Development of a Low-level laser therapy product for home use : With focus on function and aesthetic design

Sammanfattning: Today, 27 out of 1000 individuals suffer from neck pain, affecting both individuals and society (Kazeminasab et al., 2022). These problems are most prevalent in the Scandinavian countries, with Sweden being one of the countries experiencing the greatest increase (Safiri et al., 2020). Non-invasive treatments for neck pain, such as low-level laser therapy, yoga, massage, aquatic therapy, and acupuncture, are already available in the market and have shown positive results (Kazeminasab et al., 2022). In this project, a handheld product with low-level laser therapy has been developed to reduce neck pain. The goal was to create a high-quality, safe, and reliable product that was aesthetically pleasing and could cover a premium market for home-use products. This thesis is produced at Luleå University of Technology in the spring semester of 2023 as a part of the Industrial Design Civil Engineering program. The project was conducted in collaboration with Ozoneair, a local company based in Luleå that specializes in producing air purifiers. The design process drew inspiration from IDEO's human-centered approach (2015) and incorporated various design methodologies to comprehend user requirements and develop a dependable product. The process encompassed three distinct phases, namely inspiration, ideation, and implementation, all of which centered around the target users. During the inspiration phase, user information was collected through contextual investigations, observations, interviews with experts, focus groups, and user testing of existing products in order to compile a comprehensive needs analysis. In the ideation phase, multiple concepts were generated and refined through iterative cycles of user testing, ultimately leading to the selection of a final concept. The chosen concept was realized in the implementation phase by creating of a digital prototype using Blender as a program, followed by the development of a full-scale physical prototype. The result is a clean and sleek product with a distinctive aesthetic that sets it apart in the market, diverging from the conventional sterile appearance often associated with medical devices.