I am a designer with a strong affinity for technology, I love the problem solving aspect of programming, the beautiful visualization of data, and the technical applications of hardware and electronics.

In my bachelor studies of Creative Technology in Twente and in my personal projects, where I made an Information system for my employer, that managed students in a more efficient way than their previous method [2]. I have witnessed the important value of Stakeholder Inclusive Design as defined by Mumford (1983) [1], who presents three different ways of being user inclusive: consultative participation, representative participation, and consensus participation. Including stakeholders or users in the design can be a very valuable way of creating actual value with the project, because actual user adaptation is increased tenfold.

As a designer I like to work in an iterative manner, there are probably a 100 methodologies that incorporate this and have a specific name, but I don’t like to strictly adhere to those theoretical methodologies. I like to take the useful parts and incorporate them into my own process, and thus kind of build my own process. This process needs to be very adaptive and flexible in any project.

As a person I am structured and prefer clear overview before jumping into projects other people depend on. Ironically for any personal project I prefer just jumping in, and sometimes ineffectively, learning along the way. As an example I can provide that for assignments I prefer knowing the exact assignment and grading rubric and the theory related to it. But for a personal project I tend to watch maybe one youtube video and just start trying, just start 3D modeling or just start programming without planning it out.

I feel this maybe leads back to the fact that I am very acknowledgement driven and if that is not the case I depend on internal motivation which is most present when just jumping in it and doing it. What inspires me is learning more and more skills and knowledge, and keeping to broaden my skillset. This might also be a pitfall because it makes it hard to be/keep being motivated to deepen my skills and knowledge on certain subjects.

I like to stay very optimistic and open-minded, since beside it being a pleasant property for people around me, it is also a useful attitude to have for yourself. It helps with motivation and creativity in any process. In team settings I do like to have a managing position and be the connecting factor between disciplines. From my bachelor education I am pretty broadly educated in different areas of expertise. So I hope to know just enough of all sorts of things to be able to help coordinate projects in a manner, and make people feel like they are being understood and all ideas/input can be incorporated. My personal values are related to feeling like everyone can contribute in some manner and should never be prematurely excluded, and should actively be encouraged to participate, because even with language barriers and miscommunications new ideas can sprout.

My personal vision has a focus on life-long learning, problem solving, creativity and also a holistic approach to life. Since this is a new thing for me i must say I originally struggled a bit with the vision part. Since this is a vision of society, and I don’t think a lot of people have that, without actively thinking about it and having actively picked one. But i do have a vision on my own personal development: I want to be able educate myself as broadly as possible because i feel like life is more valuable with a broad skill and knowledge set and you can get more out of it by solving problems creatively. Rather with just one angle of specification. This might not be exactly my vision on designing but more a vision on me as a person, but I feel design is one of the most excellent carriers for executing this vision, because it allows for broad learning directions.

Therefor an expertise area(EA) that is really suiting for me is the Technology and Realization area. From the information page: “They can communicate with engineers from different disciplines (e.g. Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering) and understand their scientific writings.”
They know what they are talking about and can be a connecting factor is something I’m looking for to be in many projects.

Another one of the expertise areas I want to mainly focus on is User and Society. I feel like this EA is crucial in pretty much all projects. Because what use is there if it isn’t of any value to users or society. You can develop the most amazing product but if you cant reach anyone with it or get any adaptation, what use is it.

[1]. Eva Y W Wong en Graham Tate. 1994. A study of user participation in information systems development. _Journal Of Information Technology_ 9, 1: 51–60. https://doi.org/10.1057/jit.1994.6
[2]. https://jessestrijker.com/management-tool/