Picture made during an exploratory phase where I did several interviews with office workers throughout the Netherlands.

Picture made during a user test within a professional environment.

During this internship I tried to understand the needs of office workers towards printing. By doing several interviews and questionnaires a concept was created. The concept was then tested with 50 users.

Description

True sustainability can be achieved through Cradle to Cradle printing. The goal of the project, therefore, was to offer new innovative materials, or similar materials, that can be cleaned and reused without destroying sheets after printing. The technology for this project was not the main reason to do the project: people should be enabled, invited and even seduced to change
the way they print.

The concept that was introduced by the Eco-Design group of R&D department of Océ Technologies implies e.g. that sheets should not be mechanically damaged and thus that the customers should not staple them or write on it with permanent markers. However, folding and normal pencils may be allowed. It also implies that customers need to be personally involved in order to ‘close the chain of paper’.

During the internship I tried to understand the needs of office workers by using questionnaires, interviews and other techniques. Because the rhythm of people would be changed through a new way of printing I needed to know what the needs of the users are. What is it that they need and are those needs still fulfilled by a new concept. To get answers to these questions I first did several interviews on several locations in the Netherlands with different office workers. The results of the interviews were used to create new concepts. The concepts were then tested on a large scale setup user test. The user test was done with 50 users within a professional environment.

The results of the user test were then used for final recommendations and the design of new concepts. I was the first Industrial Designer that participated in a project within the Research side of Research and Development within Océ Technologies. The Eco-Design group together with their manager were excited about my work and after I left an Industrial Designer was hired permanently to work within the Eco-Design group.

Coaches

ir. Joris van Gelder, ir. Abbie Vanhoutte, dr. ir. Theo Heeren

Client

Océ Technologies BV