With this PDP, I tried to incorporate my vision as a guide for choosing direction with both learning activities and my future ambitions. As a result, my design process and my learning goals were a more integrated whole. It can be reviewed by following the link above this paragraph.

During my internship at Océ, I found out about the role of an interaction designer in a multi-disciplinary team. The task of a designer in general is to go beyond limits, try new things. As a designer, you are "the guardian of the vision", where other parties of a team might hold back and focus on more conventional ways, dealing with limitations. As an interaction designer at Océ, I experienced that you can convince the multidisciplinary teams to step away from the conventions, in favor of the concept you are making, or the vision that you have.

Besides, I think that a designer has a role of incorporating societal aspects into projects, as the engineers will solely focus on technicalities. But a designer bridges this gap by asking questions. What is the effect on actual users? Can you manipulate the users or society with your concept, for the good? Does the concept have negative consequences? These are questions that make a great product a product that is going to be accepted, purchased and used. This is where a design is responsible for.

Breakthrough technologies gets me excited, but most likely there is a gap between this new technology and getting the society to accept it. So I think an interaction designer should be able to not only envision new concepts, but also ease the change for society that is required with this concept.

Having run an automotive-related project, I found out what it is like to work within this branch of design. Due to a change in vision, I focused on interaction design within the automotive world. I identify myself with interaction design, as I find it one of the most important aspects of building a product, service or experience. In my previous projects, designing the interaction was always high on my priority list, and my internship fueled this even more.

During this project and the B3.1 internship, I worked on a presentational prototype. This showcases the intended functionalities and user interactions as accurate as possible, where other aspects might not be perfected. I believe that being able to present the interaction, the purpose, is more important than presenting the form-factor, in that sense.

I design websites, and interaction design plays a big role here as well. That might explain my drive towards interaction design as well, since both my internship and the web design business are hooking into this. I always felt that interaction design for websites is about user-friendliness, convenience in use and stimulating engagement. That is what I try to achieve while designing websites.

This semester I started with the objective to find out more about what interaction design is like in the automotive branch. I partially changed my ambitions regarding interaction design. It is not specifically the field of automotive design that fascinates me, I like to incorporate contextual awareness and societal awareness into design projects in general. Envisioning change in society with a concept, investigating the implications of the change and how to make the change go as smoothly as possible is my new aim. In short, I want to become an interaction designer, but this is still very much a broad area: the automotive branch, or the software branch (experiences at Océ and Red-n-Red) are the main areas of interest right now.

The project was an iterative process. Each time the context was approached for discussion, there was a moment of reflection, resulting in points of improvement. Combining this project with both Co-reflection and Tactile Experience, I directly applied what I learned at the assignments. Concerning my PDP, I was able to fulfill many of the goals. I integrated more technology into the project. I ran an iterative context-involvement process, and I even made a video pitch of both the concept and the design process. Furthermore, I used my vision as a guide for choosing many learning activities and on where I want to be, which was a first. In addition, I think the learning goals and the activities are better linked to each other.

I applied the mindset that I learned at Tactile Experience by exploring the choice of material from the very beginning of the project. It is a shame that the original idea, physical shape-changing, was too hard for realizing the project. I did not have any background knowledge or experience with implementing it after all. But concerning the currently created experience, I learned more about how to use digital animation to convey a message or a feeling. I got a better sense for the semantics of animation.

The initial idea was already defined by the vision with which I looked upon the project brief. But throughout the semester, I tried several approaches to generate ideas for smaller parts of the concept. First of all, I learned that creative idea generation should really be organized and conducted well, since it can go wrong very easily. Idea generation about concept aspects is easier if these aspects are tangible in one way or another. Besides brainstorming, I used context involvement for idea generation. Both for gaining inspiration and idea validation. Getting feedback from the context can give you points of reference, which was important for the ideas that I generated.

This competency area was applied in a more practical sense during this project. I made two presentational prototypes this semester, each of which had some challenges. I can quite say that my skills regarding programming have been improving. It is quite an interplay between the programming I do at Industrial Design, and the programming I perform for my web design projects. From both experiences I learn, and each supports one another, although the programming languages are very different and have quite different challenges.

The goal of the prototypes was to make the envisioned technologies more tangible. The concept is not feasible yet, but the envisioned technologies had to be communicated in some way. Outsiders from the project are not aware of what is feasible and what isn't, which makes it harder to talk about the concept.

