1,720,980 research outputs found
Playfully Cracking Cultures
No full textCultural differences in the business world are often met with surprise and irritation. The aim of this graduation project was to create a persuasive game design that teaches managers in an international context how to work with cultural differences. For this, the game makes use of the the cultural theoretical model that was created by Fons Trompenaars and the most extensive database on cultural values. Through interviews and context research was concluded that managers want to learn personalised and pragmatic knowledge in a quick time frame that can be easily translated to the business domain. The game should be played individually and in preparation before the cultural encounter. After a brainstorm and showing my initial ideas to possible end-users was concluded that a boat travel narrative was most accessible, and a playthrough was worked out. Multiple visual styles were explored for the design resulting in three visual concepts. These were evaluated on scalability and through paper prototype tests. The chosen concept was slightly altered to become the final concept. A minimum viable game (MVG) has been created based on the Italian culture that takes managers through a narrative in which they have to travel to an island. During the journey they receive tips about culture and on the island they have a simulated meeting with three Italians, each having a slightly different culture based off the Italian culture. This MVG has been evaluated with the target group within a limited scope to confirm that the firstly described goal of the game had been reached. Finally, the project closes with future recommendations for the game.Design for Interactio
Big Fat Nonsense: A discussion tool to reduce weight-related stigmas in the direct social environment
No full textWeight stigma is defined as the negative attitudes and beliefs that are manifested by stereotypes, rejection and prejudice towards individuals because they are overweight. Weight stigmas have a negative impact on the mental health of people with excess weight. They internalize the weight stigmas and therefore blame themselves and feel less worthy. This can cause their physical health to deteriorate and can lead to weight gain. One of the most harmful types of weight-related stigmatization is the interpersonal stigmatization within the direct social environment. The central aim of this research has been to explore solutions to reduce weight-related stigmatization within the direct social environment of people with obesity. To narrow down the scope, the project was focused on stigmatized women who show interest in body positivity and fat acceptance. This thesis refers to these women as ‘fat’ instead of ‘obese’ in order to respect their cultural values. The research was divided into a theoretical background study, a qualitative user research and an explorative study with methods including interviews, quick prototyping and user tests. The insights gained throughout the project come together into an overview of the most stigmatizing beliefs: (1) Fat people eat too much and exercise too little; (2) Becoming fat due to an unhealthy lifestyle is your own fault; (3) Losing weight is a matter of self-discipline; and (4) Slim people are healthier, happier and more successful. According to this research, the stereotypes and prejudices manifested in these stigmatizing beliefs are the result of misunderstandings and lack of knowledge. Therefore, the overview is complemented with facts and myths about weight that unravel the beliefs. Based on this overview, an interactive platform for fat women was designed: Big Fat Nonsense (in Dutch: Dikke Onzin). This platform consists out of a website (www.dikkeonzin.org), a podcast, a discussion template and social media channels. The design is based on the finding that stigmatized women often cope with internalized stigma. They first need to be empowered in order to stand up for themselves. By reading facts and myths about weight, answering the reflective questions on the website and listening to stories via the podcast, they gain the confidence to start a discussion with a stigmatizer in their direct social environment. A discussion template can be downloaded on the website to structure their conversation about stigmatizing beliefs. By answering the questions on the discussion template, the users are forced to set agreements on the desired weight-related communication within their relationship. In order to reach the target group, the design is promoted via social media channels and ambassadors. Finally, the design of Big Fat Nonsense has been evaluated with the target group and their close relationships. The design succeeded to provoke nuanced and in-depth conversations. However, to fully validate the effect of the design, it should be evaluated by measuring the amount of stigmatization before and after usage
Inspiring confidence in newly diagnosed macular degeneration patients: through information provision via a web-based medium
No full textThis graduation project is related to macular degeneration. Macular degeneration affects the macula, a central pit on the retina which is responsible for the highest visual acuity due to the densely packed cone photoreceptors. Symptoms of macular degeneration can vary in the early stage from blurred vision to abnormal dark adaptation (Jager et al., 2008) however in late stage macular degeneration symptoms can be much more invasive including partial and complete loss of the central vision. In order to cope with the loss of central vision patients could prescribe to what is called eccentric viewing. Eccentric viewing is a technique where the peripheral vision is used to see. Using eccentric viewing as a method to cope with macular degeneration requires, for optimal results, practice. This can be done through training. This project was originally aimed at designing a training method for eccentric viewing with the use of motivating game elements. By speaking to experts from Visio and Bartimeus as well as patients throughout the research phase it became apparent that eccentric viewing was not deemed necessary. Instead other problems were addressed which had a higher priority in solving. These problems include the lack of provided information after the official diagnosis, the attitude of the ophthalmologist during the diagnosis and the perceived gap between the diagnosis and the Low-Vision clinics. By creating a patient journey and examining the different problems that occur during that journey a choice was made to focus on a combination of the lack of information after the diagnosis and the gap between the diagnosis and the Low-Vision clinics. Six different topics of information were defined which play part in the lack of information. These six topics are: information about the condition, information about aids, make it easier, information about peer support, training / revalidation support and information about involved instances. Together these six topics cover most of the aspects surrounding macular degeneration. To convey this information to the target group a web-based medium is used. Due to the special target group guidelines have been defined which help in designing a website for visually impaired people. This has resulted in a framework where the necessary information can be placed in. Because of time restrictions one of the six topics which was defined was further developed. That topic is ‘Make it easier’. It resulted in a collection of tips from “experienced” macular degeneration patients on making Activities of Daily Living (ADL) easier to perform. In total 20 different tips were gathered through a brainstorm session, an online survey and telephone contact with Bartimeus. These tips were spread over three different themes: cooking, grocery shopping and public transport. Each tip was accompanied by an image, a descriptive text and a spoken quote. Finally an evaluation test has been conducted with two participants to verify whether the proposed design succeeded. The results from the evaluation show the potential success of the design but are not conclusive. Therefore further testing needs to be done with more participants over a longer period of time.Design for Interactio
