Donovan Lewis
Growth
Competency development
Old PDP
New PDP
Reflection Old PDP
Core competencies
  • Ideas & Concepts (IC)
    IC is about developing good ideas and after that a concept by using a variety of creative techniques, such as co-creation, brainstorming and researching. IC is actually a major part of the beginning of the design process. This phase ,where you need to choose for a certain concept, I find very difficult because it also means that you need to let go of some concepts which took a lot of time and effort to conceptualize. “Kill your darlings” is a hard thing to do for me. I have experienced this myself during my assignment and my project. It is hard to decide which one is the most interesting to concept to develop further. I then learned that it is important that everyone on the project team feels comfortable with the decision, because if not it will get difficult to make the next steps in the process because the team members who do not feel comfortable with the concept will more likely not be able to understand certain actions and choices made by others. I will definitely want to spend more time in this competency next semester and especially in th design phase because during my assignment with Philips I learned that this is the most important phase of the design process and that you need to spend a lot of time in this phase to come up with a good concept. Something I haven't done with my last project.
  • Integrating Technology (IT)
    This competency is about integrating and using intelligent systems in the whole design process. This is an important competency because with integrating technology you can make intelligent and smart designs. After the introduction lecture about IT I immediately bought an Arduino, because I was curious about the possibilities of this micro controller. I think it’s important to have some knowledge and skills about the Arduino, because they are small, powerful, cheap, relativity easy to program and therefore great to integrate in your prototypes. I started with powering LED's and controlling them in different ways, because we were going to use that in our project and I was curious what an Arduino was capable off. In the end I wrote a program code which controlled the LED’s in our project. I developed this competency quite well this semester because I was responsible for the prototype of our project which involved some basic electronics. So I have no plans to develop this competency even more next semester. I think it is more important to focus on the other competencies which I did not develop this semester.
  • User Focus & Perspective (UFP)
    UFP is all about observing and getting to know the needs of your potential user to make a good user-focused design. You need to do field research and communicate a lot with your user to get the information you need to getting to know your user and his/her or their needs. Only then you are able to make good designs. During the last semester I did not focus very much on this competency. I in my next project I want to do much more on UFP by involving the end user more in the design process somehow, right from the beginning.
  • Social Culture Awareness (SCA)
    SCA is something which you need to take into account during the whole design process. Things like design, art, history, social trends and sustainability are very important factors which can influence your design greatly. I haven't developed this competency this semester because my teammate was focusing on this part of the project. But I have already developed a bit of awareness in this competency in high-school by following the subject art history. The many different art styles which we discussed gave me some insights in why things are being built in some specific way or how certain events influenced ideas A good example is Unité d'Habitation designed by Le Corbusier. This is a building where people can live, work and relax. That means that you can find apartments, shops, offices, recreation facilities and more in the same building. This idea about have everything you need in one building failed because people did get the feeling that they don't have their one space because public shops and the places were located in the same building. It resulted that many of them moved. This is the reason that architects were frightened to try this concept again. This causes that people become aware of the fact that you actually need to separate work, home and recreation to live happily. This wouldn't happen if they did not tried it out. Coming semester I want to become more aware of SCA by also researching the social trends which are linked to my next project.
  • Designing Business Processes (DBP)
    Designing products and services is relatively easy in comparison with actually puttinh them on the global market and make them successful and profitable due to a good business plan. DBP is about combining the two to come to good designs. There are certain tools, for example the business canvas mode or a stakeholder map which can help you in this process. I have already developed quite some awareness in this competency. I learned very much from my old job were I worked as a salesman. Because the company was very small I also had a lot of contact with the financial department were I learned a lot about why companies decides to sell or sell not certain products. I used this experience took look from a more business view to my projects then a designer view to see if the product is interesting enough to invest in, Besides that I started with my assignment Corporate Entrepreneurship and Design (DG516) because I think that is of great importance to learn how to get people to invest into your project if you want that your project is going to be big and successful. Also I want to learn more about designing for a real company and everything what it takes to do this good. All in all I think it is not necessary to focus on this competency coming semester.
