Vision
Post-humanism [...][C1.1], poses an important question: How should we design when humans, nature, and technology are interconnected? It’s a philosophy that stems from a shift driven by climate change, AI, digital twins [...], and the blurring boundaries between artificial and natural systems [...].
The Transformation Economy [...] already reflects this where it moves from knowledge-based, user-centered models toward a model that sees the world as a living system [...]. This requires moving away from “one-size-fits-all” toward local customization, stakeholder trust [...] and understanding of the perspectives of human, technological, and natural entities.
My vision remains pragmatic. I believe we cannot ignore our human bias, but can use our capacity for empathy, to better understand the relationships between all stakeholders. Leading to a clearer view of the consequences to our actions, positive and negative.
This means taking into account human needs and values, but designing in cooperation with technological solutions and natural constraints leading to a two-way value-flow where our designs strengthen relationships between all entities in a system, and not just take value for human benefit. This doesn’t mean that our existing human-centered methods are obsolete, but they can instead become a foundation for future methods that encompasses the complexity and inclusion of all voices.
With design thinking, systems thinking, and lifelong learning, we can stay curious and capable of both navigating and creating an increasingly complex world.
My Future
After my Master’s, I aim to start my career as a design researcher in industry (R&D or innovation), focusing on user experience and the relationship between humans and emerging technologies. I am particularly interested in teams that are aligned with the Transformation Economy, with the goal of going beyond products to make a meaningful and responsible impact.
This experience will hone my practical design skills and clarify where I want to deepen my expertise. After one to two years, I will revisit the possibility of pursuing a PhD in Industrial Design motivated by the interest in academia-industry knowledge exchanges and my development as a mentor and researcher.
Regardless of the path leading back to industry or academia, I see myself at the intersection of research and practice: always exploring the continuously developing human-centered post-human technological experiences.
Beliefs, Values and Norms
I am a designer for people and technology and believe that design solutions arise from environments of mutual listening and trust. My nature is creative, resilient and curious and I value community, interdisciplinarity, and the freedom to keep learning. The continuous developments in technology have strengthened my sense of responsibility. I strive to be critical of the value I assign any single entity; be it human, technological, or nature, within a context. I am for transparency and balance in the choices I make as designer. My specialisation sits at this intersection between human-technology relationships to create reciprocal value for the overall system and moving away from one-size-fits-all approaches toward context-aware ones.
My Process:
Conclusion
Where I combine analytical and empathetic attitudes to gather data and build a holistic understanding of context and stakeholders through interviews, observations, and surveys. In addition, my stakeholder management skills and value definition skills to direct and organise the involvement of stakeholders in my process.
Where a hands-on mindset based of gathered knowledge drives ideation sessions through quick prototyping, sketching, brainstorm techniques, co-design sessions.
Where I translate concepts into tangible demonstrators using Figma, programming, and fabrication tools to integrate technologies such as Computer Vision and AI. As well as using data to drive and be part of my designs not only as results.
Where I apply evaluation and analysis methods to gather and interpret qualitative and quantitative data about the demonstrator, informing my process and contributing new knowledge.
Strengths and Weaknesses
My strengths lie in research and contextual understanding using analytical and empathetic skills to identify gaps worth contributing to and in making, with a strong eye for detail and aesthetics. Curious, organised, and communicative, I am a resilient, proactive collaborator and lifelong learner. My growth areas are deepening my competencies in emerging technologies and managing a tendency toward scope creep and perfectionism. Together, these shape my identity as a design researcher at the intersection of research and practice, building prototypes that generate value and knowledge toward responsible, post-human technological experiences.
Design Academy Eindhoven
My foundation started at the Design Academy Eindhoven where I developed core competences in Technology and Realization and Creativity and Aesthetics. Working with wood, metal, ceramics and textiles provided a hands-on, instinctive approach: I learned to observe closely, let context guide decisions and trust in making as a form of thinking. What I lacked was the reasoning to explain and justify my decisions beyond my own intuition.
Pre-Master
This led me to the TU/e pre-master where I developed the methodological approach of my work, developing competencies in User and Society, Business and Entrepreneurship and Math, Data & Computing. Using research-through-design I learned to support projects with research and frameworks on top of just intuition. Lastly, I became aware of my own development and learned to reflect and take ownership of my growth.
Master
My master expanded my competences into a more holistic practice. I focused on User and Society, an area I had interest but was also inexperienced in. Through courses, mentoring, and projects, I learned to apply interviews, user testing, and probes, moving from sensitivity to aware empathy.
In parallel, I grew in Technology and Realization and Math, Data and Computing learning to prototype, program, and to treat data as both insight and design material while exploring machine learning, digital twins, and computer vision. Creativity and Aesthetics grew more structured through methods like the Double Diamond and iterative sprints which turned chaotic processes into communicable ones. Although not a specialism, in Business and Entrepreneurship mentoring, freelancing, collaboration and leadership with empathy and clarity taught me to guide teams, manage stakeholders and the identify shared values.
What turned course learning into real competence was practice. Through semester projects at Games for Health Europe, and TA roles across three courses. I applied what I was learning under real conditions, made decisions independently and understood by doing. By the time I reached the FMP, I was already on a strong foundation across all five expertise areas.
