Internship report B3.104-09-17 – 22-12-17, Pezy Group Eindhoven

Company coach: Dennis van der ZaanTeacher coach: Annika Hupfeld

Internship at Pezy GroupEmmie Knoester

SummaryThis report was made to describe my internship during my B3.1 of the study Industrial Design. I did my internship at the company Pezy Group which focusses on consumer products and has an expertise in plastics. I started with a medical project but after an unforeseen short ending, I worked on a variety of projects ranging from a safety application for a solar charger to a research in user interface technologies.

IntroductionAfter my B2.2 project, I was ready for something different and to explore outside of the TU/e. I decided to do an internship to get some more practical experience and see what it can be like in the work field. I approached several companies and got in agreement with Pezy Group, an innovation agency of approximately 100 people based in different cities throughout the Netherlands. Such an agency seemed a good opportunity for me to get a view on a broader range of products. Besides, I could experience how a company works with these different professional, well-known clients and keep the business running.

The internship gave me an example of how a company can work and how they interpret design. It helped me to see what I should work on, reflect what I personally am looking for in the future and to better understand what I need at a workplace to flourish and enjoy my work.

I wanted to experience working on real-life projects with specifications and requirements from the company and the client. With Pezy Group we arranged that I could work on an individual project while joining some activities in projects of Pezy Group as well.In this way I had a common thread throughout my internship but would be able to jump in with other projects and get an overall experience of the company.

Company descriptionPezy Group is an innovation agency based in Groningen, Houten, Rotterdam, Eindhoven as well as one office in Singapore. They can offer expertise in all aspects on the development process off brands, products, and equipment. There can be distinguished six areas in which they work. • Innovation Strategy & Design• Development & Engineering• Prototyping & Demonstrators• Small Series Production• Modeling & Simulation• Industrialization & Sourcing

Their goal it to help their clients get from a great idea to a great business and do this in the five step approach.• Proposition• Demonstrators• Pilot series• Industrialization• Ramp-up

The clients they work for are usually the bigger companies such as Unilever, Philips, Beiersdorf, Dorel, TomTom and many more.

During my internship, I was based in Eindhoven but also visited all the other office in the Netherlands. I had an individual project to work on. Besides, I collaborated with employees in Eindhoven as well as Houten and Amsterdam in brainstorms and other smaller projects.

I experienced it as a friendly company where employees have a personal connection which each other and have an open and constructive attitude. A month into my internship I wrote an observation and reflection (Appendice A) about how I experienced the corporate culture and how it did compare with the work culture at the faculty.

The entrance of the Eindhoven office

Some information about Pezy Group

The six areas of expertise of Pezy Group

The five step approach

Learning goalsIn my PDP (Appendice B), I explained different goals I had for my internship which were discussed and approved (Appendice C) by my teacher coach. To get a better understanding I structured it differently and divided it into two categories.

Get experience in a design consultancyFirst of all, I choose to do an internship to gain practical experience. I want to gain insights in how a work environment can be and what a day can look like in such a company. For me, this is important because I can mirror myself with the employees and can shape an idea of what I’m looking for in the future.I choose a design consultancy because I wanted to be able to work on different projects with a great variety and keep going through this loop of designing. This fits my identity as designer, I am a curious person interested in gathering information and generating new ideas, I enjoy constantly working on new concepts. Therefore I looked for such a design consultancy that works on a broad range of products, services, and systems.

Understand the business model of an experienced design consultancyInterning at a commercial focused company can help me gain insights in how they operate to maintain a profitable business. I can see where their focus lies on, how they get new projects in and how they handle ongoing projects.

General goalsAt university, we have some contact with the industry but still are more or less in a bubble on the campus. Within projects there is less of a commercial aspects and we can more freely design in terms of the concept. I find it important to learn how a company handles this because it learns me more about the feasibility of projects.

