A sprite in the dark: supporting conventional mental healthcare practices with a tangible device

This paper describes the decision-making and motivation behind the development of Mood Sprite – an interactive tool for mental health. Our main aim with this project has been to design a device that compliments and augments the current practices employed by community mental health support groups. To this end, we worked directly with a community support group and a psychologist as co-designers

Luxury brands on Instagram: A netnographic approach

The present research concerns a netnography study from June 1st 2020 to January 1st 2021on Instagram communication of six luxury brands: Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, Dior, Chanel and Burberry. Five variables were taken into consideration: number of followers, number of posts, average comments, average likes and engagement rate. This qualitative study reflects the impact of digital transformation on the luxury market. Overall, results demonstrate luxury brands similarities in their Instagram communication strategy - Louis Vuitton and Gucci; Dior and Chanel; Prada and Burberry. With our findings, we were able to associate these luxury brands with the core dimensions of brand coolness. Implications of these findings are discussed with future research directions suggested.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Women's Internet Portals: Negotiating Online Design Environments within Existing Gender Structures in Order to Engage the Female User

This thesis encapsulates my investigation of women's commercial Internet portals as examples of design practice targeting female users. I present a case study of BEME. com, an Internet portal created as a direct development of the traditional women's magazine publishing industry in response to a boom in dot. corn industries at the end of the 1990s. I explore the design environment responsible for the interpretations of the aims of the publishing house into material outcomes and analyse the ability of design practice to develop strategies to counter gender representations within the women's magazine publishing industry. It is my argument that there is a need for Internet designers to be aware of how gender is represented and furthermore be conscious of their ability and responsibility to apply this awareness to design practice. Most importantly, the notion of 'many truths' rather then one 'design practitioners' truth', introduces the possibility of alternative epistemologies. This is crucial to the question of how design practice as a tool of creative production can embody alternative meanings through recognition of existing gender structures. Furthermore, locating the BEME. com case study within feminist postmodernism incites a new way of understanding the problematic relationship between design practice and theory, the Internet and female users. Therefore, I assert the potential of online portal design to offer alternative ways of communicating to female users in such a way as to resist and combat the gendered status quo. The new knowledge obtained from this research provides important insight into the ways design practice attempts to reconcile a critical agenda with gender structures. It also illuminates female users' tendency to disassociate with identities constructed in gendered niche marketing. It is clear from my research that current commercial imperatives are deeply implicated in gendered structures. Therefore, three key indications for better design for a female niche market emerge from the BEME. com case study. They are (a) centre all aspects of the design process on the actual end-user; (b) consciously recognise the folly of using gender alone as an appropriate description of female audiences; (c) be aware of social, cultural and political factors that exert influence over the design process. Finally the obtained knowledge offers insight into the general lack of interest on the part of designers working within industry that trades heavily in gender stereotypes, to problematise this process and their role within it. Rather, as feminist critiques of design practice reveal, design practitioners maintain gender values by constructing consumer profiles by means of gendered assumptions

Does More Mean Better? An Examination of Visual Product Presentation in E-Retailing

Because of the intangible nature of online shopping, consumers perceive online shopping as being risky. This study examined how this risk can be reduced specifically by using a more effective online product presentation method. A combination of the number of product views (one and four) and size (small and large) of the product image were used to examine their influence on consumer’s mental intangibility and perceived amount of information, in which the two constructs ultimately influence perceived risk and patronage intentions. The results from the study showed that both product displays influenced mental intangibility even though an interaction effect did not exist. Comparatively, the number of product views and size had an interaction effect on perceived amount of information. These findings indicate how multiple product presentations can be used differently in reducing mental intangibility and perceived amount of information in an online shopping environment. Furthermore, perceived risk was found to be a partial mediator for both mental intangibility and patronage intentions, and perceived amount of information and patronage intentions. These findings provide useful information for e-retailers to consider for effective online product presentation

3D Printing Magnetophoretic Displays

We present a pipeline for printing interactive and always-on magnetophoretic displays using affordable Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D printers. Using our pipeline, an end-user can convert the surface of a 3D shape into a matrix of voxels. The generated model can be sent to an FDM 3D printer equipped with an additional syringe-based injector. During the printing process, an oil and iron powder-based liquid mixture is injected into each voxel cell, allowing the appearance of the once-printed object to be editable with external magnetic sources. To achieve this, we made modifications to the 3D printer hardware and the firmware. We also developed a 3D editor to prepare printable models. We demonstrate our pipeline with a variety of examples, including a printed Stanford bunny with customizable appearances, a small espresso mug that can be used as a post-it note surface, a board game figurine with a computationally updated display, and a collection of flexible wearable accessories with editable visuals