Final Master Project

Focus points:

  • User research
  • Prototyping
  • User testing

  • Project goal

    Children with cerebral palsy often experience developmental disregard in one of their hands, which means that the child does not initiate use of this hand. The goal of this project was to design a product that encourages children with developmental disregard to use their affected hands more during daily activities. The focus of this project was on user research and validation, in combination with physical prototypes.

  • Client

    For this project, I collaborated with Adelante. Adelante is a rehabilitation centre in The Netherlands, where physical therapy is provided to children with cerebral palsy.

  • Process

    This project forms the continuation of the project Cerebral Palsy, which you can find here. In the previous project, I developed a monitoring system that measured the movement of the upper extremities. I continued this process by turning the concept into a functioning product. This product was designed through an iterative design process, each focusing on a different design aspect. Every iteration consisted of ideation, conceptualisation, and prototyping concluded with a validation moment with potential users and an expert.

  • Final design

    The final design is a product that monitors the movement of both hands and encourages movement by cueing when the affected hand should be used, rewarding when the affected hand is used, and a daily evaluation in the form of a game. The result of this project provides insight into possible effects of cueing and rewarding for developmental disregard and insights into the design of a complementary game.

Two watches that are part of the final prototype
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