Work to create a positive impactI find it important to use my design capabilities to create a positive impact and focus in projects on improving the quality of life. This results in an interest for social and societal focused designs. I preferably would want to work on these, in my eyes, meaningful designs that change the situation for the better.Working on projects I really care about would fit my idealistic mindset and enables me to get a more in depth vision as academic designer. I will take a user-centered design approach throughout the designing process.

Qualitative researchAs I stated before I want to focus on a societal oriented design context and take a user-centered design approach.To be more specific, I want to develop myself in the User&Society expertise area by using qualitative research methods. In a design process, I will look methods to generate qualitative insights which I can use to further develop a user-centered design.

Product realizationAnother area I want to develop myself in is product realization. In projects, I learned to rapidly prototype and make physical interactive products.During my internship, I want to learn more about realizing high-fi prototypes. I want to gain experience with CAD programs such as Solidworks, to be able to create more professional and precise product models.Besides, it can learn me more about feasibility of products when I can understand what the development of a products entails in a professional environment.

Specific goalsThis will enable me to further develop the Technology&Realization expertise area.

Specifications and requirementsAt university, we are often quite free to choose what our product will be about. If we want it to meet certain specifications and requirements it is generally defined by ourselves.During my internship, I want to experience working with specifications and requirements set by a client. When working with clients you have to meet their wishes while also surprising them with your design capabilities and still come with creative solutions. I find it important to be able to take a step back and see the bigger picture, this is for me an important skill as designer. This will improve the Creativity&Aesthetics area because you have to come up with creative solutions while keeping in mind your clients wishes.

There are some general goals that have a connection to my professional identity and vision and some more specific goals that have a connection to the expertise areas and professional skills.

OverviewMy internship took a different direction than expected. The visual shows a storyline with the projects I worked on, some experiences and important evalution moments.I will first give an overview of the process and explain the evaluation moments. In the next section you can find a more in depth description per project.

1. The start of my internship

My internship started off with the project of the development of a tear extraction device which was supposed to be the common thread throughout my whole internship. I dove into research about the topic and instead of developing the product I advised not to go through with it because of lacking evidence of the medical application. They validated my opinion and the project was cancelled. However, this meant I did not have an individual project anymore.

2. A new individual project

Therefore I had a meeting with my com-pany coach and the managing director to define a new project. They had as idea to take an irritation from daily life and develop a product for that. For me, this would not enable the goals I had, to work on real-life projects with certain requirements from clients. We looked for a different option but there weren’t a lot of running projects and it was hard to define an assignment for me. In the end, we decided that I would do research on hardware technologies for touch-based interfaces inspired by a project they were going to do, the development of a coffee machine. Unfortunately, the project didn’t go through and thus there was no direct application possibility.

3. Mid-evaluation

Towards the mid-evaluation, I looked back at my PDP and the possibilities at the com-pany. I evaluated what I should learn more about and discussed how I could do this at Pezy Group. With my company coach, we had an eval-uation (Appendice C) of how it went so far and both saw that I would be a great goal to make a physical product. This resulted in a product design assignment of a safety application for solar charge convertors.

4. A strategic project?I had a conversation with the executive director when he visited. He saw an inter-esting opportunity to do a strategic assign-ment for the company itself focusing on value propositions. I saw this as an assignment that would fit me and a possibility to learn more about strategic design. I took a pro-active ap-proach but it took a long time. In the end, I met with the people I would collaborate with and explained what my goals were and what I discussed with the executive director. However, they didn’t see a possibility for me to work along. It resulted in only doing the graphic design of the company’s maga-zine which I enjoyed but disappointed me enormous since I hoped to really develop myself in the strategic design area.

5. Rounding off

All these different projects and directions took their toll. I was searching a lot for something that would fit me as designer, I did learn a lot but I did not get the feeling I could be of value for the company. Since I first agreed on doing an eighteen week long internship, I came up with an-other product idea to work on myself that would match the company’s and my own expertise. However, at a teacher coach meeting, I discussed my struggles and was advised to round of my internship instead and take some time to recover and focus on next semester. I realized it was a bit overambitious to again start a new project and that the time-frame would only build up extra pressure. Therefore, I followed the advice and started rounding off and focusing on my report.

