Janneke studied Psychology at the University of Groningen and specialized in Experimental Psychology. She graduated in December 2006. In May 2007 she started her PhD-research at Delft University of Technology. Her PhD-research focused on perceived typicality and aesthetic appraisal for product designs. The results of her studies were presented at several international conferences and published in conference proceedings, such as the Society of Consumer Psychology Annual Winter Conference, European Marketing Academy Conference and European Association for Consumer Research conference. She has also published in Academic Journals such as International Journal of Design, British Journal of Psychology and Acta Psychologica. During her PhD-position, her teaching activities included research and methodology topics within design research and she coordinated and lectured the 1st year Bachelor course Statistics in Research & Design.

After finishing and defending her dissertation, Janneke has decided to pursue an academic career and accepted a Postdoc position within the Design Aesthetics group to continue her work on Design Aesthetics. Janneke’s current research focuses on how the social roles that products can provide to people influence aesthetic pleasure for product designs. With product designs people can feel socially connected to people that are important to them. On the other hand people can also emphasize their individuality and authenticity with product designs. I am investigating how products that facilitate these social needs influence aesthetic pleasure for product designs.

Janneke’s research is mainly quantitative and empirical. Due to her background in Experimental Psychology, she highly values methodologically and statistically strong research designs. The main focus in Janneke’s research has mainly been on product appearances. In the current research, though, the goal is  to investigate aesthetic pleasure for product designs on different sensory levels as well.