I am an Industrial Design & Human Technology Interaction master graduate from the University of Technology Eindhoven. In this portfolio, I will show you who I am, what I strive for and my experience in projects throughout the studies.
I am a designer focused on improving the quality of life of people that struggle with societal challenges such as mental health related topics. Within projects, I work in a structured manner and adjust my planning if necessary. By following this structured way of working, it allows for an open mind throughout the project since a clear goal and pathway towards it are mapped out. I am persistent in achieving these goals and once I have something in mind, I will push my limits to achieve it. An example of this is the dual degree that I finished, it is hard to achieve this degree since several different aspects have to be considered and this takes a lot of organizational skills. This persistency helps me stay motivated during projects to achieve the best possible outcomes. The persistence in my character comes from being perfectionistic and this is a strength as long as it does not take the overhand and stalls the process due to taking too much time to weigh out choices, for example. In group projects, I tend to take the leader role and keep an overview of the tasks that have to be done. I feel confident in this role, and I can ensure that other team members have more space to execute their work.
My main skills lay in the expertise areas of technology and realization, and user and society. I want to help people with the work that I do because it makes me happy and satisfied to be able to improve their quality of life. By involving the user in the process, the outcome is likely to fit their needs and will be able to help them. I have gained knowledge in the field of psychology through my dual degree in Industrial Design and Human Technology Interaction. This knowledge allows me to understand how people process information and in what way to provide this information in a design. As a design researcher, I want to generate knowledge to get a better understanding of the mental health related societal problems that I investigate by focusing on the target group as well as the people around them. My motivation comes from personal experiences with mental health related problems, such as depression and grief, as well as the influence that these problems have on the environment of the person that endures it. In the work that I do, I can apply my technical design skills to create interactive products that can help to gather quantitative or qualitative data. Therefore, the role of design in my research will be a design to gather knowledge rather than the end goal of the research.
Societal challenges affect a lot of people and it is my goal to help improve their quality of life. For example, a lot of people have problems with their mental health, and there are still people that do not seek help for this due to various reasons such as stigma and ignorance. In the projects that I have been involved in, I have seen how much influence mental health has on the general quality of life and how little improvements can make a difference. An example of this is the Happy Again project where a grief therapy expert explained the impact of grief on a person and their environment and how grief techniques such as a game can help diminish the burden for both.
With the work that I do and the knowledge as well as the designs that result from that, I want to help to improve the quality of life of people that struggle with societal challenges. But it also helps their environment since they can also suffer from the problems of the people around them. Within my work, I take a user-centred approach in order to ensure that the solution fits the needs of the target group. To better understand the users, I did a dual degree in Industrial Design and Human Technology Interaction since I missed the psychological understanding that I found necessary to face the challenges that I want to make a difference in. An example of these skills is a better understanding of human cognition and methods regarding the influence of how technology is designed on the interaction between a human and a system.
In the masters, I have chosen to focus on applying design in research. My vision to contribute to society is to generate knowledge that can be used to improve the quality of people's lives. By doing research, I can explore what solutions are fit for the needs of a certain target group and help create more personalized and target specific solutions. Therefore, user involvement and person specific approach are one of the main aspects of my work. Furthermore, the interaction between users and technological solutions has been another core aspect throughout my studies. By combining learning activities in ID and HTI, I was able to learn more about performing and analyzing research as well as better understanding the interaction between users and technology, and how design plays a role in that. In the Industrial Design study, expertise areas are used to guide learning activities. Below you can find the projects that I did during my studies
The goal of my final master project was to investigated the design requirements for a technological grief support tool that encourages social support for young adults in grief. For these young adults, it is important to involve their social environment in the grief process and get the appropriate social support, to be able to oscillate between loss and restoration-oriented activities. I combined user involvement, technology and psychological understanding of the complicated situation of grief to improve the quality of life of people experiencing grief and people supporting someone in grief. In this project, I have created a basic application prototype with the purpose of valuating features with experts in the psychological field. After the validation, I created a new, tangible, prototype that I used to evaluate the requirements with target users.
The design consists of a tangible probe that a person in grief can use to guide their grief process with prompts from a printer that consist of loss and restoration oriented activities as well as psychoeducation. The user can choose if the prompt fits their needs and after executing a prompt they can store their process by categorizing the prompt in the corresponding cylinder. The number of stored papers in the cylinders is translated in an online tool to provide insights to the supporter. By providing the supporter with insights in the process of the person in grief, they are encouraged to reach out to the person in grief and become part of the grief process.
I want to continue to focus my work on societal problems with a user-centered focus where I can include my knowledge in design and human technology interaction to improve the quality of life of the users and their environment.