A visual storyline showing the activities per week of my internship, the numbers correspond with the text

ProjectsBecause of the early ending of the first project I ended up working on a variety of projects throughout my internship. In this section, I describe for each project the design challenge, process, outcomes, and the feedback I got.

Design challengeThis medical focused project fitted my goal to work on creating a positive impact and improving the quality of life. The intention of the product was to help cancer patients track and improve their acid-base balance which would have an impact on the environment of the cancer cells. This all to contravene the flourishment of the cancer cells. The product would be a tear extraction device that a user would use in their home environment to extract tears and measure the acid-base balance of that fluid. The challenge was to design a user-friendly way of doing this with the technical challenge to be able to get data from these tears. Where a medical intern had done research before me on this topic, the concept and product design would be my challenge. A follow-up intern would then take over to work on the technical prototyping.

ProcessStarting off this project I first dove into the research of the medical student. Besides, I read more scientific papers about acid-base balance in the body, the relation the cellular environment has on cancer, the relation of lifestyle and acid-base balance in the body etcetera. In short, I first focused fully on why the product should be made to then define how it could be of value and

Tear extraction device

what it should entail. However, I slowly but steady found out it was a controversial topic. Several steps in the reasoning behind the product didn’t have any evidence. For me, this made it impossible to develop the product with two main reasons. I didn’t find it ethical to make a product that cancer patients would pay for and spend their energy and time on when you don’t have any evidence it can give valuable data. Besides, I couldn’t define what the specifications of the product should be. I had no evidence to choose the right body fluid to measure and what to measure exactly.I went to Groningen to meet the medical student who did the previous research and discussed my concerns. She explained she had the same concerns and told me she had find it difficult to stay motivated to do research on this topic. Besides, she decided to not want to be involved with the possible product since she felt it could have an impact on if people would take her seriously in her medical career. I had a conversation with my company coach, the managing director of the company and an employee who had a personal interest in the topic and was the initiator of the project. I explained the concerns and said why I didn’t think I should and could make this product. I rounded it off with a presentation and a letter in which I wrote down my findings.

Feedback“When we sat together to discuss the project you killed your own project. I found it a very strong action. In a short time you had got in contact with several people, read and spoke and took the conclusion that the value proposition that was aimed for was based on a set non-validated assumption. Then your conclusion was that it was not useful to develop the product before there was done research about the assumptions. The assumptions were in an area you were not educated in and thereby your assignment stopped. That was very powerful and brave to do. The way you communicated was focused on the content and process and not on a personal relation. You seem not so focused on a personal contact and I would advise to do this differently in other assignments. To first get in contact on a personal level and then dive into the content.”

Jan Hoekstra – managing director

Further steps defined by the medical student

Own analysis used for end presentation

Projects

Design challengePezy Group was in contact with a new partner for a design of a coffee machine. It formed the inducement of this assignment for me to explore the technological aspects of user interface design for a touch-based interface. The goal was to create an overview of technical possibilities, with a focus on hardware, which can be used at the start of projects to have a kick-start in the design process. The overview has coffee machinery as inspiration but could be applied to a broader context. Unfortunately, the project of the coffee machine didn’t go through so there was no direct application of the overview. Still, it enabled me to learn about product realization which was one of my goals.

ProcessI started off doing a lot of research and gathering information about all kinds of technologies that would be interesting. Talking to people at Pezy Group I found out more topics that I could dive into or contacts to talk to and interesting products that I could look at. I browsed through some CAD files and technical drawings and dismantled some products to find out how it all worked. I went an afternoon to the Mediamarkt to find examples and where I made a lot of pictures to document the options. I had quite some struggles with keeping my interest in hardware technologies and doing a lot of research just sitting at my desk. Therefore I got some components and worked with Arduino to create some small tests such as capacitive touch and

User interface research

Feedback“You initially did a lot of wide research which resulted in a very broad overview, the first draft didn’t have a lot of structure and missed some depth. After a short discussion, you picked this up and followed with structuring and detailing. It resulted in an excellent report!”

