Design for future DDL workplace

A physical work environment is essential for creating and supporting different activities in the workplace, not only for work performance but also for physical and mental wellbeing. Studies have been conducted on the influence of the working environment on work performance and people’s wellbeing since the 1950s. Most of these studies have been published in the domains of ergonomics and human factors or in historical papers on the office environment (Katja, 2019). In recent years, motivated by increasing demand for wellness-focused design, companies and organizations are putting more effort into investing in properties that improve employee’s performance while enhancing their wellbeing in the workplace (Zack, 2019), exploring opportunities of new emerging technologies. The same applies to universities where they always seek for new approaches. Students are more willing to adapt to changes and to participate in experimental setups. Delft Design Labs offers multiple opportunities for student participation and master thesis project is one of them. Working on a graduation project is a challenging time and a graduation lab workplace should be an environment that can help. This project is focused on designing for the future Delft Design Labs workplace, which is being used by students who are working on their graduation projects for Delft Design Labs. The final design is a product system called "Hexabond" which encourages meaningful interactions between students, without disturbing everyone. It gives the user an opportunity to connect and interact with others, which can be a start point for students to get to know each other. The Hexabond is simple to set up and does not require a precious time investment. The aesthetic of the products is simple and minimalistic and makes it fit into any workplace. For validation of the Hexabond, some prototypes were created for user tests. The results of the test showed that the final design met the design goals well. The resulting product fulfills the need for encouraging students to offer and ask for help in the workplace, creating connections between students and making students feel a sense of belonging. However, there is still room for improvement for maintaining the connections between students. The biggest limitation during the project is the unfortunate pandemic. Making it impossible to do user tests in the DDL workplace or in general. The current design is still rather hypothetical and is not fully validated with the right usage. The product is rather a user-centered design that needs input and feedback from the user group. If it was possible to actually test the product in a shared workplace with the students, it would have yielded insightful feedback for iterations. Integrated Product Desig