Designing a children's mobility product

Designing a children's mobility product

Westra, H.C.

Kuipers, H. (mentor)
Dekker, M.C. (mentor)

Industrial Design Engineering

Industrial Design

Master of Science Integrated Product Design

2013-12-19

Konings & Kappelhoff design agency is a product design agency with expertise in designing juvenile products, among others. Because of their expertise, network and some unfinished work requiring attention, they expressed the wish to investigate design opportunities in the area of child transportation. The graduation assignment that followed means twofold: ‘Explore possible product opportunities in the field of child transportation’ and ‘elaborate one of the resulting product opportunities into a viable concept’. In order to do this, the project was split into three phases. Phase 1: Analysis In this phase a situation sketch was made depicting all aspects of the process of transporting children. The target group consists of parents in its broadest sense: people who (recently) had a child and value safety and comfort for their child above all. The environment consists of various different starting points and destinations, transport solutions and competing consumer products, for example strollers or car seats. Because of the focus on children’s products, regulation (i-Size) and standards apply. Also, user research was done aiming for the opinion of parents concerning the current situation of children’s mobility (products). Phase 2: Synthesis In the second phase the results from the first phase are synthesized. This is done by means of a ‘customer journey’, a timeline depicting the typical travelling process of various parents with their children. When linking all research results to this journey, it shows if and where there are gaps in the current situation, leading to various product opportunities. Together with Konings & Kappelhoff, the choice has been made to pursue two mutually reinforcing product opportunities: a revolving Child Restraint System (CRS) that is easily accessible and one that features a detachable lightweight infant carrier and a base seat with all necessary safety features. Phase 3: Conceptualization In the third phase, the two product opportunities have been elaborated into one idea: ‘Develop a new type of i-Size child restraint system that enables parents to comfortably transport their child towards and from the car and enables them to easily install it in the car.’ This concept improves current product features of handling and accessing a CRS: - The concept provides an easy infant carrying solution - The concept provides an easy-access CRS - The concept provides additional safety for the occupants A physical model has been built and tested to show to what extend the concept satisfies the design goal. The concepts handles enable parents to transport a child of up to 1 year comfortably towards their car. A carrying strap enables them to transport a child of up to 2 years over the same distance. Various recommendations have been made for further improvement. The concept has been elaborated up to a conceptual level. This enables Konings & Kappelhoff to market the concept as an idea, allowing the participation of third parties in a intended future joint design process.

child restraint system
i-Size

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:42139883-b5c2-4896-89ab-57425c16345f

2014-12-19

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2013 Westra, H.C.