Bachelor Year 2

In the squad Seamless Interaction for Everyday Life, my teammates and I created INA; a product that visualises energy usage in households, in a non-intruding manner. It provides interactions for both the user’s focus and periphery. INA compares the average energy usage in a room to the real-time energy usage in that room, giving coloured light (in gradient) as an output to indicate whether the energy usage is above or below average. I think this was one of my favourite projects in my bachelor.

The collaboration went well and we were proud of our process and result. We conducted focus groups, made personas an did multiple iterations with different materials. For the final prototype, we focused on the aesthetics and realisation. I integrated the knowledge I gained from Basic Formgiving Skills in building the construction of the board and module. We succeeded in making the technology functioning as well, so we could invite visitors at Final Demo Day to interact with INA.

I had a very interesting start of my B2.2 semester. We gathered with a group of student and set up our own project. We conducted research on how design could have a positive impact on the first interaction of Syrian refugees with their Dutch neighbours, based on a design by Buro Kato. In this research process, ethnographic studies, interviews, questionnaires and act studies were conducted. With our findings, we re-designed the tool from Buro Kato (Hallo Buur!). In this project, I found out that

empathising with the target user, conducting qualitative research and working with vulnerable groups in society, resonated with me and my future plans. It was the first time for me writing a paper on a project this elaborate. The group consisted of six highly motivated girls, which was great, but a pitfall, too. It turned out we all became less critical by expecting all others to be critical too, and having to do a retake for the paper, was a huge wake-up call for the rest of my bachelor.

I tend to think a lot about my designs, before starting to make. In the course Basic Formgiving Skills, I had to push myself to explore with forms and materials within a short time frame. I practiced techniques such as sketching, sawing, sanding, puttying, spray painting, filing, chiseling and worked with different materials. The course taught me to look both at the rough, basic shapes of which a product is built up, and the little details that are in it. Through several assignments, we worked towards creating a

power strip, in which all elements of the course were integrated; sketching, copying a form, material studies, form integration, and in which all aspects of the socket clearly had the same style. I trained my critical eye; this was useful for building the prototype of my B2.1 Project, which was simultaneous with this elective. In projects that followed, especially my Final Bachelor Project, I used these skills and critical eye again, for building prototypes.

Engineering Design was the first course in university in which I collaborated in a multi-disciplinary team, with such variety. From the start, I saw this as an opportunity to learn from each other, something that I highly value. Growing and developing in fields that you’re less skilled in, is emphasised in the program of Industrial Design, as well. With the team, we built a robot that would be able to save casualties. This involved thinking of a strategy and technicalities of the shape, materials and

electronics that were needed. My biggest growth in this course, was regarding collaboration. Most of the group wanted to stay working on things they were already able to do and they disagreed with each other as well. I opened up an elaborate conversation about the collaboration and task division. This really helped for the teamwork and made me grow in the position of a team leader. I learned a lot about working with people that have a different mindset, and finding the best

possible compromise. Along with that, from that point on, I was able to perform tasks that I was not highly skilled at yet, such as programming how the robot would be steering. I reached the goal that I envisioned at the start; learning from my teammates with different backgrounds. Both in people skills and more specific skills – e.g. construction drawing and programming.

Design Innovation Methods was a course in which I got to know a lot of methods and tools, in a amount of time. With my group, I used the Value Proposition Canvas (Strategyzer, n.d.), market analysis, questionnaires, journal studies and the SCAMPER method (Eberle, 1996) to investigate design opportunities in the market of stress-relief products and make them fit the target user. The tools provided the opportunity to ideate in

new, different ways than I had practiced before. During Design Innovation Methods, I created my first business plan, as well. Because the course offered all these different (new) methods, we approached the design and design process from many different perspectives. This made me become more critical towards the feasibility of designs.

When you’re designing, it’s easy to tend to thinking about what would look good and than add the practicalities of a product. In Aesthetics of Interaction, practical use, aesthetics and intuitiveness of products, were combined. With my group members, I designed a speaker that was connected to Spotify’s “Discover Weekly”and required

the same interactions as the music provider. We focused on the shapes, movements, feedforward and feedback, to create a product that would be interacted with, in a more intuitive way.

References: Eberle, Bob (1 January 1996). Scamper: Games for Imagination Development. Prufrock Press Inc. ISBN978-1-882664-24-5.
Strategyzer (n.d.). The Value Proposition Canvas. Retrieved from: https://www.strategyzer.com/canvas/value-proposition-canvas