Currently I’m involved in the zepcam video camera project, in this project the challenge is to design a wearable video streaming device for remote workers in the Offshore. The Dutch company zepcam provides wearable video technology for police officers and fireman in the Netherlands but in the remote engineering field there are different needs and preferences to what the system needs to be and can provide for the user.

“The next zepcam will be truly intuitive in use to prevent any accidents in these extreme environments.”

The project is executed by a multidisciplinary design team, of which I’m responsible for the UX part of the designs. To design a truly feasible concept asks for a close relation ship with different stakeholders trough out the whole design process, e. g.: remote workers, client, costumers, safety departments, researchers, software & hardware engineers etc. Intensive research has been done in understanding the needs and the environment of the user and trough co-creation the user has been closely involved in the design.

Until February 2013, I cannot give any details away of the final concept because the project is still under development, but here are some preview shots and a user testing video.
 

Interactive furniture for personal warmth

This concept reduces the amount of heat lost to the surroundings, warming only in the immediate proximity to the user. By taking advantage of an inflatable heat source, the bags are able to focus the heat into the lap of the individual users.

“Your personal warmth at the dining table to reduce early morning heating costs.”

Each user can control the intensity of the heat by sliding their cup on the table. The table provides feedback via the inflation of the bags or physical contact with the legs and a halogen lamp that glows from inside the table. The metaphor  of a campfire was used to drive the social interactions of the concept, the closer you get the warmer it gets.We aim to facilitate personal warmth in the home & to question the meaning of the dining table as an everyday object, making it interactive.

For this project, we collaborated with KOMPAN, one of the largest playground manufacturers to create a play space for open ended play. Our group decided to focus on creating a play space for the street youth, as we think that it is a niche market that is worth developing on. The hangjongrens are a group of adolescent who likes to hang around with each other but they are often not able to find a place where they could do so comfortably. Hence, we felt that there was an opportunity to design a play space for these teenagers with the application of emergent play.

“ROC encourages emergent behaviour to stimulate the creative playfulness.”

The ROC consist of a system of interactive chairs in an outdoor area which enables the youth to socialist with their friends in a space that truly belongs to them. ROC encourages emergent play with various degrees of interaction, depending on how the user interacts with the chairs. The ROC reflects various  kind of personalities through the different approaches that the user interacts with the agent and it also changes the atmosphere around it in this process.

ROC is a project that focuses on open ended play with the implementation of a decentralized approach. A decentralized approach is an approach in which there is no central controlling object in the system. Instead of having a core object that controls the system, every agent is made to have their own identity and they are able to not only interact with the players but also the other objects.
 

With the introduction of the OV-chipcard for public transportation in the Netherlands came a wave of complaints about usability issues. This project studies the usability of error recovery from errors experienced with the OV-chipcard at the checking in/out poles and gates of the Dutch Railways. The study was conducted as an observational study with a staged scenario where the participants were given a malfunctioning OV-chipcard. Concluding we have identified that there are actually two main problems the participants needed to solve: Fixing the underlying problem with the card and to catch the next train despite the error. A very important issue was that participants had difficulties understanding the error messages, they were too ambiguous and did not guide the users in the right direction to solve their problem. download paper

“What users prioritise, influences their problem solving strategy and their user experience of public transportation.”

The mobile check in concept is an future concept vision in were the OV chipcard is integrated with the mobile phone by NFC technology. This allows for a much richer experience and the ability to guide the user  more successful when encountering an error. The result is a more pleasant experience and a less stressful travel.

download report

The Digiglove was designed incorporation with the german brand Schmersal, they provide safety equipment for workers on a assembly line. But still many accidents happen at these assembly lines, people even get killed because they can not reach emergency buttons quickly enough.

“The intuitive emergency button when you need it”

The Digitive glove , gives you freedom in your workflow and that extra security when you need it in emergencies. The glove is a direct feed to the emergency system of the assembly line. The glove is activated with a intuitive gesture, research showed that only one movement is natural something needs to be stopped, pulling all fingers to the back with a stretched arm. The Digitive glove is easy to take off and  placed back on other gloves for different situations. This mobility gives more freedom and saves up buying new pair of gloves each time.

