Creativities and Aesthetics: 

I used to believe that creativities and aesthetics are the most important qualities for being a designer, as well as tools to measure the performance of a product or services. In my previous design works, most of the attention was given on optimizing the aesthetics quality of form. For instance, the use of material, texture and colour.

In the elective ‘A designerly perspective on IoT,’ I learned the design framework of Rich interaction, it awakened me that aesthetics qualities are more than optimization of form. It is a unity of form, interaction and function (Frens, 2006) and it has to do with good user experience while interacting. In the research project and FMP, I started learning and applying different design frameworks to evaluate my design decision. For instance, I learned from the Frogger Framework (Wensveen,2005) that coupling between the action and function should naturally occur.  

The course ‘Interactive materiality’ has deepened my understanding of haptic interactions and shape-changing interface. My perspective on the form (materials, texture and colour) has been changed. I see them as an interface that can transfer a message to users and invite them to perform what is intended with the designs, by fine-tuning and detailing the subtleties of interactions, designers can give new life to materials rather than a building blocks that can be used. 

Business & Entrepreneurship 

In my previous education, I only learned theoretical knowledge of business aspects, my experience with entrepreneurship was a start-up project during my exchange study in Finland. My role in that project was a graphic design who needed to complete what clients asked. 

My understanding of this expertise has changed through electives I had in my master study, as well as my FMP.  In the elective ‘Creating Cooperative Entrepreneurship’ I learned several methods (business model canvas, stakeholder map, empathy map) to not only empathize with the users but also to gain an understanding in the expectations from Client. Therefore, my visions in product design and development have widened.  

For the design challenge offered by BrianPort Smart District in the elective ‘Smart Cities’. I applied the methods which I learned from the business elective and conducted several meetings with the stakeholders. Besides gathering insights from them, we also learned that they would like to have an ‘easy entrance’ in order to understand the automation systems and their implementations. Therefore, I applied my graphics skills to create several distribution diagrams for the clients which received positive feedback. Last but not least, I also learned a lot during my FMP how to work with clients and deal with multiple stakeholders.

Math, Data & Computing 

Parametric Design is one of my specializations, in my experience, digital modelling (e.g. Solidworks, Fusion) has traditionally been based on virtual manipulation, by using a mouse and keyboard to manipulate and interact geometries in the digital environment. Parametric design is algorithmic modelling (visual scripting) based on logic, it allows designers to establish conceptual relationships between geometry and mathematics. Data is manipulated instead of digital objects. In order to deepen my understanding of parametric design, I also completed an elective ‘Parametric Design’ in the Department of Built Environment and obtained an 8 as a result. 

In the course ‘Intelligent Buildings’, besides the theoretical knowledge of building automation systems. I also learned how to analyse large datasets using Python and its different libraries (Panda, Numpy). Furthermore, I gained practical experience in data mining and training models by using MATLAB Statistics and Machine Learning Toolbox. 

For my FMP. I was inspired by the Data-Enabled Design (Van Kollenburg & Bogers, 2018) method and applied this method in the pilot study to obtain an understanding through collected data. Through the entire FMP, I developed my programming skills in Arduino, the final product not only offers intuitive interactions but also collects both environmental and user data for the  Building Services Research Group. 

In the first year of master study, exploration were spent on identifying  the expertises areas and specialisation. Therefore, besides the core course (CDR), I also completed 5 electives in the areas of US, MDC and CA. I also completed a design project in the context of Eindhoven Museum and a research project that was related to parametric design. 

For my FMP, I completed a cross-faculty project stands in the department of Industrial Design and Built Environment. To be able to actively perform this project, I followed a minor program at Built Environment Faculty. Besides that, I also completed two electives in the areas of AC and BE.