My development in

My Areas of Expertise

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Business and Entrepreneurship

I believe my business and entrepreneurship proficiency has developed in quite a different way and direction when compared to many of my peers. After my Bachelor's, I will (hopefully) be continuing my studies with a continuing Master's next year. For after this Master’s degree, I am starting to look into the possibilities of an EngD or a PhD. However, especially considering the topics I would be interested in going into, this track will likely have me interacting with internal organisations like the Ethics Review Board and the Privacy Team (among others) more often. I have already been the dedicated Ethics contact person for a handful of projects, and I personally enjoy filling in their respective forms. I feel that this has also helped me learn how to explain my projects and processes more clearly to external parties. Through meetings and emails with these internal teams, I believe my formal communication skills have also improved a lot. I am currently also employed in the Research Data Literacy and Curation (RDLC) team at TU/e, and hope this will further my understanding of data handling, research practices, and internal university communications.

Through my internship, I learnt a lot about communication with business partners and presenting concepts to potential clients. This has been further reinforced by the course Design Innovation Methods, which taught me a lot about how products and services can be assessed from the opposite point of view, within companies. I have also learned how projects move within businesses, and I have been able to further my skills in stakeholder mapping through onion maps, personas, and more. Unfortunately, this internship has also shown me how far integrated AI already is in project workflows.

Projects that this has applied to:

Final
Bachelor
Project

Mindpact
Internship

Design
Innovation
Methods

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Creativity and Aesthetics

This expertise has been one of the most difficult areas for me to develop in, especially because I am autistic and quite reliant on structure. Although creative iteration processes – like brainstorming, quick and dirty prototyping, etc – are structured, the improvised thinking required and results procured are not. To develop my creativity in these processes, I have been trying to learn to let go of this structure a bit and get more used to working with missing information. Through group projects I have learnt to view design considerations from different perspectives, though I still find it difficult to follow my intuition at times. Using these different creative techniques, in combination with my knowledge- and research-based working, I have seen growth in my skills when developing project iterations. Further helping my developments in this area is Exploratory Sketching, which helped me improve the ways I can communicate my concepts. I have also been developing my own aesthetic identity over the past few years, both consciously and sub-consciously, though this is an ongoing process.

Projects that this has applied to:

Final
Bachelor
Project

Digital
Craftmanship

Aesthetics of Interaction

Mindpact
Internship

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Math, Data and Computing

I really enjoy working with code, recording, organising, and sorting data to be used in analyses or graphs. The structure and logic of this come quite easily to me, and I love both troubleshooting code and seeing components come together. This was, for example, part of the reason why I was the sole member responsible for code in the course Making Sense of Sensors, and I am still proud of how incredibly clean and well that code worked. Furthermore, I am proficient with multiple coding languages and believe this is important for both research and design. In terms of the Expertise Area of Math, Data, and Computing, being able to efficiently process measurements from datasets is incredibly helpful for research insights.

Using code and ‘data’ processing with a more abstract visual output is also a very interesting experience. In the course Digital Craftmanship, I did exactly this; in the Processing programme, I wrote code that processes images to make these images return more abstract and meaningful memory representations to be included in our concept.

Projects that this has applied to:

Final
Bachelor
Project

Digital
Craftmanship

Making Sense
of Sensors

Light and
Experience

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Technology and Realisation

Continuing on the code topic from the Math, Data, and Computing Area of Expertise, I am also quite proficient with Arduino, Javascript, HTML/CSS, Python, Figma, and other digital development/prototyping tools. I learnt a basis for this during Computer Science in high school, and have only grown exponentially more skilled in this. Whether a project requires a digital platform or sensors and actuators in an electronics system, I tend to be in the group of team members responsible for this. During Making Sense of Sensors, for example, I helped both my and another team’s members troubleshoot their Arduinos, Mi-bands, and Data Logging Shields. In my USE learning line, Project 1, and internship, I helped develop conceptual (semi-functional) digital platforms, while taking responsibility for the electronics in Project 1 and assisting this in several other projects.

However, prototypes do not only consist of technical and digital concepts. Since the start of my Bachelor’s, I have learnt a lot about physical prototyping: Through several of my projects, including Project 1, Project 2, Aesthetics of Interaction, and Design Actuated Systems I have developed skills in working with wood; including laser cutting and manual processes in Vertigo.