Throughout the process, I performed a variety of sessions to involve users and the context into the project. The focus laid on contextual discussion and feedback from the context. A trade-off is better in-depth knowledge. But having only talked to a minority, the results can't be called representative. However, since I talked with mobility experts, the results are representative in some way. What I learned, is that engaging discussion with the context is a good way to receive feedback, especially when the project is in such a conceptual phase. But for validation of a tangible concept, user tests are more effective.

Working on a project that is aimed at solving a future societal problem, it is hard to engage with the actual context. Most likely, a lot will change over the course of twenty to thirty years. Some assumptions on societal impact were made while defining the project brief and developing the concept. By discussing the concept as well as the future scenarios with mobility experts, the project was placed into the context.

My vision guided the ideation process, and gave me a point of reference. The ideas were based on the difference between the current situation and the future situation, and what impact it would have on today's society. It is not 100% accurate, but it is coming close. That is what I learned: with speculative project briefings, you can't always confront the current society with it, or you might not get the right results. In addition, various demographic groups might respond differently. That is why I tried to design a signal that is as generic as possible, not relying on cultural signals.

The initial aim was to make a realistic design proposal that car manufacturers might be interested in. This might not have entirely succeeded, but I do think that this concept can attract customers to buy autonomous cars. If a breakthrough technology causes some controversy, people might be less inclined to buy it. My concept tries to bridge the gap between the current situation and the autonomous cars. It tries to develop trust, which might result in more customers considering to buy this type of cars, as the controversy weakens.

I see that keeping the customers' personal situation into account is very important. If you harm their feelings, make a bad impression, or you can't convince them, you won't sell.

The activities for this competency area apply to prototyping as well as visualization. The prototype required some analysis of the limitations, as well as coming up with a model of how to send/receive the information. Next to that, the visualization of the expressions required coming up with a descriptive model for handling the animation. It consisted of three variables, which were all subject to change. Hence, a 3-dimensional function was used to visualize how the animation worked. These descriptive models were both useful for making the abstract concepts clear to the outsiders, but also as a tool for simplifying complexity for myself. In another way, it was useful for documenting, as sometimes a schematic, or an image, says more than a thousand words.

Through the course of the project, I used different means of communication. This is rather obvious, given the exhibitions and deliverables one has to attend/produce. But what I noticed, is that I became more effective for communicating the right information for each of them: reports, presentations, reports, pitches, videos. I know how I can communicate my concept, process and vision in these various formats.

But as I learned during my internship at Océ, planning and organizing is also part of the communication skills. I could still improve on my organizational communication skills, but I am becoming more efficient and effective at it. I organized some discussion sessions with outsiders, and I gathered individuals for discussion as well. Leading group sessions is where I can improve the most. Though, whereas the early sessions were rather chaotic, the sessions later on in the process were more structured. This is where the assignment Co-reflection helped as well.

In general, the last two design processes (both from Océ, and Apps on Wheels) were more complete. Every aspect of a design proposal was more integrated into the process as a whole. I think this contributes to making the concept stronger. Besides, everything was more integrated with each other, which means that as a whole , the process makes more sense. I did meaningful activities, and I am confident about the activities that I plan and organize. However, sometimes I get stuck, which means input or help from others is required to get back on track. I think every designer needs some fresh insights or skills from outsiders every once in a while.

However, I can see that at some point in the project I should have been faster with drawing the conclusion that I was stuck. Sometimes I tended to be too persistent in keeping hold of the progress I made during the process of designing. But all in all, the design process was a successful one, in which I managed to incorporate many different aspects, and successfully developed a concept that covers and links all of these. Besides that, I realize that I only used literature sparsely. I should do so more, as it can improve my academic level within projects. It is also an opportunity to learn from research that others have done.

I can quite say this assignment was not exactly what I expected. But by means of reflection, I was able to find out how it contributes to my development as a designer. It is highly related to Form and Senses and Designing Research Processes. In this case, the planning was coming short, which meant I had to adapt my learning goals. I can quite say that I succeeded into finding how this assignment had value for me as a designer.

Form and Senses was most prominently represented in this assignment. I explored the experience of a variety of materials. Besides, this exploration can be repeated in the future. It has shown to me that material experiences can be important from the start of the design process, as it defines how your product is perceived. Thinking of this early on in the process helps exploration later on. By means of a final design, the objective was to evoke the given experience for specific materials or compositions of materials. This worked out well, after having done research with various materials.