Dennis van der Zaan – Senior project engineer & company coach

sliders which helped me to understand how it worked.I got the feedback it didn’t really add to the research and I round off my prototyping. It was required to focus on practical and simple options while my interest was more on new developing technologies. Besides, I sometimes lost myself in how it all exactly worked where they gave the feedback to focus more on practical application. After several iterations and feedback, I was able to get a good structure and make a clear visual overview in PowerPoint of the technologies which can be used by the company.

Some images used in the user interface overview

Some screenshots of the PowerPoint report

Projects

Design challengeThis assignment enabled me to work on two different goals I set: learning more about product realization in the form of working with CAD programs as well as working with specifications and requirements from a client. A client of Pezy Group has a product line of solar charge convertors. The client broadened their focus and wanted to launch their product in the United States. Because of the different regulation in the United States, there had to be developed a safety application which can be added to the product to meet the American specifications. The design challenge was to design such and add-on for which there were several requirements:• The add-on should cover the cable

connections on the top and on the front of the charge convertor

• The add-on must not be removable without tools

• The ribs of the charge convertor function as heatsink, thus airflow should be possible

The focus was on meeting these requirements as well as:• Creating a solution that could fit on

the three different models of charge convertors

• The attachment of the add-on to the charge convertor

• The form design that should fit the design of the charge convertor

ProcessThroughout my internship I already started practicing with Solidworks. I had not a lot

Safety application for solar charge convertors

Feedback“For this project, I helped you out a bit with working in CAD. I think you are already much further developed in this than when you came here. You had a difficult assignment where you had to continue with a pre-made part which was double rounded. Still, you were able to establish several proposals for that. I would just keep on practicing, by doing you learn the most and the fastest.”

Stella Weideveld – product engineer

of prior knowledge and practiced by just trying out stuff myself or following tutorials.Starting this project I started with quick sketches of different solutions. When I had an overview of a few different directions, I began making the shapes in Solidworks. I measured the dimensions of the charge convertors in the files in Siemens NX and puzzled what the similarities and differences where in the three different models of charge convertors.With my limited Solidworks experience, I had difficulties creating a fitting add-on with a similar shape as the convertors. The convertors had a difficult shape with a draft and curves in two planes. When I asked for help I got the feedback that I missed some prior knowledge and was not thinking in the same logic as the program. I needed a better foundation and worked myself through a list of Solidworks tutorials which are focused on the broad range of functions. In the end, I was not able to get to the needed level in time and couldn’t deliver a design of good quality that could be presented to the client. The employee that was responsible for the project overtook the assignment and finished it in time for the deadline.My focus was too much on how to build up the shape that I didn’t get to the actual designing of the form. I did learn a lot from practicing with this product design and was shown the design and design approach that was made for the client which gave me some insights in what I could have done better.

Results of Solidwork tutorials

The three different models of the solar charge convertor

Some iteration of add-on designs with the final option shown on the right

Projects

Design challengePezynews is the company’s magazine, only one edition was made before I started my internship. For the second edition, the goal was to improve the graphical design of the magazine as well as getting a more clear direction in the content. The articles should align with the company’s identity as well as their vision. My responsibility became the graphical design of the whole magazine which I did individually. Besides, I collaborated and brainstormed about the content and article ideas.