I have learnt a lot about CAD modelling as well. While I have previously used this at a surface level, Designing Actuated Systems has helped a lot in developing my CAD skills. During my Final Bachelor Project, I immediately took the opportunity to improve this modelling skill, as it is something I had been interested in for a while. In the first semester of my FBP, I designed a Aesthetic prototype in Fusion360 and 3D-printed this, while realising a functional prototype with a data logger and sensors in Arduino to make interactions with this prototype come to life. This second semester, I honed my physical prototype more in the direction of physical assembly, tighter tolerances. This prototype included a rotary encoder and LED strips, also furthering my Arduino prototyping skills.

Projects that this has applied to:

Final
Bachelor
Project

Digital
Craftmanship

Making Sense
of Sensors

Design
Actuated
Systems

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User and Society

Users and Society are two of the most important actors in my preferred field of design, which are deeply ingrained in both my vision and professional identity. I am very focussed on designing for neurodiversity and improving the Quality of Life for my projects’ target audiences. In line with this, I have followed the Quality of Life USE track, which has taught me a lot about risk mitigation and ethics to consider in product design and user testing.

Involving users in my projects is part of the design process that I find very important. I want to design for positive behaviour change and, as such, I believe users need to be involved in my design processes. Understanding users’ needs is imperative for good supportive design, and products and coupled interactions must be interesting and promote positive development. Providing different methods of user feedback throughout multiple stages of a design process can present great insights into users’ thoughts and experiences. Performing surveys is a wonderful way to gather large-scale quantitative data, which can help gain insights into target audiences when deployed in earlier stages of a project. Involving users in design through more personal interactions like co-creation sessions or design probes also helps with forming mutual understanding and more person-dependent results. In the later stages of a project, testing prototypes with potential users can help identify issues and strengths with current concepts. I am interested in exploring different ways to use these user interactions to gather information about a project, and I hope to make this an even more integrated part of my professional identity.

Projects that this has applied to:

Final
Bachelor
Project

Virtual Reality
as tool for
Stress Relief

Project
Jungo

Quality of Life
USE Learning line

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Design-Research Processes

One of my main design interests is research processes, as I find these invaluable for certainty in project development. These research processes include literature reviews, user tests, and context research, and each helps shape my understanding of projects and their context. My focus on these research aspects is partially to offset some difficulties that I tend to have with quick- and early-ideation methods. These methods include examples like quick and dirty prototyping, or any of the ‘make x ideas within 5 minutes’ brainstorm methods. I struggle with this because I need time to properly realise and express my thoughts, though I have gotten better at these methods and I want to be able to work with these better over time.

In more recent projects – like my FBP – I have used the Reflective Transformative Design Process to guide my design process. I have also worked a lot with research through design, and enjoy using more novel methods of information gathering. One of these methods is working with design probes, as I find these very interesting and I believe they can provide new insights into users and their ideas and experiences.

Projects that this has applied to:

Final
Bachelor
Project

Digital
Craftmanship

Design <> Research

From Idea
to Design

Professional skills

Throughout my study, I have developed a lot in terms of professional skills. These skills are innately difficult for me, in part due to my autism and ADD, and I have previously followed external trainings for specific skills like planning, to some avail. I have become more proficient at planning in my work, but still tend to heavily underestimate how much time I require for a task.

I find it incredibly difficult to properly express my thoughts and ideas in words, and many of my professional skills suffer because of this. Writing reports, presenting, reflecting, and communicating either in a team or externally are all skills I have been very slowly growing into over the past many years, though this is still a heavily ongoing process. The only professional skill I would say I have no issues with is scientific information. This is a very structured skill about sorting, which is a well-known neurodivergent skill, that I by complete coincidence also excel in.

I would further say that this means that I often naturally fall into a more ‘support’-based role in group projects. I am often responsible for work behind the scenes; performing research, setting up user tests, coding for analyses and prototypes, sketching concepts and working out design parameters are all skills I am proficient with.

Future

Following my Bachelor’s degree, I will be continuing my Master’s degree in Industrial Design here at Eindhoven. I want to develop myself more in terms of design for neurodiverse quality of life through many perspectives, one of which will likely remain self-efficiacy. Continuing this in my Master’s degree, I want to focus on designing for behaviour change and improving my research methods; for this, I pln to follow the Constructive Design Research (CDR) track. I am further considering options for a potential M2.2, and may focus on the Preparation FMP. I would love to perform a research and design project within a longer pre-established timeframe, ensuring I can focus more on solidifying my desired research basis for the project.

In a more distant future, I would love for my research and designs to help inform researchers, designers, and other parties for neurodiverse design through guidelines, design practices, and data analyses.