  • Form & Senses (FS)
    This is a competency about the actual look, feel, taste, smell or sound of your product or service. This is the part were the designer decides what kind of sense or experience he or she wants to trigger by the end user. This causes that you have to make a lot of “prototypes” in the different senses to decide which combination of “prototypes” is the best combination. I immediately start to make some first sketches which were related to my project. I did this for my project but also to develop my sketching skills. After I made some sketches I choose some of them and used them as reference material when I made some 3D-models in SolidWorks. It helped me to communicate with others about the idea and the concept, because I think the images tell also a great part of the story. Also the lecture about FS taught me that you need to “make” or have things related to your concept to experience your concept and your designs you made yourself. This is to get a better feeling about the concept With that in the back of my mind I started with our prototype for our project. I started with experimenting with materials. How do they look and how do they feel were question which I tried to answer. After that I spoke with an expert about what his thoughts were on my design and what the best way is to make it. I learned a lot about prototyping by doing this. I learned the most that by doing and by trying out some different ideas about your prototype you will find a proper solution to make your prototype or find the proper materials you need. I don’t want to focus on FS coming time, because I think I made some great progress in developing this competency last semester.

 

Meta competencies
  • Teamwork & Communication (TC)
    TC is important. Not only in the context of the design process is this important, but it is also important for you as a person. Your whole life you need to work with other people and discuss and present things to get things properly done. Also a professional attitude is needed to have a good impression on people so they believe that you are serious about your business so they have a good feeling while working with or for you. During my first project I had some difficulties regarding with teamwork and communication. Certain team members didn’t show up, didn’t finish their work on time or didn’t do their work properly. This resulted in that I did too much work in the end, because I did much of their work again. After a discussion with my coach I realized that I need to give some responsibilities out of hands and just focus on my own responsibilities and own work. This was first very hard, but after some time it became a more natural and especially relaxing way of working which I want to continue during next projects which involve teamwork. I learned that at some moments it's best to set goals for yourself beside the goals you have set with the team to be able to make some progress with the project even if the teamwork is not there. Planning moments to discuss with the team about why things aren't going as planned is also solution which can improve the teamwork. We discussed things which were going wrong and how to improve them. Next time when I encounter problems with teamwork I will sooner show this to my team members and discuss this to improve the situation.
  • Design & Research Processes (DRP)
    Where most of the competencies are about a single part of the design process, this competency is about the process itself. Plan, perform and reflect are besides research and reasoning (explaining the choices you made with good argumentation) the key elements of this competency. What I learned is that the design process is not static but a dynamic process. After each step you look back and ask yourself if it was the right step. If it wasn’t the right step you go back and do it over. It could also happen that you go several steps back at once if it’s necessary. This only works well if you reflect good on the decisions you made. There was a point in our project were we looked back and reflected on our decisions to determine if we made the right choices and if we were still right on track. I learned much from that moment because It was new for me to look back to determine if we were on track. So in the future I want to look back after each milestone and not after we got stuck in the design process. A design schedule which is based on a continuous and steady flow of deliverables will help me to develop DRP.
  • Self-Directed & Continuous Learning (SCL)
    SDL is about ASK. ASK which stands for attitude, skill and knowledge is very important in this study, because this study is based on the fact that you are a proactive (attitude) designer which keeps on developing his skills and knowledge to be always up to date with your designs. I expected that it was difficult to be a proactive designer because I was used to the fact that people told you what to do to become better in something. But it turned out not to be that hard. I am very interested in everything, I just want to do everything. I don’t need to be proactive because I am already a quite proactive person. The next semester I want to focus on the knowledge part. I want to know more details about different things for example the use of different colors or very important designs which changed a lot in the design world and/or our day-to-day world.
  • Descriptive and Mathematical Modeling (DMM)
    The competency DMM is about using mathematical models and certain mathematics in your research and designs. I thought that DDM was going to be a difficult competency, because the course calculus was part of DMM and calculus was a difficult course. Although I passed calculus I didn’t feel the need to apply DDM on my project. I didn’t find any good opportunity to apply these skills in a project until now. Maybe it’s due to the fact that I am currently have a project in the Nano Supermarket which is more about conceptual thinking and so relatively speculative. In the future, I need to look for opportunities or create opportunities to be able to apply these skills of this competency.
© Donovan Lewis | Design: Donovan Lewis