Expertise Areas
User and Society
For User and Society, I applied the knowledge from year 1 on gathering data and creating personas to tailor the project to the target users' needs. During the CBL project, I learned more about older adults through extensive research to back up the claims my team and I made.
Next to that, there was another course focused on research through less conventional methods. The aim was to understand a community through a cultural probe kit. Despite never hearing about this method, I found it an interesting way to spark curiosity and gain a deeper understanding of a certain community.
Finally, the sustainability course showcased three modules to make the design field less wasteful and more aligned with nature. Through these modules, I got to understand the concept of circularity, which has resonated with me the most, as I am more inclined towards physical prototyping and product design. This practice is more targeted at the product lifecycle process, using various frameworks to determine potential improvements.
Overall, this year proposed new ways to develop this expertise area. Compared to last year, when we focused on humans as the only stakeholders, I am now aware that design can have a huge impact on non-human stakeholders, and I will consider this in my future projects to design more sustainably.
Non-human stakeholder map
Persona for project
Proposal for Circularity module
Cultural Probe kit
Creativity and Aesthetics
Through electives and main courses, I could develop my creativity beyond the physical form. In Design for Games and Play, I created 3D models for our video game, where I could further develop my skills in Blender, as it was the most suitable for our game idea. I already had prior experience with Blender, but I enjoy the process, as it is similar to physical model making.
The course Aesthetics of Interaction was by far the most ground-breaking course. Here, I learn most of the valuable insights when designing products, starting with affordances, feedforward, and feedback. All the frameworks laid the groundwork for my deliverables, and I will transfer them to all my other projects.
I could directly apply these frameworks to my project, where I had to rework a telephone interface to differentiate from regular telephones. The main idea was to showcase communication with speech-to-speech AI to let the user know they are not talking to a real person.
Apart from prototyping, I also took a major role in editing videos for all my group projects and courses. I found video editing time-consuming, but similar to prototyping, I could directly see the progress, which motivates me to learn more advanced software, because I only used a very basic one.
Technology and Realization
For the project, we used an old telephone as our interface, so my main role was acquiring an old phone and disassembling it to fit a custom interface. A key learning point was that throughout the course, I thought of manufacturing an old telephone from scratch, but our coaches pointed out that we should instead refurbish an actual phone and adapt it to our needs.
Additionally, I made a prototype for another course, focused on interaction and experience design. This was a challenge, as it required outside-the-box thinking and creative ideas to realize. Making a museum-quality final deliverable wasn’t particularly difficult, as I enjoyed the precise work required and used this as an opportunity to break from my other, more theory-oriented courses.
Thus far, I have had the opportunity to take a leading role in manufacturing prototypes for all my projects and courses. I enjoy this process, mainly because I can directly see the progress in my work, which motivates me to continue working.
Prototyping in Vertigo workshop
Prototype for Aesthetics of Interaction
Prototype for interaction
Prototype for project
Blender Models for the game
Business Model Canvas for one of my projects
Business and Entrepreneurship
This year, I made the most progress in this expertise area, mainly thanks to the elective and Design Innovation methods. I got to look at various companies from a business perspective, acknowledging their business model and uncovering what value they provide to the customer. The biggest learning point was that businesses don’t have to be solely profit-oriented, but some can also keep the customer’s values as their main priority.
After major development and understanding the fundamentals, I concluded that this area does not excite me as much as it did last year. Although the business side of design can benefit the users, it requires more effort to research, conduct surveys, or directly work with the customer or other stakeholders. This approach does not resonate with me, as I am not particularly interested in conducting research.
Even though I found this expertise area challenging to develop, it helped me in other areas, such as User and Society, as I got to learn new methods to understand the target users and tailor the design decisions to satisfy both the customer and the business I analyzed.
I find entrepreneurship to be a very important and inspiring role in society, as it can have a huge impact on individuals and society as a whole. This position can be powerful and stressful, which does not personally suit me, as I am unable to handle a lot of pressure and require some certainty.
Math, Data and Computing
Unexpectedly, I took a course in Mechanical Engineering, as none of the ID electives were available. I saw this as an opportunity to develop some other expertise areas. I got to learn more about the topic of electric and hybrid vehicles.
I found out that the course was more technical and required significantly more work than I anticipated. I had to learn the basics of MATLAB and Simulink to run models of different powertrains with different batteries to determine the most efficient one. I have always been interested in vehicles, so getting more in-depth knowledge of powertrain design and how to calculate ownership costs of different designs. The powertrain design considered many variables of the individual cars, which could help me when designing for cars and mobility.
Last year, the main focus was on gathering and sorting large datasets. This year, the focus shifted to small-scale datasets, mainly with qualitative data. This makes it more challenging to process, as qualitative data can sometimes be interpreted differently than it was supposed to, which can make the process confusing. Simultaneously, the data that was mainly gathered served as a source of sparking curiosity, rather than informing design decisions directly.
Simulink model tested for optimization
Tutor feedback
Additionally, for every group project and coaching, we had a dedicated tutor, who always provided us with support, but also critiques and suggestions for improvement. Sometimes I found it difficult to listen to the tutor, especially when I understood that our worldviews and individual values were not aligned. However, this feedback was always there to help guide our process in the right direction.
Hard skills
This year was particularly challenging, as I did not give myself enough opportunity to develop my already existing hard skills. I wanted to improve my sketching skills on paper and gradually shift to digital sketching, but choosing more theoretical electives made it more challenging to include in my schedule.
However, I instead got the opportunity to edit multiple videos for some of the courses and projects. This became one of the few digital hard skills I enjoyed doing, mainly because of its similarity with physical prototyping. I find it easy to track my progress, and it gives me the opportunity to strive for perfection.
Professional skills
Communication
Communication has been a big part of working with different people and on various projects over these two years. I was never talkative or good at effective communication, which was underlined by my initial struggle to communicate my ideas. But as I took different courses and got assigned different team members, I gradually improved and became more confident in my capabilities and in sharing my ideas and thoughts.
Collaboration
Compared to last year, I believe I have become more comfortable in teamwork and collaboration with other team members. This could be because of mainly having good and reliable people in my groups, but also my effort to participate in all the assignments and contribute as much as I can. I have also had the opportunity to have team members from other majors, due to electives outside of Industrial Design and a Multidisciplinary CBL. Working with people from other majors is very beneficial to projects and assignments, as everyone brings their unique skillset and a different perspective to the project or assignment. I like working in such groups, as it provides the opportunity to expand my scope outside industrial design.