Create facilitation is not a project or a concept, but it is something that trough out years I started to make my own. I can facilitate a brainstorm session, I know how to set one up and I know how to get the maximum out of some people. I have learned for various techniques and methods that open the eyes of people to creative insights, which made me confident in facilitating. I have already done many session for bigger and smaller companies; Phillips, Oasen, Oras.

“The key for a great session is not only to go crazy but, also being  able to converge the ideas to a realistic point.”

With SPEC., teenagers can communicate with their favourite hangout places, see who’s there and even talk to them. Spec. is placed trough out the city on several spots were most of the youngsters like to come and gather like, playgrounds, cinema’s, squares, skate parks or next to fast-food restaurants. Spec. provides a window into the city from out of your own room or where ever you on your mobile phone.

“SPEC. decreases the step to enter the city for youngsters by giving them a window into the city from out their own comfort zone.”

In my research, I noticed that a trend has become that after school, youngsters go home, watch tv, play online and socialise with friends on social media platforms behind the computer. Going with your friends towards the city has become a big step mainly because the just don’t know who is there. Could be junks or bullies but it could just have been your best friends playing a game of soccer.The ability to spot you friends in the city will lower the step for youngsters to go out and explore the city. And by actually communicating you can make appointments with your friends without having to send them again a text message.

Dygra stands for Dynamic Graphics and its and background app that tackles acommon problem among phone users. The question why somebody isn’t picking up his phone. While with standard apps you have to change your status manually each time.Dygra changes in a smart way and unconsciously your status which gets show by a dynamic visualisation at your friends phone. These days Calling is like ringing a doorbell,you see the lights on but your friend is not coming to the door. You don’t know what the person is doing having a shower or playing loud music. The same counts for phone users you don’t know if a person is in a meeting or cycling home and to overcome accidental voicemail costs we would like our app to focus on these situations.

“A simple dynamic representation of your friends environment.”

The background on the mobile phone will consist out of three movies that represent three friends. The mobile phone will use its gyroscopes, microphone and accelerometers in order to predict which part of the movie to play. The screen will move fluently over the movie towards each corner for unconscious and natural flow.

Albedo was a extra curricular activity, which started out of a personal frustration from DJ preformances now a days. The fact that background visuals at Dj preformances are randomnly portrayed stands in contrast to the cearfully selected and mixed music. This is  why I started the collective Albedo, a collective that consist out of 4 artist 2 DJ’s and 2 VJ’s. With the main purpose to give visuals a equal stage as the music. With albedo I tried to look for the boundries of what is a live preformance and what is a cinematography project.

“Albedo  combines prodigious visuals with an exceptional sound to create a unique experience.”

Information:

ALBEDO is the combined power of the musical and visual knowledge of Poulet, Que, Curly Jet.

Who guide you through a futuristic journey of to the most phenomenal and influential electronic music ever being composed. The sounds of the duo Poulet and Que are specifically selected and are bound to make you dance. The show is contains carefully synchronised visuals by Curly and Jet, who impact the audience through an intriguing experience.

For my Bachelor internship, I did a project for KOMPAN (the worlds largest playground manufacturer) in cooperation with dutch artist Fenneke Hordijk, designing a playground for children of the age-group 2-16 years. The playground provides children, and on a lower level parents or caretakers, with mainly 3 important aspects, namely developing language while playing, stimulating multilingualism and developing multiple intelligences such as verbal, logical/mathematical and musical/rhythmical.

“The Tune Snake is made with children for children, with the vision from an artist.”

The final concept is a combination of the ideas of Fenneke that supports the vision of Kompan. The idea is that children can play on the ‘Tune Snake’ while they will be stimulated to form words on it. By climbing on the snake and touching the different letters on it, they will light up. When a correct order of the letters is touched, thus a correct word is spelled, the snake will give a reward by confirming the word. All the sound effects are spoken by local children to increase involvement and personal attachment to the playground. The ‘Tune Snake’ is an open ended design, meaning there are no rules for games; children are free to create and play their own games stimulating creativity.