I’m an industrial designer and assistant professor at the IDE faculty. I research and teach in the areas of user research and design for interaction. I am specialised in qualitative research methods and user research as a generative step in product design. For the past four years I have been part of the research project design for usability, developing methods for product development teams to explore and share knowledge about product use in the design process. Through an elective course I set up I explore how design researchers use things when interacting with stakeholders in collaborative sessions. Since 2007 I am coordinator of the DfI MSc design project class Exploring Interactions, with 100 students and 10 tutors.

In 2003 I earned a PhD from Staffordshire University (UK) with a research and design project on bathrooms for older people. Previously I studied product design at HBK Saar (Germany). I have professional experience in product design consultancy and user research for design, both employed and independently.

Research

My focus lies on methods development. I’m interested in interweaving research and design, through group sessions, in-context observation and interviewing, probes, observation in the usability lab, design-oriented qualitative analysis, research results workshops and communication, and generative transfer.

Teaching

Generally: user research in and for design.

Specifically:

  • lectures and tutoring on user research in the Bachelor Industrial Design Engineering
  • coordinating and tutoring the design project “Exploring Interactions” in the Master Design for Interaction
  • coordinating the master elective “Prototyping for Interaction and Participation”
  • supervision of degree candidates


Other work

Sometimes I like to do some other things. For example, for the last three years I’ve been involved in a collaboration to develop an interactive artwork related to aggression (working on 3.0 at the moment). Ironically it involves long periods of patient very small scale assembly work.