Industrial and Product Design Commons^™

Ether: A Social Design, Zihan Zhou

Masters Theses

As an individual with an independent consciousness that cannot be shared, it is impossible to have complete empathy. But as a social animal, empathy is also the ability pursued by individuals and society collectively. Empathy is an indispensable element to also achieve social justice which benefits each individual.

The current media environment is usually that information is aggregated from the bottom to the top, and then transmitted from the top to each individual at the bottom through an announcement of information.

The biggest contradiction arising from this information mechanism is that humans who both send and receive information involuntarily pay …

Accessibility To Possibilities : Discover The Unknown Unknown Worlds, Yutong Shen

Masters Theses

The digital revolution has transformed the world, and today we are drowning in information. We use search engines as an efficient way to access information, and when we search, by connecting, relating, or random recommending, our knowledge network expands from the keyword we put in. With this search engine model, it’s easy for us to find what we know we don’t know. But it’s hard to access things we don’t know we don’t know. In other words, our past limits our accessibility to information.

In this essay, I attempt to find an alternative way of approaching information in the design …

Sol, John Beck

Masters Theses

Sol. Spirituality for the digital age. A move towards a more cosmic future. A hopeful call to arms for a more inclusive, liberated culture where the impermanence of life can wash over us in a wave of ambient sonic splendor. Using solar energy to create shifting ambient soundscape Sol is an immersive, interactive civic space for all lifeforms of all persuasions. A reintrepretation of the Shinto shrine for the digital age. An alliance between codified physical computing, emerging interactive technology and the ancient spiritual traditions of the East. Non denominational, non religious wholly universal. Where all beings can remember their …

Ocean State Food Stories, Charlotte Clement

Masters Theses

Many Rhode Islanders lack access to local food system education. They struggle to connect with local food outlets as well as understand why supporting a resilient local food community matters. Local food producers face great challenges within the system such as finding stable ways to produce, distribute, and sell their merchandise. In addition, the RI government’s agricultural marketing efforts are not innovative and local food-centric nonprofits are swamped with work resulting in the outsourcing of creative marketing jobs that have yielded questionable results. In order to engage with a wider audience, both the government and the non-profit sector need to …

Repairer's Recipe : Volume 0, Joyce Chang

Masters Theses

Why?

Technology is accelerating; so is the amount of e-waste. Proliferating new purchases is a shortcut to economic gain, yet proliferation sacrifices social and ecological well being. Activating repair benefits systems— by decelerating the waste stream, and serving as a regenerative module for ethical material collection. Repair literacy encourages an individual’s engagement with materials while challenging corporations to acknowledge repair in the design process. Therefore, electronics users should have the opportunity to learn about repair before the need arises. A sustainable product ecosystem asks for the collaborative effort of public and private sectors and most importantly, the repair practices of …

Beautiful Dirt : Exploring The American Taboo Of Death Through The Things We Leave Behind, Jake Dangstorp

Masters Theses

‘Beautiful Dirt’ is a project meant to help people think about death as a way to learn and grow, rather than a ‘never happening’ taboo. Contemporary research into western dialogues around death show a consistent anxiety towards being forgotten, as well as a fear of being a burden when passing away. The abject nature of the topic leaves people diminishing the weight of the things they leave behind, and the things they forget to. This perpetuates a cycle of denial in order to avoid stress, emburdening loved ones with an unplanned mass of personal items and piecemeal stories to assemble, …

Acute, Alex D'Haeseleer

Masters Theses

This project digs deep into issues of accessibility, education, and transparency for those who create health data. By using surveys, interviews, user testing, and secondary research, this project aims to both provide a possible solution while also underlining the market resistance to a more equal exchange between consumer and producer. Data collection is a part of everyone’s lives. Privacy is a hot topic. Many people misunderstand data use, and it seems corporations are taking advantage of that. Our bodies and our devices produce and create data, and that information is then used for research, profit, or general consumer benefit. This …

Designed Body, Jingwei Deng

Masters Theses

Designed Body is a project about gendered design and identities. It is an investigation into the relationship between the persona analyzation process and the social identity categorization. It is a criticism towards capital driven planned obsolescence and binary determinism based design. It is a discussion around the future of our subjective and objective self under the circumstance of technological development. It is a material exploration of body, extended body and transformative body.