ProcessI started this project off with gathering inspiration from existing magazines that were laying around as well as inspiration from Pinterest and online graphic design. Then I used some first content we had, to form some ideas and made some sketches. I started working out some spreads to discover what did and didn’t work and created a master-page and stramien to have a consistent style throughout the magazine. Then the articles and visual content came in which I quickly fitted in the template I built. Per article, I puzzled a clean lay-out to fit the text and visual elements. Difficult in the process was the different stakeholders involved with different opinions. I put a lot of energy in convincing them of certain decisions and to preserve the quality of the visual part of the magazine. On the day it was supposed to go to the printer the company director decided that the cover, which was made beautifully by

Pezynews

Feedback“It was positive to work with you on Pezynews. You actively participated and came with useful input for the magazine. The process was complicated because of multiple stakeholders. You conveyed your opinion in a convincing way to the other team members but be aware that you keep open-minded towards opinions of others. Besides, your graphical experience was of great value, the magazine looks stylish. In the future, it would be better if you show more flexibility. With setbacks you can show a more positive attitude towards possible solutions.”

Bart Otten – Marketing and communication

an employee, did not fit the message he wanted to carry out. I was quite devastated and had difficulties accepting this decision. However, after all the last minute changes had been done and the magazine was printed to be released at the Christmas party I was quite happy with how it all turned out.

A few pages from Pezynews

Projects

Design challengeThere were a few new projects that came in during my internship. For four projects I joined the first explorations and did some research up front to prepare for the actual project. This meant to come up with ideas for the product and visualize this in the forms of sketches and gathering images that could be shown to the client to discuss the options. The different products included a new cooking device, a redesign of a kitchen aid, an innovative sun-shade solution and a challenge named ‘What design can do’ focused on societal problems.

ProcessIn this different projects, I went through a similar process. I brainstormed individually or in group-form about interesting directions, looked for inspiring images and defined problems for which I tried to come up with solutions including drawings and explanations. This learned me more about the ‘formgiving’ of product design and different methods and techniques in this area. For instance, I worked with a morphological analysis to split up a product in small functions for which we brainstormed for solutions. This helped to break free from the context and come up with a broader range of creative solutions. This experience and methods I learned helped me to develop myself in the Creativity&Aesthetics area.

Project preparation

Feedback“For two projects we did a mini-brainstorm together. You came up with very useful inspiration images and concept directions. You participated actively and was not scared to tell your ideas. Besides, you listened carefully to others and filled in where possible.”

Stella Weideveld – product engineer

Concept directions with images for inspiration used for the brainstorm for sunshade solutions

Feature exploration for the redesign of the kitchen aid

ExperiencesBesides the projects I worked on the general experience in the company taught me a lot as well. I visited the different offices in the Netherlands and saw the different expertises they had. During the two days in Amsterdam, I experienced how they work on brand strategy projects and was able to get a peek into the work they do. In Houten, they work on more professional products for industry while Eindhoven and Groningen are more focused on consumer products. In Groningen, I visited the workplace where they took the time to give me a tour and explained the steps of creating plastic products. In Eindhoven, there was a specialist in the plastics area who did a lot of mold flow simulations. He explained to me how

there were four areas in which you could make changes to troubleshoot and find the best option to create a product. Another employee was focused on small mechanic solutions. He had parts laying everywhere and once in a while explained some of the solutions he came up with. Pezy Group was standing at a plastic fair where I visited and learned about innovations in the plastic industry. Besides, I visited a metal workplace to get a prototype that was made and where again they took the time to give me a tour and explain how they worked and realized metal products.It was very insightful to see this practical sight of design where at study we focus more on a concept part.

The stand of Pezy Group at the plastic fair

AcknowledgementsI want to thank Dennis van der Zaan for his feedback and coaching. Annika Hupfeld for the listening ear and great advice when I lost the overview and had difficulties making decisions. Besides, I want to thank Jan Hoekstra for validating my opinion and giving me the freedom to stop the

medical focused project. Stella Weideveld for the friendly help with different projects throughout my internship. And the rest of the Eindhoven team for creating this friendly and open environment to work in.

