Tutte Murmann has developed a sex toy designed for women with reduced mobility in their arms and upper body, who require assistance for masturbation or who simply wish to be physically relaxed during the act.

Research and development project

Master's Projects 2023-2024

Name: Kolding School of Design
Price range: $

Participants from Kolding School of Design: Tutte Dohn Murmann
Marco Sidoli
Marek Kuźmiński

Research and development project type: Research and development
Project period: Jan 2023 - Dec 2024
Project management: Richard Herriott
LAB: Social Design
LAB theme: Universal design
Collaboration partners: Bevica Foundation

Background

How Kolding School of Design students tackled complex design problems with a Universal Design approach

Key question

All three projects aim to explore a Universal Design approach to design problems and thereby develop solutions for with enhanced accessibility and usability.

Bevica Foundation

Marek Kuźmiński's project focused on supporting young children with congenital lower arm amputations by improving the prosthesis design process. The approach empowers children to take ownership of their prosthetic devices, fostering greater self-esteem in the process.

Objectives

There were three MA final year projects undertaken by Tutte Dohn Murmann, Marek Kuźmiński and Marco Sidoli.

Tutte's project explored how to design a sex toy usable by women with physical disabilities, giving them greater autonomy and personal privacy based on the idea that personal pleasure and welfare are essential aspects for everyone and not only the able-bodied.

Marek's project involved helping young children address issues arising from congenital lower arm amputation, namely providing better prosthesis design process that helped children take ownership of the device and to build their self-esteem in so doing.

Marco's project applied Universal Design principles to kitchen design in order to create a design which did not compromise on function or aesthetics in pursuit of a fully-realised proposal.

Marco Sidoli

NOTA KITCHEN by Marco Sidoli transforms the way users interact with their space, fostering independence and community through thoughtful, inclusive design.

Methods and outcome

Characterising these projects is a thorough use of user-centred and participatory design methods to uncover user-requirements and to ensure full validation of the proposals.

Differing from “ordinary” or “routine” design, these projects had sustained, enhanced user-involvement all the way through the research and development stages and approached the design areas from an open-perspective so as to ensure the users´ interests, inputs and insights were maximised. The projects made use of ergonomic design principles along with careful analysis of the data gathered which resulted in distinguished and distinctive design proposals aimed at fully meeing the needs of the target user groups.