DRAG
I'm
an
interactive
visitor
experience
expert.
| Portfolio
I'm a design engineer with a hands-on art background. Specializing in interactive visitor experiences for museums and amusement parks. I have a practical can-do mentality and love to build in the workshop and with the computer. In the last years I have worked on my network in this sector and love to work on exhibits and exhibitions.
Currently I am graduating with design research about interactive visitor experiences and found that there are categories for experiences that can have opposite visitor values. To translate this know-how into practice I am developing a workshop with practical actions for on the work floor. After graduation I'm looking for a job at a company that wants to innovate the interactive visitor experience, both physical and digital.
I'm an interactive visitor experience expert. I specialise in creating immersive visitor experiences that inspire and engage the audience.
Sint Lucas Boxtel:
Product, fair, shop and theatre carpenter MBO.
Design Academy Eindhoven:
Man and Motion/Mobility BACHELOR of Design.
Eindhoven University of Technology:
Industrial Design Pre-Master and MASTER.
Track: Design, Leadership & Entrepreneurship.
Expertise Areas: Technology and Realisation, Business and Entrepreneurship
Museums, amusement parks and fairs need to embrace technology to implement digital layers in physical experiences. User experience of visits to museums, amusement parks and fairs can be enriched through technology with evolving or surprising factors. I target the physical experience interaction specifically because people have senses (taste, smell, vision, hearing, and touch) that are for physical actions. The more senses triggered in an experience the better the experience is remembered [1, 2]. Furthermore, a physical experience doesn’t have a single perspective, it is directed by the visitor what makes a story unique.
Extraordinary experiences make the visitor feel part of the story that the theme park wants to convey. User experience designers who work on assignments for museums and amusement parks return to what they know and tend to recycle the same design for different clients. This results in a repeated user interaction where only the visual aesthetics are alternated, what can be nice in the business perspective but not from innovation perspective for interaction design.
The framework created during my master could help to abstract, structure and together with the influence of interaction design theories can help people in the industry to innovate and create surprising designs. I believe designers are responsible for engaging the visiting experience. Moreover, I am convinced that through the right value creation, companies can be supported in design or innovative, surprising interactive visitor experience, what eventually leads to more visitors and a successful business.
References:
[1] Clarke, L., Hornecker, E., & Ruthven, I. (2021b). Fighting Fires and Powering Steam Locomotives: Distribution of Control and Its Role in Social Interaction at Tangible Interactive Museum Exhibits. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445534
[2] King, L. A., Stark, J. M., & Cooke, P. S. (2016). Experiencing the Digital World: The Cultural Value of Digital Engagement with Heritage. Heritage and Society, 9(1), 76–101. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159032x.2016.1246156
The more senses triggered in an experience the better the experience is remembered. [1, 2]
The decision to choose Interaction Design in amusement parks and museums as a leading topic for my master at Industrial Design, evolved from my experience and background in artistic product, fair, shop and theatre building and my use of play in design concepts. I wish to become an expert in physical interactive experience design for amusement parks and museums. With my previous education, I had little understanding of the technical side of experience design. However, hardware and programming are a big part of almost every innovative experience. Thus, I choose to focus on the digital layer during the master. I believe there are many design opportunities for future visiting experiences driven by programs and electronics.
Together with my making skill I can make a physical and digital experience become one design (see figure 1 the Alien Egg). An experience design also needs to include visitor perspectives and awareness of the business context, that is why I kept close contact to the companies that I got to know before this study by inviting them to expert interviews and workshops. To intergrate all stakeholder values into one experience design that has physical and digital aspects, creative skills and an open mind.
See the figure 2 what makes an interactive visitor experience.
I choose interaction design in amusement parks and museums as a leading topic for my master's to research with the skills of my artistic design and carpentry background.
From a young age I always wanted to become an inventor, from building treehouses, drawing maps or bridges and participating in the Benz motor course for kids. Slowly I discovered that inventors are now often called designers, thus I followed first the practical junior college at Sint Lucas for in product/fair/shop/theatre building followed by a bachelor at Design Academy. On both educations I learned all about the materials, machines and visitor central concepts. But I wanted to focus on interactive installations and that is when I applied for the TU/e Industrial design.
I proudly can say that I am a designer with a hands-on background and a technical interest. My designs grow in the workshop and combine technology and aesthetic experiences. I love to create surprising and physical interactions. As you can see in Office in Motion (Figure 3), body movements control a game. I get inspired by interactions that tell a story to the user and believe physical experiences will always be more valuable for people than digital.
As a self-directed learner, I am intellectual strict with myself. My power is that I do not give up on a question and am fully committed to my concept. I am inspired by all the possibilities of recognition an AI/ML algorithm can have. That is why I directed a bachelor graduation project towards an ML art project that evolved into ModernMasters (Figure 4). Working on ModernMasters I learned the basic principles of training a model. With never having a lesson about this buzzing technology, I showed some extreme (graduating during the COVID lockdown) self-directed learning skills and a determent mindset.
At TU/e I focused on an integrative approach to learning by following the department courses in MD&C. Here I realized I have to draw on my making skills and apply them to new experiences with electronics and methods what enabled me to create more complex interactive designs.
This section is about the Expertise Areas (EA), where I include my link to my Professional Identity and Vision (PI&V), Final Master Project (FMP), followed by courses and my overall development and growth in the EA. Read about the FMP project called the Interaction Strategy Framework (ISF) here.
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