AppendicesAn the following page you can find the apppendices including:• A: Company culture• B: Personal Development Plan• C: Formal approval• D: Mid-evaluation• E: End-evaluation• F: Reflection• G: Future focus

Appendix A: Company cultureObservationWhat I see at Pezy Group is that there is a personal approach. All people are friendly and communicative and treat each other with respect whatever job or tasks they do. There’s an open atmosphere where you can approach anyone for help or just a talk whatever position they have. They built on trust and give the freedom to work independently on projects. People often have individual projects where they work on and have contact with clients for. They all have their own expertise where they have respect for each other for and help each other with different aspects. I was encouraged to go to the other offices Pezy Group has as well. I am based in Eind-hoven but already have been to the office in Groningen and Amsterdam as well. Houten is the fourth and last one which I’m plan-ning to visit as well. I saw that each office has an own direction and micro corporate culture. Groningen is the main office where they have the biggest projects and have an over-view of the other offices as well. Eindhoven is a smaller office with the same product fo-cus as Groningen and sometimes feels a bit left out it seems. They are more focused on just doing their job. There are a lot of me-chanical design schooled employees and product design schooled employees. Am-sterdam is more into the front of the design process. They work more on branding and strategic design and in my opinion are the most ‘designerly’. They are a bit more free and ambitious. Houten is more mechanical design and is more in the realization phase of designs.

ReflectionFor me, I am especially glad that there’s no controlled feeling. I get room to speak out my opinion which is being appreciated and direct my own learning path. Although the downside of this is that I don’t get struc-tured direction but have to find out it my-self. What I sometimes observe in Eindhoven is an attitude where people say, ‘they wouldn’t listen to me anyway’. And ‘we never get that sort of tasks’. I dislike this passive attitude and in a future company I would like to work in an environment where everyone actively participates and is being heard.

ComparisonWhat I see at university is that there is no point where you can say you can stop and that you’ve done enough. There is looked at what you’ve done and achieved and not how much work that was. In a work environment it is accepted that you can’t do more. With deadlines employees some-times still work late at night but generally they do what they can and then it is okay and appreciated.Besides, there is a better structure. Em-ployees do one thing at the time usually individually. At university there are always different projects going one and different groups to meet up with. On the one hand I like the more peaceful structured approach but the chaotic side of weaving all projects throughout each other creates a more crea-tive process.

Appendix B: Personal Development PlanVision & IdentityI’m Emmie,an idealistic, idea-generating, analytic, color-loving, design student.Driven to design products, services, and systems I would love to use myself, I en-tered the world of design by starting the study Industrial Design at Eindhoven Uni-versity of Technology.I got inspired about how small design in-itiatives can contribute to a better world. It can bring joy to people’s lives and can contribute to facing problems in fields such as sustainability, education or healthcare.I’m interested in finding to unravel prod-ucts, services or systems to find the core value and use this to tell a coherent sto-ry. I want to focus my design capacity on creating meaningful designs that have a problem-solving function and that people love to use. With my idealistic personality and critical view, I would love to send out positive messages by integrating technical and creative skills in design interventions. I want to design for the world of the future we all want to live in.

Choice of learning activity and work con-textAs learning activity for my B3.1 semester, I want to do an internship at a design com-pany in Europe. Hereby I can apply my de-sign skills and knowledge in a real context and learn from practical experience what it is like to work at a company. I’m applying for different internships but the common thread is that I’m seeking for companies with a broad range of products, services or systems. In the future, I would like to work at a design consultancy that works with clients on different projects. This is because I like to keep challenging myself with new projects and love to work

in a multi-disciplinary team. To me, this great variability of projects is exciting to work on. Therefore I would want to get experience with working on a great variability of prod-ucts and learn about different application areas. Working with clients would learn me more about meeting requirements and dealing with different interests of different stakeholders. Preferably I want to work on social or soci-etal focused designs and focus on meaning-ful designs. This would fit with my idealistic vision and enables me to work on topics I really care about and that have an impact to change the world for the better. I would like to work within a diverse de-sign team with people with different back-grounds and disciplines. Hereby I can break the Industrial Design bubble I’m in at uni-versity and learn other ways to approach design projects. I can help me to find what my core value is as a designer and what my stronger and weaker points are. I have to deal with expectations and responsibilities and thereby can test what I’m really worth. This will help me to develop myself person-ally and be more confident about my iden-tity as an academic designer.