From this assignment I learned that material exploration can be very important. It already shapes the idea, which feeds the imagination. It also gives a sense of what material to choose for building the concept. Concerning the assignment, it is mostly related to the choice of material to use later on, but I know that mockups are powerful for ideation as well, as shown in the early iterations I made this semester, as well as other semesters. They enable for exploring the idea in a more tangible way.

During this assignment, I performed quantitative data gathering from context. This felt more representative than any user tests I did in the past, as they were more focused on the qualitative information. Having quite some variables in this case, quantitative information was good for getting a good overview. It gave insight into what was actually going on per material. But summarizing and abstracting the data loses the nuances of the reactions from participants while experiencing the materials. Having recorded the sessions on video captures these details.

During the assignment, I was teamed up with a first-year student. It was a pretty cool experience for the both of us. I realized how much I have learned over the past three years, and how I was able to give advice on the various activities that we as a team were planning. The first-year told me she learned a lot from me, which was pretty funny to hear.

What I learned, is that one should really try to find the expertise of each person, in order to get the most out of the team. Although I can say I am a more skilled designer than the first-year was, she had very specific skills that I did not have, and she came up very different plans and ideas. So in turn, I also learned a lot from her. The first-year taught me new things, but she also made me reflect on where I am as a design student.

The first-year student wanted learn about InDesign, so she made the report. However, I learned that when making a report for a team, there should be some moderation of the written text of each member. She turned out to write a bit sloppy, so I could have helped out there. There was two-way criticism, collaboration and appreciation, but the two-way criticism should have been extended in the process of making the report.

Concerning this competency area, Tactile Experience is related to being more competent at integrating each of the elements of a design process as a whole, but more specifically to material choice. From the assignment, I got to know the importance of taking the material choice into account early on in the process. In this case, it did not have a big role in the concept, but for the early iterations it was useful, when I focused on physical shape-changing.

I chose this assignment in order to approach context awareness in a different way, strengthening my curriculum as an interaction designer. What I experienced during my internship was that engaging the context into discussion in various stages of the process was useful if the concept is not quite tangible yet. This made me want to dive into the theory and practice somewhat deeper, and by applying it into the project I was able to iterate on what I learned.

Setting up the sessions, learning about best practices, how to gather information and how to analyze the information helped me in getting more critical while reflecting.

As described within the reflection for Apps on Wheels, I involved the context for ideation as well. Not only idea validation was important here. Think of gaining inspiration from engaging discussion with the context. The input from these discussions was valuable for further ideation about the expressions that I designed.

This semester, I performed both the data gathering that is aimed at qualitative information and that is aimed at quantitative information. This assignment was aimed at the former. I learned that the context has much more to offer than just validation of the concept. It can show how to improve the concept, or it can simply provide inspiration for the project. However, the more you collect, the more data needs to be processed. Summarizing possibly eliminates important details. I created a design space by trying to find the variables and patterns in the gathered information. Then I placed both the current progress and the goal for the project in it, which gave me insight on what to do.

The assignment co-reflection gave me a tool to get closer to the context, and get more valuable information from it. It extends my curriculum of empathic interaction design activities. Many things I learned within the assignment have been directly applicable within the project, because it was quite related to one another.

The method for involving the context into the design process that I learned with this assignment is great for getting input in many stages of the design process. I used it for fine-tuning the expressions that I designed, but it could also serve as inspiration or as a solid ground for making decisions in the project.

Collaborating with my brother, an Informatics student, is both a challenge and a luxury of combining two disciplines. We look upon design problems from different perspectives. That is why idea generation sessions are multidisciplinary. These look at both the interaction design technical implementation of the service we would like to offer: the Content Management System. It has to make our work easier, with respect to implementation in websites, but also needs to have added value for users.

What I find, is that where my brother excels in coming up with creative ideas in the technical domain, I tend to look more on a conceptual basis. I come up with ideas for potential business opportunities and on interaction level, whereas my brother explores the technologies we could use. I chose to brainstorm together, as it gives us both a sense of what we are thinking of. But ideating together means that we should understand what we are both talking about. Fortunately, it works out well so far.

In the process of developing the Content Management System for our service, there are some challenges. First of all, we want to give the user full control over their website. But we want to maintain control over the terms and service that we are providing. Our objective is to put all the content on the users' servers. This leaves less control on our side, but we can still provide statistics in various levels, provide extra options for resellers, content creators and more. Code obscurity is important to protect our services, so we should be able to control what they see in terms of user interface and functionality.