Invisible: A Guide To Understanding & Designing For Introverts, Ashesh Gohil

Masters Theses

The Extrovert Ideal has been an unspoken pillar of society: a vocal, go-getting person with a Carpe Diem mindset has become a requirement that most are told to strive for in order to be successful. Fundamental institutions like schools and workspaces are designed for extroverts and their need for stimulation, which becomes a hurdle for introverts since it obstructs them from being their dispositionally quiet and thoughtful selves. Such spaces need to be inclusive to allow introverts to be present in the way they prefer. One way to make space for introverts in settings otherwise designed for extroverts is through …

Voran Test Lab : An Exploration Of Teaching Collaborative Problem Solving And Critical Thinking Through Emergent Gameplay, Taber Gifford

Masters Theses

This book explores emergent gameplay as a methodology for teaching collaborative problem solving and critical thinking. These are both key 21st Century Skills and are important in educating and building future professionals and leaders. I explored the precedent analysis of game design in this category before conducting my own design research activities and experiments. Ultimately, my work culminated in the design and development of a game called Voran Test Lab. The game is designed to engage early middle school students and ask them to critically evaluate problems and collaboratively solve them.

Through The Labyrinth, Rebeca Gonzalez Morales

Masters Theses

After many turns, I made my way through. Making connections between different paths, paths I thought I had forgotten, abandoned, discarded. My goal is to understand how the environment around us affects our emotional state, our behaviour, our mental health. I seek a destigmatized idea of mental health, a way to show that it is a factor of everybody’s health meant to be prioritized as much as physical health, to expose the burden of frivolousness that it carries. I seek ways to burst the bubble that mental health lives in the world of design, to show that mental health should …

Fifty Fifty: Redefining Domesticity, Ziying Qiao

Masters Theses

I want to redefine domesticity and challenge traditional gender roles by rethinking the division of domestic chores.

In this project, I discussed gender roles, especially for how the house design impacts gender inequality and the perfect female figure in traditional context— good mother, good wife. In the experiment part, I explored the possibility of collaborative housework and designed different objects related to daily life to remind people of the importance of collaboration.

For the final design part, I applied surveillance camera and machine learning technology to a private space, designed a radical service about chores, and also discussed how people …

Totem: An Embodiment Of Human Character And Personality In Footwear Design, Sushant Shivaram

Masters Theses

This thesis is an attempt at drawing parallels between human character traits and footwear design as an evocative means to communicate character. The idea here is to translate qualitative elements of personality traits and communicate expressions through the embodiment of meaning within form in the context of footwear design. I am making an attempt at equating the meaning in form and footwear gestures that serve an emotional or functional purpose in footwear to break down the sculpture into a combination of different attributes so as to create a character taxonomy. This character taxonomy serves the purpose of assisting me in …

Bitter Son, Adam Chuong

Masters Theses

This thesis concerns itself with centering the experiences of Asian Americans in order to better understand the complexities of the Asian American diasporic experience. The title of this thesis, 苦儿, roughly translates into English as “bitter son,” and is phonetically pronounced in Mandarin as “queer.” It lives directly at the intersection of these identities — Asian, American, Queer. This body of work is an act of making space and taking up space in an institution and discipline that has not largely been concerned with minority identities, or when it has, it has been misguided and prone to tokenism. It is …

Pekka : Social Software To Improve In-Game Dynamics, Yu Mo

Masters Theses

Video games are like virtual cities. Similar to towns in the real world, virtual cities contain facilities and communities represented by game elements and players. There is a question for us: Can a game be a better city?

