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This thesis stemmed from the likely future scenario that the advancement of technologies will enable new ways for information display in everyday life. Following an initial review of existing research related to sustainable behaviour change and emerging technologies, a focus group study was conducted to explore people's expectations for a ubiquitous eco information device at the point of purchase. It was found that there was a need for eco information provision that resembles eco labelling, but provides information in an interactive manner. This led to the definition of the research aim, which was 'to encourage sustainable individual consumer behaviour at the point of purchase by proposing the design of eco information individualisation'. A literature review was undertaken to i) identify consumer issues of existing eco labelling practice and opportunities for improvement; ii) investigate the state-of-the-art of the development of various eco information solutions; and iii) explore the opportunities for eco information provision enabled by various contextual technologies. The literature revealed that nowadays consumers are facing difficulties in perceiving and understanding eco labels, and a number of the issues can potentially be tackled using a design approach. This thesis proposed the first conceptual framework of eco information individualisation for designers. 'Eco information individualisation' is a concept of tailoring eco labels according to the specific needs of individual users using contextual technologies. With technologies embedded on the product and the user, both of them can act as data carriers and have a traceable record (a 'life history'). Information can be exchanged ubiquitously. An enabled product can be intelligent enough to appeal to a user with particular preferences. A second focus group study was conducted to evaluate the framework. A card sorting study was carried out to understand user's perception towards information conveyed on existing eco labels to inform the refinement of the framework. A design tool was developed to support designers in the designing of eco information individualisation. The tool was applied and evaluated in a design workshop. A mobile app prototype was then built based on a design output generated from the workshop. Findings from these studies have provided a greater understanding of designing for eco information individualisation, in particular through the creation of the framework, the design tool and the app, as well as the identification of user requirements for eco information design.

People frequently have problems making multiple devices work together. In this thesis, I use the Research‐through‐Design approach to understand the issues and propose solutions. Through an iterative series of investigations, the problems people have with the connection of multiple devices has been examined, including usability issues, difficulties with the sequential connection procedure, and difficulties performing an action. I found non‐expert users to have difficulties with interpreting and evaluating the devices’ interaction status regarding the sequence of the connection procedure. When an evaluation problem occurs, they have problems dealing with the required sequence or diagnosing the error in their interactions. The problem understanding was examined from additional cases. The comprehension of the problems allowed me to generate design implications and propose a design solution. I proposed two implications with which to solve the stated problem. I suggested helping users evaluate device interaction and reduce unnecessary user interactions. A design framework was suggested as a solution by providing diagrammatic representations of system interaction and signals revealing device status. I then assessed the suggested solutions using paper prototypes, and demonstrated their effectiveness. The improved interfaces helped users evaluate device connection status so they may determine how to proceed with sequential interaction. With the Research‐through‐Design approach constructing knowledge by integrating theories and hypothesis, I found the feature of user‐multiple device interaction in which a user is required to manage the interaction between the devices. A single device cannot aid the user interaction. In the dissertation, I proposed a desirable state of user interaction, which is achieved by two devices revealing connection states together so that a user can earn a useful system image.

This thesis is concerned with the study of how sketch-based systems can be improved to enhance idea generation process in conceptual design stage. It is also concerned with achieving a kind of integration between sketch-based systems and CAD systems to complete the digitization of the design process as sketching phase is still not integrated with other phases due to the different nature of it and the incomplete digitization of sketching phase itself. Previous studies identified three main related issues: sketching process, sketch-based modeling, and the integration between the digitized design phases. Here, the thesis is motivated from the desire to improve sketch-based modeling to support idea generation process but unlike previous studies that only focused on the technical or drawing part of sketching, this thesis attempts to concentrate more on the mental part of the sketching process which play a key role in developing ideas in design. Another motivation of this thesis is to produce a kind of integration between sketch-based systems and CAD systems to enable 3D models produced by sketching to be edited in detailed design stage. As such, there are two main contributions have been addressed in this thesis. The first contribution is the presenting of a new approach in designing sketch-based systems that enable more support for idea generation by separating thinking and developing ideas from the 3D modeling process. This kind of separation allows designers to think freely and concentrate more on their ideas rather than 3D modeling. the second contribution is achieving a kind of integration between gesture-based systems and CAD systems by using an IGES file in exchanging data between systems and a new method to organize data within the file in an order that make it more understood by feature recognition embedded in commercial CAD systems.

