My Journey
I began university with Innovation Management and, before that, a bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering, because I was told I could not enter ID with my Chemical Engineering degree. I was looking for a more creative way of thinking and designing for the human experience: making, instead of simulating and calculating what I had learned before.
The research and development process of Chemical Engineering was always very attractive to me. Even though the application field was different, working in Norway and several other companies in the Netherlands during my bachelor’s at R&D centres showed me that these environments of innovation span disciplines, combining and sharing knowledge. That is where I wanted to contribute, just with a more hands-on approach.
Innovation Management gave me a very good introduction to general product development: how it is managed internally in different companies, the theoretical backbone, advanced multivariate statistical modelling, data-driven AI, marketing, entrepreneurship, product development, patent research, and financial modelling of startup venture capital. What these courses missed was the beginning of the product creation cycle: the actual making and thinking of the product. To me, this seemed really weird. How can you manage these companies if you have no theory about how they are created?
This is why I wanted to join the ID department for a dual degree. Seeing two sides of the coin, on the one hand, how to evaluate theoretically, do research, use data-driven statistics, and understand how to push and market, and on the other hand, the experiential, philosophical, grounded and creative part of this process. The perspectives often diverged, but navigating both really opened up my view on product design as a whole, where one can facilitate the other when they have just a bit more knowledge about each other.
When entering the master after the pre-master ID, I had learned the soft skills, but lacked the hard skills to independently realize the ideas I wanted to make. Early development therefore focused on learning sketching, 3D modelling using Fusion 360, and general prototyping techniques like foamboard modelling, 3D printing, and starting with electronics. Where before I thought I would utilize these skills to realize my ideas, I did not expect these techniques would become a way to think of new ideas. Constructive Design Research, reflection in action, and information gathering through making opened up a new world for me. Making became not just a skill, but a method for gathering new knowledge, and became central to my design process.
During M1.2, I followed courses that allowed me to develop more research skills and more advanced prototyping skills. I used studio method for CDR, material-driven design in Interactive Materiality, and lab research through design in my M1.2 project. At the end, I had a repertoire of new user research methods and prototyping skills under my belt, but a couple of tensions stood out as a designer: I tended to keep too many options open, I could take on too much myself, and I was initially weak in validation. Learning to choose a direction, let alternatives go, and test ideas with others was therefore as important as any technical skill I gained.
Additionally, where before my vision was directly based on music interface design, this period completely reframed my professional identity and vision. Design became something broader than my initial interest in music. I saw the application of my new skills in creating ways of making experiences that target multiple senses, driven by a strong narrative in design. As such, I reframed my vision towards sound, haptics, and interactive materials, where all combined are used to create multimodal experiences in different application domains. I moved from being a broad generalist searching for tools toward becoming a multimodal storyteller who uses technology to create richer, more embodied experiences.
TECHNOLOGY & REALIZATION
Before I entered the master, I had never even touched a screwdriver in my life. I was motivated to learn how to realize the ideas I had in my head and make them a reality. In the end, learning through doing, reflecting, and iterating became central throughout my process. Utilizing reflective writing in my practice, I argue against myself, my own viewpoints, and the things I learn by making ideas tangible early on in the design process, leading to ideas, interactions, and concepts I never could have thought of beforehand.
In M1.1, I focused on learning 3D printing, electronics, Arduino, and connecting systems using OOCSI. In the end, I created three connected products where one collected data of bats and sent it to the other, which used light and interactive material to notify its user when bats were present in the home. During M1.2, I developed a multimodal interface that used an in-game environment to play different haptic effects on the wrists when certain in-game events happened. In CDR, I learned to use TPU 3D printing to create soft robotic actuators and control air pumps for an inflatable blood pressure cuff. In Interactive Materiality, we used a vent tube, capacitive touch, printed actuation mechanisms, and sound design to make an ordinary object become a multimodal interactive material. In M2.1, my skills further developed through Unity, hand tracking, and spatial audio, creating interactions where sounds could be placed around the user in the real world.
T&R therefore became more than a technical skill area for me. It became the way I turn abstract sensory ideas into experienceable systems, and the way I discover what an interaction can become.
CREATIVITY & AESTHETICS
The core of my design work rests on creating multimodal systems and experiences that combine sound, haptics, and visuals to create experiences and engage the senses in a way one modality could not do alone. Throughout my development, I learned to integrate and use a wide range of different interaction combinations and modalities in my work.
In DaoIOT, I learned about frameworks like affordances and concepts like system growth, hybrid systems, shape-changing modalities, and modular services in order to think about core and emergent functionalities of interactive systems. Courses such as The Sound of Smart Things and Creativity & Aesthetics of Data & AI gave me a stronger vocabulary for designing aesthetic qualities: sound as something that exists in time over space, emergence through rule-based combination, and the use of uncertainty or agency as aesthetic properties in interactive systems. Interactive Materiality showed me how to take these interactions and use materials to make them more nuanced, dynamic, and expressive, using subtleties of the material, haptics, and sound together in fully experiential interaction loops.