Present
My FMP, designing a system in which a household teaches a SHEMS about itself while the system learns to represent them back over time, made my vision concrete. The conversational nature of the process supported awareness and helped people articulate their needs, reinforcing the role of actuators in the system. The HDT framing showed how a machine can improve its own understanding by learning from human context instead of replacing it. Seeing participants respond positively to representation compared to being optimised by a system confirmed that context-aware, no-size-fits-all solutions are a meaningful contribution to an overall system. It strengthened my belief and vision of the two-way value-flow between human and technology
The FMP also confirmed who I am as a designer. What felt most like me throughout this process was the combination of exploratory, research-based thinking and a hands-on drive to build and bring things to life. The project was shaped from both directions at once: an outward curiosity that led me to seek different perspectives and build a network of stakeholders whose views informed my process, and an inward design intuition that pushed me to make, prototype, and realise ideas with my own skills. The research and hands-on approach is where I feel most like myself. This project showed me that I can lead and sustain that kind of process with little external direction.
Business & Entrepreneurship
Value Based Leadership taught me how to think about design leadership by moving away from formal authority toward actions, behaviours and shared values for all stakeholders. Freelancing at Games for Health Europa and my TA roles highlights this, developing my ability to communicate and defend ideas, manage priorities and to lead with empathy and clarity. My FMP showed this mainly in attitude: the confidence and openness I had in stakeholder sessions and the self-directed leadership across the process itself. I hold an intermediate level, the contribution is less technical than attitudinal but this shift allowed me to be a proactive and critical designer connecting differing Stakeholders and values.
User & Society
Using UX Theory and Practice, Design for Behaviour Change, and Constructive Design Research I developed a toolkit of methods to involve different stakeholders through interviews, user testing, probes and co-design. I learned to integrate them into studies to gather contextual and meaningful insights. In my FMP I applied this in two stages: the exploration phase with semi-structured interviews with stakeholders, co-design sessions, and an evaluation phase with both users and expert interviews. I achieved an advanced level in this area, and it is the competency that guides me most. I now look for multiple perspectives before making design decisions and treat stakeholder involvement as an important generative step.
Learned the importance of being a designer with grounded intuition and guided by contextual insights from the outside world, helping me contribute something that brings value to all stakeholders.
Creativity & Aesthetics
My aesthetic strengths originated from my bachelor and this master learned me to be critical on top of instinctive. By using projects and iterative sprint structures in courses, I learned to ask why I make the choices I make. This led me to a structured ideation process with the understanding that aesthetics are not only visual but multimodal. The form itself carries meaning. In my FMP this showed in the ideation and design phases, drawing on UX design, UI design, graphic design, Figma, sketching and physical prototyping. I achieved an advanced level where I am confident in my creative instincts but also with the critical perspective to question them.
Learned to structurally understand contexts by combining stakeholder involvement with structured analysis, gathering data, extracting insights, and using both to understand how I can contribute to or improve existing work.
Developed further my capabilities of translating an idea into a working prototype learning to integrate different technologies.
Math, Data & Computing
This area grew the most during my master. Through LIVID and the TPP project, I learned to treat data not only as information but as design material. I built confidence with statistical analysis, thematic analysis, and data visualisation with Python. Word bond and the Interactive Book made me develop hands-on programming skills with Python, JavaScript, CSS and HTML. My FMP reflected these competences in its system architecture consisting of data flows, system charts, an implementation of a LLM and computer vision. Furthermore it showed in the evaluation where I analysed both quantitative and qualitative data. I have an intermediate level here being strong enough to implement it meaningfully but also with clear room to grow.
understanding of data as a design material supported the integration of the LLM and the Digital Twin concept into the prototype, connecting the technical and the conceptual in the development phase.
Technology & Realization
Doing the Interactive Book and Paper Screen projects I discovered a passion for Human-Computer Interaction and post-WIMP interfaces, especially tangible interaction and computer vision using fiducial markers. The LIVID and TPP projects helped me understand Human Digital Twins, capacities and limitations. In my FMP, these competences resulted to the Tangible Conversational Interface: fiducial markers used for a physical configuration system with a LLM serving as an emulated HDT. Physical fabrication was done through 3D printing, laser cutting, and material construction skills developed in previous projects. I hold an intermediate to advanced level as a designer who can translate concepts into testable artefacts while still having ample space to deepen my technical know-how.
Professional Skills
During my master I developed all five professional skills together with the EA competences. My communication and scientific skills grew through TA roles, conference participation during the TPP project, and the research writing of Constructive Design Research. Cooperation developed throughout projects, freelance work and project work. I learned to lead without authority and built trust across different disciplines. Organising and planning were tested with balancing client deadlines and courses, running sprint-based project cycles, and managing the timeline of the FMP independently. Reflecting is my most important skill, treating it as a design tool to correct my approach proactively instead of just at the end.
Overall Growth
The most significant shift I made is becoming a designer who leads her own process. I have always had strong design intuition, but this master gave me the ability to ground that intuition with structure. I used second-person perspectives with stakeholder involvement and third-person perspective through literature. My instincts in this way informed and defensible. This shift is the red line that runs through everything I have done.
What surprised me most was discovering how much I genuinely enjoy research. The process of building studies, involving people, analysing, and letting it guide my designs is something that I can do and want to keep doing. It showed me that research has become part of who I am as a designer.
At the same time, I know where I am still growing. My perfectionism and tendency toward scope creep are something I recognise and actively manage. Technically, I want to keep developing in Math, Data and Computing and Technology and Realization to build prototypes that are more sophisticated and robust. Overall, I want to keep developing my ability to think across the full post-human system and see more clearly and intuitively how people, technology, and nature connect, and what design, and I, can do at those intersections.
