A lot of courses and experiences during my study have contributed to my expertise in this area, most notably Creative Electronics, Project 1, Aesthetics of Interaction, my internship, and Project 3. These all taught me the knowledge and the skills to take an idea and realize it. I am now able to create custom electronics, (VR) games in Unity, programs in many languages, and custom products using woodworking and 3D printing.
When starting my bachelor I had little expertise in this area, therefore during my studies, I devoted a good number of electives to improve my expertise in this area. Courses like Introduction to Business Design and my USE learning line Internet of Things improved my skills in pitching and made me learn about IP, business structures, branding, markets, and the user. Furthermore, as a side effect of pitching and branding, I improved my skills in graphical editors like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere.
Next to these activities, me and some of my fellow students started a company in 2022, the company focuses on bringing people together through interaction in public spaces. Together with my colleagues, I have stood on the Makerfaire, DDW, Night of the Nerds with our products and joined many events and programs like for example the TU/e Contest. All this has massively increased my entrepreneurial skills like pitching, thinking on my feet, and branding.
Due to my very technical background in programming, I needed time to adjust to a more creative and ideation-focused process. During courses like From Idea to Design, Ideation and Preliminary Design, Aesthetics of Interaction, and Exploratory Sketching I learned methods and processes to constantly select, create and refine ideas.
Furthermore, in courses like Aesthetics of Interaction, I learned how emotion, intuition, and senses are vital in making a product feel natural and making it satisfying/easy to use. Texture, material type, and shape are all variables we designers can play with to convey information more effectively.
This expertise area has been involved in almost all aspects of my study, namely in User Centered Design, Project 1, Project 2, and Project 3. In the first mentioned, I learned the processes and methods that are available for user evaluation and how to apply them. In the projects, I applied various methods like interviews or surveys. This area has stricken me with its importance in design, this is how you improve and verify your product is reaching its goal: creating value and impact for people’s lives. It forces you as a designer to come out of your head, be open-minded and think about other cultures, values, and norms.
Next to my study, I conducted various user tests with our company. These were proof of concept tests that we often conducted in public spaces like the 18 septemberplein here in Eindhoven or the Ketelhuisplein. These tests showed me how diverse a society can be and how each individual had a different perspective on our concepts which showed many opportunities for improvements.
The courses Data analytics for engineers and Making Sense of sensors have given me the tools and knowledge to perform quantitative studies and collect, analyze, and use data using Phyton. These skills were extremely useful in Project 3, where I too needed to collect, analyze, and use data for analyzing the effectiveness of a chatbot against conventional methods in food intake measuring.
