus grande invariance à la défocalisation. Cependant, plus le DoF est grand plus l’image acquise est floue et une opération de déconvolution doit alors lui être appliquée. Par conséquent, la conception des masques de phase doit prendre en compte ce traitement pour atteindre le compromis optimal entre invariance de la PSF à la défocalisation et qualité de la déconvolution.. Cette approche de conception conjointe a été introduite par Cathey et Dowski en 1995 et affinée en 2002 pour des masques de phase continus puis généralisée par Robinson et Stork en 2007 pour la correction d’autres aberrations optiques.Dans cette thèse sont abordés les différents aspects de l’optimisation des masques de phase pour l’augmentation du DoF, tels que les critères de performance et la relation entre ces critères et les paramètres des masques. On utilise la « qualité d’image » (IQ en anglais), une méthode basée sur l’écart quadratique moyen définie par Diaz et al., pour la co-conception des divers masques de phase et pour évaluer leur performance. Nous évaluons ensuite la pertinence de ce critère IQ en comparaison d’autres métriques de conception optique, comme par exemple le rapport de Strehl ou la fonction de transfert de modulation (MTF en anglais). Nous nous concentrons en particulier sur les masques de phase annulaires binaires, l’étude de leur performance pour différents cas comme l’augmentation du DoF, la présence d’aberrations ou l’impact du nombre de paramètres d’optimisation.Nous appliquons ensuite les outils d’analyse exploités pour les masques binaires aux masques de phase continus qui apparaissent communément dans la littérature, comme les masques de phase polynomiaux. Nous avons comparé de manière approfondie ces masques entre eux et aux masques binaires, non seulement pour évaluer leurs avantages, mais aussi parce qu’en analysant leurs différences il est possible de comprendre leurs propriétésLes masques de phase fonctionnent comme des filtres passe-bas sur des systèmes limités par la diffraction, réduisant en pratique les phénomènes de repliement spectral. D’un autre côté, la technique de reconstruction connue sous l’appellation de « superresolution » utilise des images d’une même scène perturbées par du repliement de spectre pour augmenter la résolution du système optique original. Les travaux réalisés durant une période de détachement chez le partenaire industriel de la thèse, KLA-Tencor à Louvain, Belgique, illustrent le propos. A la fin du manuscrit nous étudions la pertinence de la combinaison de cette technique avec l’utilisation de masques de phase pour l’augmentation du DoF. / Phase masks are wavefront encoding devices typically situated at the aperture stop of an optical system to engineer its point spread function (PSF) in a technique commonly known as wavefront coding. These masks can be used to extend the depth of field (DoF) of imaging systems without reducing the light throughput by producing a PSF that becomes more invariant to defocus; however, the larger the DoF the more blurred the acquired raw image so that deconvolution has to be applied on the captured images. Thus, the design of the phase masks has to take into account image processing in order to reach the optimal compromise between invariance of PSF to defocus and capacity to deconvolve the image. This joint design approach has been introduced by Cathey and Dowski in 1995 and refined in 2002 for continuous-phase DoF enhancing masks and generalized by Robinson and Stork in 2007 to correct other optical aberrations.In this thesis we study the different aspects of phase mask optimization for DoF extension, such as the different performance criteria and the relation of these criteria with the different mask parameters. We use the so-called image quality (IQ), a mean-square error based criterion defined by Diaz et al., to co-design different phase masks and evaluate their performance. We then compare the relevance of the IQ criterion against other optical design metrics, such as the Strehl ratio, the modulation transfer function (MTF) and others. We focus in particular on the binary annular phase masks, their performance for various conditions, such as the desired DoF range, the number of optimization parameters, presence of aberrations and others.We use then the analysis tools used for the binary phase masks for continuous-phase masks that appear commonly in the literature, such as the polynomial-phase masks. We extensively compare these masks to each other and the binary masks, not only to assess their benefits, but also because by analyzing their differences we can understand their properties.Phase masks function as a low-pass filter on diffraction limited systems, effectively reducing aliasing. On the other hand, the signal processing technique known as superresolution uses several aliased frames of the same scene to enhance the resolution of the final image beyond the sampling resolution of the original optical system. Practical examples come from the works made during a secondment with the industrial partner KLA-Tencor in Leuven, Belgium. At the end of the manuscript we study the relevance of using such a technique alongside phase masks for DoF extension.

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