I explore these modalities, their form, and their action possibilities through reflective making, and by being able to quickly combine sound, haptics, actuators, and data to create systems that cannot be imagined before use. T&R allows me to design the materiality and realize these systems, while C&A guides my process on the interaction qualities and how I communicate these design directions using high-quality videos, visuals, sound design, and interactive demos.
User & Society
Doing a double degree gave me a strong foundation in both applied and theoretical user research. Through IM, I gained a deep understanding of quantitative and applied qualitative research techniques, perspectives on the management of employees in a company, leadership, management strategies, multivariate statistics, and systems thinking.
My work has not always focused on integrating the needs of the user from the start, but it has always been in service to the user. For me, this is one of the most impactful things design does. In service of what the customer or user wants, we try to uncover what the human experience tells us, and translate this into experiences and products that try to encompass and take into account these subjective meanings.
To learn this, I used a wide range of research methods aimed at eliciting different needs and values. I involved experts in every project I have done: Ecodorp Boekel in M1.1, HapticLabs in M1.2, and Impulse Audio Lab in M2.1 and FMP. I used lab methods to test physical hypotheses of my experiences, studio method to uncover new material qualities leading to the soft robotic blood pressure cuff, material-driven design in Interactive Materiality to elicit emotions relating to the future of intelligent systems, and cultural probes and qualitative and quantitative analysis to inform design spaces, requirements, and evaluate my creations. Demos at DDW and Night of the Nerds gave me insight into how discussions with experts and different groups of people can generate knowledge, even after the project has been completed.
Earlier, I often involved users later in the process, when a concept already felt concrete. During M1.2 and especially my FMP, this changed. User research became a way to redirect the design space itself, not only to validate whether a prototype worked.
Course Examples (insert as textbox):
Math Data & Computing
I started this master coming from a bigger background in Math, Data & Computing. Because the focus had lain on this part of my studies for a long time, I ignored it in the beginning, until I saw a use becoming clear for the skills I had acquired during my bachelor’s and Innovation Management. During IM, I did several courses on algorithmic programming, advanced data and AI, data science, multivariate statistics, and systems modelling.
During the master ID, as my skills in Creativity & Aesthetics and Technology & Realization started to improve, I began to see a use for these skills during my design work.
This included smoothing of sensors and data in MERLETT, incorporating hysteresis and filtering of the data. Additionally, because I had previous experience in Python and started learning C++ for Arduino, I could start applying more of these skills in different languages. I learned to work with Unity and built a series of scripts in C# that allowed MediaPipe hand tracking to be combined inside Unity, to grab objects, move them around, and let them play spatial audio to position these objects around me.
Additionally, during M1.2, I used my statistical skills to analyze quantitative data gathered during the user test using Jupyter Notebook, doing regression analysis and statistical modelling. Even though the participant count was too low to get meaningful statistical results, I could leverage these skills to use inferential statistics and use this data together with the qualitative data.
MD&C became valuable once it was no longer separate from design. I now use data, code, and computation as material for interaction: to make systems responsive, to structure messy experiences, and to support design decisions with evidence.
Business & Entreperneurship
Business & Entrepreneurship started as one of my stronger theoretical areas because of Innovation Management. I had already learned about product development, marketing, patent research, entrepreneurship, finance, and how innovation is managed inside companies. During ID, this knowledge became more concrete once my prototypes started interacting with external parties and real contexts.
In M1.1, our project became interesting for Ecodorp Boekel. We visited them and talked about building the product for their village. Due to the timeframe of our group, and because certain people were on exchange, we had to decide to cancel this, as the setup was not feasible. This showed me the difference between external interest and actual implementation. A concept can be meaningful, but still needs planning, ownership, resources, and stakeholder alignment to move forward.
In M1.2, I worked together with HapticLabs and received an internship offer because of the project. I also presented the project at Night of the Nerds in Eindhoven, a tech event for children. There, I communicated my idea, informed children about hearing loss during gaming, and validated that they really liked the experience concept. This helped me grow in presenting, talking with external parties, and explaining complex technology in an accessible way.
In M2.1, I had contact with multiple companies for an internship. I visited AMOLF, received an internship offer at HapticLabs, and finally settled on Impulse Audio Lab. For Impulse, I made exploratory prototypes and presented them in Munich. This also brought a reality check of the industry: the embedded hardware and constraints of automotive companies limited some of the possibilities. Because of this, I changed trajectory and made three demonstrators for the company.
B&E therefore became less about writing a business plan and more about translating between vision, prototype, stakeholder value, and real-world constraints. It helped me understand how experiential design can become relevant outside the studio.