DevelopmentI have three main learning goals I want to focus on during my internship. It will de-pend on the company’s expertise and need to define how my focus will be divided over these learning goals during my internship.

Social and societal designI find it most important to find an intern-ship that fits my vision and where I can work on projects I care about. I want to get experience with working in a societal context and focus on creating innovative

meaningful designs. Hereby I can learn more about user-centered design and how to create a certain impact with your design on society. I will do this by focusing on working in a societal context with users or stakeholders and apply qualitative research methods during the design process. This will help to develop myself in the User & Society com-petency and helps to develop my vision and identity as well.

High-fi prototypingAnother skill I would like to develop is prototyping. In projects, I learned to rap-idly prototype by for example going to the workshop to build mechanical prototypes or build circuits and program it in Arduino or Processing to make it interactive. During my internship, I want to learn more about realizing high-fi prototypes and work with computer controlled machinery. To get experience with CAD programs will make me able to create more developed, profes-sional, and precise prototypes that commu-nicate better what the product will be like. This helps to test and develop the product. This will help to develop myself in the Tech-nology & Realization competency.

Feasible and valuable focused designsIn projects, I developed myself to quickly generate ideas. At the university however we are quite free to choose the direction of our project and what we want to realize. I’m curious to learn more about creating feasible designs and see how professionals make strategic design choices. I want to further develop my idea generat-ing skills and work out realistic and feasible designs which are of value for the company. I can do this by working with specifications of a client or company. It will learn me to find the core value of a product, system or service. And I can learn how to tell a cohesive story to communicate this value proposition to the company. This will help to develop myself in the Creativity & Aes-thetics and Business & Entrepreneurship competencies.

Appendix C: Formal approval

Appendix D: Mid-evaluationFeedback Dennis van der Zaan – Company coachWe’ve not had the time nor project to real-ly work together, therefore it is difficult to have a good impression on how working together with Emmie would be. By what I’ve seen from Emmie I think it would be a good cooperation based on equality. Emmie is not afraid to ask questions nor to criticize. She puts herself on the right level (not sub-ordinate nor superior) in discussions.

Emmie’s most visible strength is her crit-icism. Each objective or assignment is carefully looked at before it is carried out. This lead to the stop of an assignment which had been prepared by previous in-terns. Their work could lead to this conclu-sion, but Emmie could have simply done as asked, which would have resulted in a product without a business case.

This same strength is also Emmie’s weak-ness. I think it’s hard for Emmie to step over her ideals and principles. This is often need-ed when working for third parties.A second weakness I’m beginning to de-tect is technical depth. Emmie has done a great job investigating ways to create a user interface, but finds it hard to convert this into technical pro’s and con’s or benefits for the producer. She reasons from the user’s perspective.I guess this is a matter of experience. Also it would be good to create a goal of a physical product to make this technical background more tangible. Benefit would also be that this way a better link could be made to Emmie’s personal development plan (especially step technology and reali-zation).

What kind of designer Emmie will become I

find very hard to say. Judging by the school projects I’ve seen and Emmie’s interest in the business case behind the project I would expect this to be more in the project lead or architect role. On the other hand she is very eager to dive into the more tech-nical details (CAD, Arduino, prototyping), therefore I wonder if her previous work is a matter of choice or coincidence.

ReflectionThe characteristics my project coach de-scribes relate quite closely to the image I have of myself. During previous evaluation moments during projects and extra-curric-ular activities it always came to the surface that I’m quite sharp with my criticism. I am aware that this is both a good thing as a bad thing. Since I really value critical re-views on projects I keep this critical review and think it is hard to find a way to lose the negative aspects of it. I really need to see the value of something that I’m doing to be able to do that. This internship helps me to realize that with projects from third parties you don’t always have a choice. The approach I try to take now, is to find an aspect within it which does align with my ideals and principles to help me motivate. This can for example be the skills I gain that I can apply later on in another project. During my internship I did start to realize that I for now still miss some technical depth as my coach describes. I have now gain the insight that instead of bridging the gap between producer and user, I only take the user’s perspective. While a user-cen-tered design approach is not bad, I do need to focus on the production side to be more realistic and be able to design more feasi-ble products.

