2026 Master's Graduation Projects

We had two master's students graduate this spring, both of the Emerging Design and Informatics course at the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies (GSII), The University of Tokyo, class of 2026. Below are their graduation projects, which explore the bridge between design thinking and emerging technologies.

Design Exploration of Camera Monitoring to Foster Trust in Elderly Care Facilities

Darey-Ann Louisville

This research investigates how the design of camera monitoring systems can be redesigned to foster trust and emotional support for residents in care facilities. It began with a collaborative meeting with an elder care facility in Tokyo, focused on residents’ comfort and the role of new technologies in supporting caregivers. One key insight was the aversion toward camera monitoring among residents and staff, which led to the research question: "In the context of elderly care, can the acceptance of camera monitoring significantly improve from the current state?"

The project explores a perceptual and emotional shift toward acceptance by reconsidering the form and interaction of monitoring systems. The aim is to understand how these technologies are experienced in daily life, and whether they can be designed to support both resident well-being and caregiving practices.

An acceptance spectrum, ranging from rejection to preference and trust, was defined to frame how people relate to monitoring technologies. Through ideation, workshops, and visits to care facilities, the project examined how the form and interaction of monitoring cameras influence feelings of safety and trust.

Using a Research through Design methodology with a mixed-methods, participatory approach, the project progressed through four iterative phases: literature review, user engagement, prototyping, and analysis. Data collection included a perception workshop, a custom "Friendshapes" application to study visual attributes associated with safety and trust, and in-person interviews with residents and staff at elder care facilities by San Ikukai and AS Partners. The design process produced three interaction categories: nurture, reflect, and connect, with two low-fidelity prototypes. The first is a plush companion evoking nurturing responses alongside employing its surveillance functions, and the second is an assistant bot, which offers personal health insights to support user agency.

Interviews revealed a “privacy-for-benefit” trade-off, where acceptance increases when monitoring provides direct value.

Ultimately, this research positions the discomfort of surveillance as a design challenge rather than solely an inherent technological limitation. By rethinking the physical form and the interactive relationship between the device and the resident, surveillance can be transformed into an ethically aware, supportive service. This study contributes a design framework and a set of principles to guide the development of future monitoring technologies that prioritize human dignity and long-term well-being.

Shared Pain: Designing Tools for Communicating and Understanding Pain

Mariko Masuzawa 

This research is grounded in the recognition that, although pain is a physiologically universal phenomenon, it remains extremely difficult to communicate to others, creating significant challenges in both clinical decision-making and everyday human relationships. While advanced technologies such as AI and sensing systems are increasingly integrated into healthcare, they face inherent limitations in capturing the subjective and context-dependent nuances of pain as mere data. Within the context of Japan’s aging society and the growing shortage of healthcare resources, this research highlights the need for personalized medicine that respects individual subjective experiences.

In response, this research poses the following question: How might we create tools that facilitate a common understanding of pain? Rather than treating pain communication as a one-way transmission of information, this research reframes it as a relational process between a Pain Expresser (Sender) and a Pain Receiver. Pain is thus conceptualized as “experiential information” that requires mediation, expression, and interpretation. Within this framework, the concept of “asymmetry of empathy” is introduced, referring to the gap between the sender’s feeling of being understood and the receiver’s effort to understand, which do not necessarily align.

Adopting a Research through Design methodology, this research followed an iterative process involving exploratory ideation, the classification of five modes of expression, and the development of interactive communication tools. In the initial phase, a survey of 100 participants was conducted to explore diverse contexts of pain sharing. The findings revealed that pain is more often shared within “caring relationships,” such as family and friends, rather than exclusively in clinical settings. This was followed by workshops that examined how individuals externalize pain through abstract visual and tactile elements.

Further investigations, including perception studies on materials and shapes, identified key attributes—such as asymmetry, high visual density, and structural instability—that intuitively evoke pain or psychological discomfort. Based on these insights, five modes of pain expression were defined: Exaggerate, Analogize, Compare, Record, and Express.

During the prototyping phase, multiple communication tools were developed and iteratively refined. The final design outcome is a chat-based interface that visualizes the quality of interaction between users. In this system, the degree of empathy in conversations is estimated using AI and represented visually, allowing users to perceive changes in their relational dynamics. Additionally, context-sensitive interactions are introduced within the conversation to encourage deeper engagement and reflection on pain.

User testing, including participants in their 90s, suggests that the familiarity of a chat-based interface combined with elements of playfulness creates “mental space” within serious caregiving contexts, making difficult conversations more approachable.

Ultimately, this research does not attempt to resolve the inherent impossibility of fully sharing pain. Instead, it positions design as a mediator that enables more accessible empathetic engagement and contributes to the sustainability of healthcare practices.