Tailored Interactive 3D animation
No full textIn 2020 the law ‘informed consent’ is renewed, with the aim to strengthen the patient’s position in the field of shared health decision making. Research showed that patients only recall 20% of the information provided by their medical specialist.Therefore other information materials are offered, to ensure the patient can comprehend the other 80% of health information. Nevertheless, these materials do not satisfy all patient’s needs concerning health information preferences. A qualitative research is conducted to gather knowledge of the health information preferences of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer patients. Based on these findings a tailored interactive animation is developed. The animation is used in a second qualitative research to learn if this material better meets the patient’s needs, compared to current resources as a traditional folder and 3D animation.Design for Interactio
Design and evaluation of a technology supported mental resilience training
No full textCertain professionals are inherently at risk of experiencing traumatic events, and developing the anxiety disorder Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a result. The cost of PTSD is huge, both in terms of human pain and economics. Effective treatments such as exposure therapy do exist, but obviously prevention would be preferable. There is some research into training people to become more psychologically resilient, but this is still in an early stage. Supporting resilience training with technology may offer advantages such as reduced cost and logistics as compared to in vivo training, and being able to present stressors in a very controlled manner. Measuring effectiveness with technology may be more objective than the commonly used self-reporting questionnaires.In this thesis one possible technology supported resilience training system was designed and evaluated. The system involved video annotation and the cognitive reappraisal paradigm, delivered through three different versions of a computer application that were developed for this purpose. Two novel ways aiming to measure resilience using a pictorial emotional Stroop task and the fear conditioned startle paradigm were evaluated.Acceptance of the video annotation tool by the target group (military personnel and firefighters) was positive. Due to feasibility considerations its effectiveness could not be measured. Empirical validation of the measurement methods as a measurement of resilience was not successful, possibly as a result of selection bias in the participating sample and use of video material that was not sufficiently aversive
Ademgenoot: Een zelfmanagement app voor mensen met astma
No full textAsthma is a chronic disease and is characterized by inflammations of the airways. Since there is no cure available yet, asthma treatment is aimed at asthma control, to minimize patients’ symptom experiences and to prevent patients of having exacerbations (lung attacks). A key driver in this, is the extent to which patients adhere to their prescribed medication treatment, also called ‘medication adherence’. It has been found that one third of Dutch asthma patients show poor adherence to their treatment. The client of this project, the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, has developed a smart inhaler in combination with an application. This technology makes it possible to measure medication adherence and present the adherence data to patients and healthcare providers. However, if the motivation of patients remains low to take their medication as prescribed, such interventions will likely not succeed because patients may ignore the reminders sent. Therefore, the aim of this graduation project is to develop a proof of concept for a self-management eHealth intervention that motivates patients to adhere to their medication treatment.This thesis describes the development of Ademgenoot, an asthma self-management application connected to a smart inhaler. Ademgenoot uses narrative game-elements to motivate asthma patients to adhere to their prescribed medication treatment. In this, Ademgenoot focuses on the positive outcomes of taking the daily maintenance medication. Moreover, the application gives the patients the opportunity to try-out the daily intake of the medication, by offering them a six weeks challenge linked to a personal goal. During this period Ademgenoot visualizes the process of the medication intake in a playful way to make the effect of the medication visible and to prevent disengagement. At the end of the challenge, patients should have gained insights on the effect of the intake of the daily medication and their improved symptom control within their daily lives. The design process from investigating the user’s needs and values to various idea directions towards the final design will be discussed. In addition, this thesis includes the different research that was conducted to gain a better understanding behind patients’ motives to not follow their treatment, the conducted research on the difficult step of motivating people to change their behaviour and the different user tests that were set up. A WhatsApp prototype was built to test the concept of Ademgenoot in practice. Patients received screens responding to their medication use for a couple of days via WhatsApp. The end user test delivered the proof of principle that the concept of Ademgenoot has the ability to motivate patients to adhere to their prescribed treatment. In addition, participants expressed to be enthusiastic about the concept and stated that they would like to use the application in their daily life. A positive side-effect appeared to be that some participants mentioned that it would help in the creation of a habit. Follow-up studies are recommended on finding additional ways to track the development of the patients’ daily wellbeing within the application. This and other recommendations are presented in the final part of this thesis.<br/
Enhancing Intuitive Interaction by Using Embodied Affective Movements
No full textThe topic of ‘intuitive product-use’ is defined from a user-perspective
and contrasted with automatized behavior. Attribution theory and embodied
cognition theory is presented as a theoretical framework to understand and design
intuitive interfaces. More specific, this paper proposes to enhance intuitive userproduct
interaction by applying affective embodied behavioral motor knowledge to
the interface design
Etkileşimle dijital görevlerde kullanılan sanal karakterin duygusal yüz ifadelerinin insanların performansı üzerindeki etkisi.
No full textThis thesis investigates the effect of emotional facial expressions of a virtual character on people’s performance for interactive digital tasks. The basic and universal emotions are used in the study. Facial expressions of these emotions are created according to the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), which is a system that describes facial movements in the face. The patterns of cooccurences of Action Units (descriptions of facial movements defined in FACS) for basic emotions are also implemented into emotional facial expressions with regard to findings of the studies in the literature. A study was conducted to validate the recognition of emotion specific facial expressions that are built by Poser software. To investigate the effect of emotional facial expressions on people’s performance for digital interactive tasks in a virtual environment, a digital interactive application created by Unity software was used in the final study of the thesis.M.S. - Master of Scienc
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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