To answer the question, we need to understand what a good city looks like. Generally, a good city needs sound facilities and harmonious communities. Similar to a real city, we need to build more advanced game elements and peaceful game communities to make the game to be a better city. Games like Paragon have failed because they lacked game communities, even though …

Biomatters : Future Of Biology As Material Source, Tareq Alzawawi

Masters Theses

Through the history of human evolution, we evolved dependent on many different biological species, which led us to understand the significance of biomatters cultivation. Biomatters are materials derived from living or once-living organisms which are or were subject to biological growth. The biomatters we use, need, and waste were and continue to be a major resource. Wheat, wood, and wool are all examples of a biomatter, yet each serves a different need. Given the range of current threatening environmental concerns, all rooted in our species treating nature as never-ending material resource, we need reactions and solutions that are urgent. Biomatters …

Mindful Interactions, Shreyans Bhandari

Masters Theses

Mindful Interactions illustrates how we’ve become addicted to our smart-phones, and how its use in our everyday life affects our physical, social, emotional health and wellbeing. This design study proposes four product designs that make us aware of using apps, and compel us to reconsider their use during bedtime, mealtime, on-the-go and at home. As our pocket sized devices continue to evolve, the outcome of this thesis becomes a case study for rediscovering and applying the “human” in human centered design.

Unimproved : Land Observation At The Edge Of Progress, Adam Somers Bowen

Masters Theses

As residents of the United States, all of us have benefited from the resources that this land provides. Some of these resources are responsibly managed, like some logging operations and grazing land. Some are much more harmful, like hydroelectric dams that have drowned Indigenous lands, and block natural habitat. Whether through development or extraction, we as humans have the special ability to drastically change the world around us in a very short amount of time. In a time of rapid environmental change, we need to find ways to better connect, observe, and assess the landscape so that as a society, …

Memory.Zip, Yu-Hsing Wu

Masters Theses

I want to turn the unintentional “digital traces” we leave on the Internet into a tangible format so that we can be more aware of the traces we are making. To do this, I have created a series of physical objects that capture those digital traces. My hope is that this series will eventually reflect our relationship with these traces and how we feel connected to the people we care for today.

A Place For Plastics : Bioplastics, Bacteria And Our Thoughtless Acts, Megan Valanidas

Masters Theses

One third of all plastics end up in the ecosystem. It is time we start designing for this outcome. 311 million tons of plastics were produced in 2014 and that number is projected to more than double by 2050. Just 5% of plastics are recycled. Recycling alone is not mitigating the problem. The carbon footprint alone is massive. China’s recent announcement to no longer recycle the West’s waste promises even more challenges. We need to design for plastics to end up in the ecosystem and in the waste stream. This is where plastics go and this is where they should …

Foodways For Earthlings : Recipes And Tools For Eating In Extreme Environments, Maggie Coblentz

Masters Theses

Studying how food is made, consumed, and appreciated in extreme environments can help shed light on how our experiences of food extend far beyond that of mere nourishment. The social and preparatory food-based rituals found in even the most challenging conditions can lead to a deeper awareness of the role of food on earth today, and can illuminate how humans might eat in the future. This thesis examines the roles of food in war zones, in prisons, and in space to inform speculative recipes and food-based experiences.

For A Better Normal : Fostering The Informal Sector In Post-Hurricane Puerto Rico, As A Pathway For Economic Stabilization, Jonathan W. Melendez Davidson

Masters Theses

For a Better Normal is a proposal to aid informal produce vendors in post-hurricane Puerto Rico. The project takes the shape of a toolkit that facilitates the creation of a cooperative buyer’s club. This cooperative not only provides vendors with the opportunity to create sustainable businesses, but also acts as a pathway to formalization. The outcome of this thesis becomes a case study for how to re-think the potential of the informal economy in relation to the Island’s economic crisis.

Talking To Computers, Jen Spatz

Masters Theses

A popular belief amongst UX designers is that the more voice user interfaces (i.e. Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant) speak and behave like people, the more functional they will be. But, conversational mimicry is not the only way a screenless computer can communicate information. The scope of sounds humans can interpret, manipulate, and make is broad. This project seeks to identify ways designers can mine this domain for interaction cues that promote a deeper understanding of digital content and the systems that deliver it.