In the context of internationally challenging economic, design has been regarded as a key factor in assisting design and manufacturing companies to survive. By using up-to-date computer-supported technology, the global design collaboration based on multidisciplinary and distributed environment is becoming a mainstream to new product development (NPD). However, during the process of collaborative design, risk is rarely mentioned. In particular, due to the complexity of design process and lack of efficient design decision-making, there have been some design collaboration failures across multiple companies. Some design projects cannot deliver the benefits as companies have expected through the collaboration. Moreover, a number of stakeholders, managers and designers expressed their disappointment at not seeing the projected savings in cost and time, which critically discredited the value of design collaboration. Many studies in academia and commercial cases have suggested that risk assessment can be applied as an effective means in the realm of design. Nevertheless, few of them conducted risk management research associated with design constraints under a collaborative environment from both theoretical and practical perspectives. In current risk practice, many risk practitioners simply report key risks to their management teams and no further analysis, which might subsequently result in confusion with excessive discussions. Consequently, to prevent the failure of design collaboration and perform a satisfactory risk assessment, it is important to perform risk management with an upstream perspective and at an operational level. An approach, called constraint-based design risk management (DRM) where a conceptual framework has been proposed on the basis of collaborative design features, risk management process and Theory of Constraints (TOC). Moreover, a DRM matrix has been developed to map, measure and mitigate collaborative design risk through evaluating the critical design constraints, and then specified design risk variables in the light of risk criteria. Design constraints are quantitative parameters that frequently affect main design processes and decisions. The combination of design constraints and risk criteria can be accessible and applicable by designers and design mangers. In addition, a Bayesian weighting method based on Bayesian theorem has been developed to measure collaborative design risk in a more efficient manner. Ultimately, a DRM tool has been created as a simulated scenario prototype, which incorporated with three case-study evaluations, to demonstrate the importance and effectiveness of using TOC and risk theory in the realm of design collaboration.

Realistic human models are widely used in variety of applications. Much research has been carried out on improving realism of virtual humans from various aspects, such as body shapes, hair, and facial expressions and so on. In most occasions, these virtual humans need to wear garments. However, it is time-consuming and tedious to dress a human model using current software packages [Maya2004]. Several methods for dressing virtual humans have been proposed recently [Bourguignon2001, Turquin2004, Turquin2007 and Wang2003B]. The method proposed by Bourguignon et al [Bourguignon2001] can only generate 3D garment contour instead of 3D surface. The method presented by Turquin et al. [Turquin2004, Turquin2007] could generate various kinds of garments from sketches but their garments followed the shape of the body and the side of a garment looked not convincing because of using simple linear interpolation. The method proposed by Wang et al. [Wang2003B] lacked interactivity from users, so users had very limited control on the garment shape.This thesis proposes a framework for dressing virtual humans to obtain convincing dressing results, which overcomes problems existing in previous papers mentioned above by using nonlinear interpolation, level set-based shape modification, feature constraints and so on. Human models used in this thesis are reconstructed from real human body data obtained using a body scanning system. Semantic information is then extracted from human models to assist in generation of 3 dimensional (3D) garments. The proposed framework allows users to dress virtual humans using garment patterns and sketches. The proposed dressing method is based on semantic virtual humans. A semantic human model is a human body with semantic information represented by certain of structure and body features. The semantic human body is reconstructed from body scanned data from a real human body. After segmenting the human model into six parts some key features are extracted. These key features are used as constraints for garment construction.Simple 3D garment patterns are generated using the techniques of sweep and offset. To dress a virtual human, users just choose a garment pattern, which is put on the human body at the default position with a default size automatically. Users are allowed to change simple parameters to specify some sizes of a garment by sketching the desired position on the human body.To enable users to dress virtual humans by their own design styles in an intuitive way, this thesis proposes an approach for garment generation from user-drawn sketches. Users can directly draw sketches around reconstructed human bodies and then generates 3D garments based on user-drawn strokes. Some techniques for generating 3D garments and dressing virtual humans are proposed. The specific focus of the research lies in generation of 3D geometric garments, garment shape modification, local shape modification, garment surface processing and decoration creation. A sketch-based interface has been developed allowing users to draw garment contour representing the front-view shape of a garment, and the system can generate a 3D geometric garment surface accordingly. To improve realism of a garment surface, this thesis presents three methods as follows. Firstly, the procedure of garment vertices generation takes key body features as constraints. Secondly, an optimisation algorithm is carried out after generation of garment vertices to optimise positions of garment vertices. Finally, some mesh processing schemes are applied to further process the garment surface. Then, an elaborate 3D geometric garment surface can be obtained through this series of processing. Finally, this thesis proposes some modification and editing methods. The user-drawn sketches are processed into spline curves, which allow users to modify the existing garment shape by dragging the control points into desired positions. This makes it easy for users to obtain a more satisfactory garment shape compared with the existing one. Three decoration tools including a 3D pen, a brush and an embroidery tool, are provided letting users decorate the garment surface by adding some small 3D details such as brand names, symbols and so on. The prototype of the framework is developed using Microsoft Visual Studio C++,OpenGL and GPU programming.

