Growth

Business & Entrepreneurship

Before starting at TU/e, I had decided to follow the USE Learning Line “New Product Development and Marketing”, as I thought that that would be the direction that I would want to go in as a designer. In addition to doing this USE Learning Line, I have been a student assistant in three different business courses, too. I learned a lot about methods, techniques and structures in companies, also from a teaching/tutoring perspective. More importantly, during my internship, I was dealing with many different clients and working in a company that partially focuses on marketing, growth hacking etc. In my Final Bachelor Project, I worked closely with multiple stakeholders, as well. 

User & Society

At the start of my bachelor, I followed the course User Focus and Perspective Basics, in which I learned to start the design process with the user needs. The USE Learning Line that I chose, was both business- and user-focused. I learned about user behaviour in marketing techniques (New Product Marketing) and conducted quantitative and qualitative research (Marketing Research & Design Methods), in order to make and app fit better to the target group. Towards the end of my bachelor, my projects became more user-focused. I did my B2.2 research project on Syrian refugees, for which we reached out to as many refugees as possible, and tried to really get to know them. In the final year of my bachelor, I followed courses at the faculty of Psychology & Technology and did a social design project for my Final Bachelor. From the P&T courses, I learned to approach human behaviour form a biological, sociological and ethical way. My Final Bachelor Project allowed me to work more closely with the target group and stakeholders than I had ever done before. These experiences moved me to choose for a Psychology masters programme.

Creativity & Aesthetics

In the course From Idea To Design, I was first introduced to ideation techniques. In my B1.2 project, I implemented several of these, as well. During the following years of my bachelor, I further developed my knowledge and skills. Aesthetics of Interaction taught me about how the interaction of the user can be facilitated and enhanced by the looks of a products. In Exploratory Sketching, I learned to communicate ideas through sketches and about the way products are built up. I practiced taking the finish and look of products, and explored different materials in the course Basic Formgiving Skills. In my B2.1 project, I used these skills for our final prototype, for which we focused on the looks as well.
During my internship, I worked with a couple of graphic- and UX/UI-designers. I picked up skills from them, which I used for designing my platform in my Final Bachelor Project. 

Technology & Realisation

I had no experience with programming soft- and hardware, before starting the course Creative Programming. I first learned how to work with Processing and Arduino, and also the communication between these programs. I further developed my programming skills in Creative Electronics, for which my teammate and I created an interactive game, and Engineering Design, where we built an evacuation robot, with a multidisciplinary team. In order to get myself to a more advanced level of programming, I followed the course Intelligent Interactive Products, that introduced me to machine learning algorithms. 

Math, Data & Computing

The foundation for my computing skills was laid in the Modelling core course in the first year of my bachelor. We made calculations to create a model for an evacuation system in a skyscraper. I gained more deepened knowledge and practice in this field during my B2.1 project, Marketing Research and Design Methods (that introduced me to SPSS) and Making Sense of Sensors, where I either used sensor data input for visual output, or to draw conclusions about behaviour. In Intelligent Interactive Products, I became familiar with data acquisition and processing in machine learning, to design intelligent products.

Design & Research Processes

I was first introduced to the Transformative Reflective Design Process (Hummels & Frens, 2009) in the course From Idea to Design, which I then used as guidance in my projects. Throughout my development in this bachelor, the steps in this framework became natural elements of my design processes, which I was able to integrate at the suitable moments.

Identity

Studying Industrial Design at TU/e, has pushed me to get out of my comfort zone. I always want to perform perfectly from the start, by which I’m limiting myself in showing my work. I’m not shy and way more confident than I used to be, but afraid to not meet the requirements. Continuously reflecting on my work, helped me find out who I am in a professional setting. I came across patterns and characteristics, that I’m now more aware of. This will help me adjusting my approach and communication with colleagues in future experiences.

Vision

I decided to study Industrial Design quite spontaneously, as I had planned to become a psychologist since I was 11 years old. The next step after my time at TU/e, is a Psychology master. Although it may seem like I’m back where I started, this is definitely not the case. My vision has gone through a little journey, from marketing/advertising to healthcare and improving cultures in businesses. The core has always been helping people, and later on, connecting people. The creative approach of problem-solving and operating in so many different contexts, are valuable aspects that I’ve learned in this bachelor’s programme.

References: Hummels, C., & Frens, J. (2009). The reflective transformative design process. Proceedings of the 27th International Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems – CHI EA ’09, 2655–2658. https://doi.org/10.1145/1520340.1520376