Harmless Studio, David Thomas Pittman

Masters Theses

This thesis project is oriented around a vegan concept brand called “Harmless Studio.” The project recognizes that industrial design causes and supports the harm of animals through the use of animal materials. This book presents the historical, social, and scientific background of the human-animal relationship as it exists today, and it challenges the common acceptance of that relationship as it is— ultimately suggesting that industrial design need not harm animals to serve human needs. This vegan approach to design is presented through a selection of sustainable, non-animal materials and objects made from those materials. The objects are presented as part …

Radically Normal : The Menstruation Issue, Kathryn Smiley

Masters Theses

Hey readers, Periods are normal. But you’d never know that by checking out the average bathroom. The only menstruation-related public restroom fixture considered remotely standard is the trash, the one used to hide the evidence. A tampon dispenser is a rare sighting –a functioning, stocked dispenser, even rarer still.

Dispensers’ exclusion from public space reveals the ways that menstruation is not treated like other natural body functions. Instead, it has long been considered a sign of imbalance and weakness, discussed mainly in hushed tones and sly euphemisms. Historically, the medical profession has greatly contributed to cultural anxieties about women and …

Really Clean No Problems At All, Christina Johnston

Masters Theses

Soap made with a single hair from someone you kind of know.

Porcelain vessels that seem to bubble up with anxiety from the inside.

A blanket made from surveillance footage of an intimate moment on a car.

When we use these objects, it’s hard to say if we’re touching another person or not, or if they’re sensual or synthetic.

This book presents a collection of domestic objects titled Really Clean No Problems At All. This collection focuses on post-digital culture’s increasingly dissociative relationship with bodiliness, intimacy, and hygiene.

This collection alters objects that live in our deep memories — things …

Dispatches From Planet Nowhere, Aaron Field Simmons

Masters Theses

Dispatches From Planet Nowhere explores how using the tools of fiction can aid and expand User Research and Product Design in the field of Industrial Design. The thesis asks the fundamental question of how imagining other worlds can teach us about our own. Aaron’s belief is that using the lens of fiction, and especially science fiction and fantasy, can give us novel and unique insights into what people hope, fear, and dream about the future. Drawing on the fields of Speculative Design and Future Studies Aaron proposes a new method for gathering user data, and a participatory model for understanding …

Curious Things, Allison Davis

Masters Theses

Curiosity fuels progress. It is what pushes us forward individually, as well as collectively. It allows us to make sense of the world and those that are in it. The problem is, we are in the midst of a curiosity crisis whereby our sensitivity to the physical has drastically diminished. Curious Things sheds light on our detachment from our surroundings and explores how ‘embodied curiosity’ can foster our need to know, experience, and explore. Through curious observations and unexpected encounters captured by others, this thesis argues that the use of distinct object forms and visual aesthetics can be viable solutions …

Letsqube, Biniam Assegid Kebede

Masters Theses

Letsqube is a platform that enables groups of friends to easily collect and pool money towards communal events, gatherings, and purchases.

Individuals find their friends on Letsqube and then agree on a budget for an event, gathering, or group purchase. Letsqube handles the finances by automatically debiting a set amount from a user’s bank account on a predetermined schedule.

Letsqube encourages people to get together, provides accountability and a schedule for contributions, and handles the finances in the background so that groups of friends can focus on enjoying their time together.

Making time to get together with friends regularly is …

Autonomous Vehicle Futures : Designing Experiences That Enable Trust And Adoption, Jeremy Bass

Masters Theses

This thesis is an investigation of the user experience design necessary for a fully autonomous vehicle that would enable trust and adoption of autonomous vehicle-based services. Autonomous vehicles are destined to revolutionize mobility, yet few companies are focusing on how people will best use these new autonomous-based services. This thesis used various forms of user testing to understand user’s expectations and hesitations for riding in an autonomous vehicle. These tests included improv workshops, surveys, interviews and a simulated autonomous vehicle service ride-along. Research revealed that user’s primary concerns were travel time, comfort (spatial and privacy) and personal safety. These concerns …