In my teaching I try to combine the newest things we learned from our research to useful things that design students should be able to use in their practice. The theory and practice of design are not moving any slower than those in other fields. I believe this coupling of research and teaching is necessary to keep research relevant to the field, and teaching up-to-date to the newest developments.
In ID4216 Context and Conceptualization (C&C for short), a theoretical foundation is laid for analysing user contexts within a diversity of scientific frameworks, communicating these aspects in multidisciplinary teams, and conceptualizing new products and services. Prominent elements in this course are Contextmapping, Visualisation and Communication, Vision in Product Design (VIP), and reflection on methods of designing and roles of people in designing. This course, which I teach together with dr.ir. Froukje Sleeswijk Visser, ir. Fenne van Doorn, dr. ir. Nynke Tromp, prof. dr. Paul Hekkert and Corrie van der Lelie, and provides a theoretical basis for designers’ insight in the contexts surrounding user-product interaction. The course runs in the Fall semester, and is a required course for SPD and DfI students.
The elective course ID5663 Contextmapping Skills deepens the theory on contextmapping provided in C&C, and trains the different skills involved in setting up, conducting, and reporting a contextmapping study for an industrial company. The course is organized in close collaboration with design agency Muzus.
Until 2013, as coordinator of the Master programme Design for Interaction, I chaired the workgroup that organizes and teaches this new(est) of IDE Master programmes. Design for Interaction is an international Master programme (started september 2003) in which the user-product interaction is placed in the center of attention. In this master programme, the central problem of design is taken as this interaction: how people use, understand, and experience products. It is closely tied to Delft’s internationally recognized research strengths in the field of user-product interaction, user experience and emotion, design methodology, and integral development of interactive products. As of 2013, its coordinator is prof. Pieter Desmet.