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The research question of this doctoral thesis is: What can be the future impact of design (activities) in digital health, given the rise of data collection and analysis technologies? I answered this question on three knowledge levels: design vision, knowledge-generating approach, and design tool. In Chapter 1, I envision design activities for the collective computing era (an upcoming modern computing era with complex systems of massive social interaction through various connected computing devices) that data collection and analysis technologies are a part of. Based on the literature review and informants’ interviews, I developed a design vision that demonstrates the changes posed in design activities (design tasks, processes, and the designer’s role) due to the upcoming collective computing era, and provides guidance for adopting the changes. Consequently, the vision proposes that design tasks in the collective computing era move towards designing ‘complex system(s)’ and testing these within ‘society as a lab’. The vision’s guidance states that designers can approach these tasks by addressing communities and engaging with their data. In terms of the design process, the vision claims the ‘coexploration’ of the design problem and solution spaces. To tackle such change, the guidance suggests designers: the flexible combination and analysis of mixed data, working on social forces at a system level, and developing through multiple soft launches with modular designs. Finally, the designer’s role becomes conducting an ‘accountable implementation.’ The vision recommends approaching accountable implementation by incorporating a transdisciplinary vision of the value and control of the design output....

Digital health is a vibrant and dynamic field, encompassing subsets such as mobile health, health information technology, wearable devices, telehealth and telemedicine, and personalised medicine. While digital health adoption has been markedly accelerated by the covid-19 pandemic (Inkster et al., 2020), an evolving body of research has focused on describing and addressing specific challenges related to the design and evaluation of digital health technologies (Pagliari, 2007; Murray et al., 2016; Blandford et al., 2018; Marvel et al., 2018). This research articulates a need for novel, interdisciplinary design approaches to digital health innovation, integrating disparate sets of requirements such as clinical soundness, user-centeredness, technical interoperability, and cost-effectiveness (Cornet et al., 2019). In this complex domain, design and health disciplines are called not only to collaborate with each other, but also to learn to work with digital data as the raw material fueling digital technologies. This dissertation explores such challenges through a series of exploratory research efforts at the intersection of design, healthcare and digital data. These explorations are conducted within the context of the Cardiolab, a Delft Design Lab born out of a partnership between Philips Experience Design and Delft University of Technology. Throughout the dissertation, knowledge in this domain is gained through a mix of literature reviews and project-based action research (Somekh, 2005). In this way, the relevant scientific literature is connected and put in dialogue with real-life digital health design practice.

Junior designers may experience struggles with collaborative partners (e.g clients, managers, and stakeholders) who may prioritise values differently and which may yield frustration, conflict, and stress. Particularly, junior designers may find coping with value-based conflicts challenging as support is lacking. Senior designers can develop effective ways of coping to promptly reduce frustration. Design schools and professional development courses could offer support to address and facilitate learning from valuebased conflicts. This study aims to answer the following question: how can junior designers cope more effectively with value-based conflicts in collaborative design practice?

One of the fundamental questions facing the emerging discipline of service design concerns the definition of its object. In this thesis, I posit that the practice of service design, as a recent development within the tradition of industrial design, may be approached primarily as the design of interfaces between service providers and clients. In chapter 1, on basis of a critical study of the service literature spanning the disciplines of management, engineering, and economics, I argue for the importance of acknowledging the materiality of interfaces when designing services. In chapter 2, I comment on relevant views in the field of industrial design about the design of (service) interfaces. Then, drawing on postphenomenological studies in the philosophy of technology, I articulate an approach to service interfaces that stresses the mediating role of materiality in client-provider relations. Chapters 3 and 4 present empirical studies of a service, called DirectLife, where digital technology plays such a mediating role. This service, which was developed and commercialized by Philips, is intended to help people become more physically active. In chapter 3, I elaborate on the user experience of DirectLife from a postphenomenological perspective, describing how its material interface transforms clients’ perceptions of their bodies and social selves. In chapter 4, turning to the provider’s perspective, I analyze the multiple visualizations generated and interpreted by the designers of DirectLife in the process of materializing a new service interface. Chapter 5 seeks to extend this postphenomenological perspective on service design beyond the scope of client-provider interactions that are mediated mainly by digital technologies. Drawing on an empirical study of a design project carried out at the Service Science Factory, I demonstrate how human-to-human interfaces may be understood from a postphenomenological perspective, and I discuss the implications of this for the design of interpersonal services. To conclude, in chapter 6 I propose that contributions of this thesis may serve to deepen the debate about the distinction between products and services and to invite designers to rethink their expertise in postindustrial times.