From a business perspective, our own service, as well as the ways of releasing the CMS were reconsidered quite some times. Should the CMS be freemium? Should there be a different way of monetizing? It should be a service that lays at the core of our web design company: it is part of our vision. So the initial steps will be fully developing the service and implementing it in our clients' websites. After that it has been finished, fine-tuned and finalized in a way that all functionalities are there, it could be launched as a service on its own.

There will be several options, from a business perspective. First of all releasing a free plan and a premium plan, with distinctive extras for the premium customers. Second of all, it could be free for the end-users, but there could be a plan for resellers: web designers that use our CMS and want control over their projects, for which it could be an easy-to-implement solution.

While brainstorming about our service, there were some moments of misunderstanding. In this case, drawing schematics improved understanding from both sides. Sometimes, the descriptive models act as a bridge between our two different disciplines: interaction design and technical informatics.

These brainstorms were mostly about the technical setup of the service, but by means of sketching UI wireframes I could engage discussion from a user interaction perspective. Besides, descriptive modeling was useful for exploring the broader concept beyond implementation. I explored the possibilities for the service from a user perspective as well as a business perspective. Descriptive modeling helped to get an overview of these possibilities, and stimulated linking several of the ideas, finding the pros and cons of each, or to find out which ideas had priority.

Teaming up two different disciplines was an opportunity to strengthen each other, but it took some getting used to in order to get the roles divided to actually work most efficiently. Initially, I was used to doing everything on my own. But now my brother can work on the technicalities from now on. We are both creative to some extent, and my brother can look from an entirely different perspective. This can enhance ideas, and it can improve the planning, as it makes us both shed light on a wider range of aspects simultaneously.

Already during my internship at Océ, but even more this semester, I learned more about the role of a designer in a multidisciplinary team: you come up with creative ideas, and where other disciplines might adapt to limitations, you try to keep hold of the vision or initial idea. First, I felt embarrassed by my own perseverance, feeling like coming across as stubborn and ignorant. But, as we both found solutions that came closer to the vision, the project became stronger and more distinctive from other CMS's.

In the process of starting up our business, we were asked to appear in a magazine while writing about this process. The magazine is called OWN Magazine, which is a magazine about young entrepreneurs for young entrepreneurs. It is initiated by Dutch students.

It was a good publicity opportunity for us, which required us to be representative to the outside world. We wanted to make a good impression, and the challenge was to be very open about our process, without spoiling too much of what was actually going on.

This moment of publicity made us think of other possibilities for reaching audiences. A Facebook page is an obvious option. We are going to update the website with a blog, so we can publish news items on the website, and link to them via our Facebook page. But this only concerned planning so far. We do not have a platform for engaging with audiences at the moment.

During my projects I am trying to suit the websites to the identity of the clients as much as possible. Current trends like flat design, the "outdated" skeuomorphism, and many sub categories do seem to all make sense, but to exclusively follow one trend or another is not the way to go in my opinion. I learned that sometimes, textures are best, whereas in other cases, flat colors work out best. It depends on what fits the clients' identity best. A website is a representative canvas after all.

As my programming skills increase, the web design projects from before Red-n-Red have been getting increasingly more extensive in functionality. It adds more value to the website, but is also more complicated to develop as a web designer. My latest project, Heerlijkheid Baarlo, adds a calendar planning functionality for booking reservations. There is a system being built that gives a lot of control over the reservations.

Another project of mine is the website of Volleyball Club Tupos (vv Tupos). As a member of the club, I took the role of webmaster upon me. I perform both website maintenance and development. So far, this is the website with the most extensive functionality and information variety. The continuous development increases the functionality over time. But the functionalities also showcase my skill, as earlier functionalities are less extensive than the newer ones.

My vision when designing websites, is that web designers only take a role of creating the framework in which the client, or the end-user, creates the content. They decorate the place, they make the website a home rather than a digitally reserved space on the Internet. Within my projects, I aim at suiting the specific needs, rather than generalizing the content to specific categories and using templates.

Having awareness of the context helps. This means discussing their ideas and converting that into functionalities and designs for the website. If a website suits their identities and needs, it is used. If it doesn't, it will be hard to keep it up and running.

By learning about SolidWorks I explored the possibilities of another visualization tool. I tried to learn different 3D modeling programs before, but I never reached this level of skill. I still have to learn more about various modeling techniques for the program, as I don't have complete freedom for designing anything I like yet. But I made a start, and I can say that this extends my skillset for visualizing concepts. It is a means of visualizing more tangible designs.