With rapid growth of global competition, the design process is becoming more and more complex due largely to cross-functional team collaboration, dynamic design processes, and unpredictable design outcomes. Thus, it is becoming progressively more difficult to support and improve design activities effectively during a design process, especially from a collaboration perspective. Although a great deal of research pays attention to the support and improvement of design collaboration from multi-perspectives, little research attention has been directed at improving collaborative design by a performance measurement approach. In addition, many studies have demonstrated that performance measurement can improve design effectiveness significantly. Therefore, this PhD research focused on investigating ‘How to improve collaborative design via a performance measurement approach?’ A Design Performance Measurement (DPM) tool, which enables design managers and designers to measure and improve design collaboration during a design process, has been developed. The DPM tool can support the design team members in learning from performance measurement and, in turn, drive the design project towards the achievement of strategic objectives, and goes beyond monitoring and controlling them during the project development process. It is, thus, a motivating tool as well as a support tool for the development of product design. The proposed DPM tool has three novel components: • A DPM operation model, which integrates a hierarchical design team structure with a multi-feedback interaction performance measurement approach to support DPM operation in a design project team. • A DPM matrix, which enables collaborative design performance to be measured during a design process. • A DPM weighting application model to improve flexibility of the DPM tool by integrating DPM with the design project’s strategies, stage-based design objectives, and design staff’s job focuses and responsibilities. This tool has been positively evaluated through two industry case studies and a software-based simulation.

The research in this thesis is intended to aid caregivers’ supervision of toddlers to prevent accidental injuries, especially injuries due to falls in the home environment. There have been very few attempts to develop an automatic system to tackle young children’s accidents despite the fact that they are particularly vulnerable to home accidents and a caregiver cannot give continuous supervision. Vision-based analysis methods have been developed to recognise toddlers’ fall risk factors related to changes in their behaviour or environment. First of all, suggestions to prevent fall events of young children at home were collected from well-known organisations for child safety. A large number of fall records of toddlers who had sought treatment at a hospital were analysed to identify a toddler’s fall risk factors. The factors include clutter being a tripping or slipping hazard on the floor and a toddler moving around or climbing furniture or room structures. The major technical problem in detecting the risk factors is to classify foreground objects into human and non-human, and novel approaches have been proposed for the classification. Unlike most existing studies, which focus on human appearance such as skin colour for human detection, the approaches addressed in this thesis use cues related to dynamic motions. The first cue is based on the fact that there is relative motion between human body parts while typical indoor clutter does not have such parts with diverse motions. In addition, other motion cues are employed to differentiate a human from a pet since a pet also moves its parts diversely. They are angle changes of ellipse fitted to each object and history of its actual heights to capture the various posture changes and different body size of pets. The methods work well as long as foreground regions are correctly segmented.