It’s good feedback to force myself to devel-op a physical prototype to gain practical experience in the production phase.What I am still figuring out is which direc-tion I want to go. Where first I had a quite focused path I wanted to take as designer, now I’m not that sure anymore. I’m won-dering if I’ve focused on business cases of a product because I’m interested in that or because I don’t yet have the confidence and skills to realize a technical design. My goal for now is to develop myself broadly into all expertise areas, where I need to focus on technology and realization since that is still a bit behind. Then I can better define my strengths as well as interests to more confi-dent choose a future path.

Appendix E: End-evaluationInternship

Appendix F: Reflection Identity & VisionMy main general learning goal was gaining practical experience to further develop my professional identity and vision.I expected my curious identity focused on idea generating to fit with the way of working of a design consultancy. However, at Pezy Group I experienced they start later in the design process and have their expertise in the realization of products. Personally, I missed being involved with concept development. Where I have a quite idealistic vision I did have trouble having an affinity with the consumer-focused products they work on. Besides, I felt they were focused on maintaining a profitable business that their vision was slightly suppressed. It was very insightful and this experience helped me see how my identity and vision would stand in a professional environment. I experienced I’m focused on more abstract, larger concepts than these specific product projects.

CompetenciesMy specific learning goals were in the Creativity&Aesthetics and Technology&Realization area. The main projects I did were all in these areas and with Pezy Group’s expertise, it helped me see how they as professionals handled this. As my company coach mentioned I was mainly focused on interaction and appearance and less on the technical side. Therefore the UI research project and the product design for the safety application taught me to broaden my focus to technical and engineering parts. I worked with Solidworks and specifications to develop a product application. Besides these skills, as my company coached mentioned, I learned

a lot from the daily contact with colleagues. They focus on a different side of design with I was not yet familiar with, it was very insightful to see what it entails. It learned me more about the realization of products and what important aspects are during this development part.Where the brainstorms I did for several projects helped me develop the Creativity&Aesthetics area on a more professional level. While I was familiar with the ideation phase I now experienced it in the context of working with the client’s specifications and requirements. I learned to come up with creative ideas but with a practical focus on feasibility.

Professional skillsThe feedback from different people in the company taught me a lot. They were very positive about the quality of my deliverables but did see improvement points in my way of communicating.One person gave me the feedback that I’m strong verbally but that it did not match my non-verbal communication. He found it too assertive and said I should be more modest and give more attention to making a personal connection instead of the content.I did experience it before that I take a businesslike approach and find it hard to have a personal, light conversation while discussing some, for me important content. This is what I can work on upcoming half-year where I’ll be working in a student team about social entrepreneurship. Here, I can practice discussing important topics while keeping a friendly, open atmosphere.

Appendix G: Future focusI have decided to take a half year of extra time to further develop myself before starting my Final Bachelor Project. Therefore instead of explaining my plan for my FBP I will explain why I made this decision and what I plan to do in this half year of extra time.

First of all, I feel a bit lost and don’t know what I want to do as project for my FBP. I lost my focus and vision so I find it hard to choose a direction and define learning goals. During my internship I lost a bit of my passion for design and I want to take some time to find this back before diving in this new project. I now experience everything a bit heavy and dealing with unforeseen difficulties takes a lot of my energy and has an immediate impact on my mood. I experienced this during my internship as well as during my 2.2 project that I can less enjoy the design process. I need to personally develop myself and find a way to cope with the problems I experience now. I feel like I miss the confidence and relaxed attitude to design, especially in an individual project you need some trust in your own capability. Besides, I want to have a more developed PI&V and skillset to start my FBP with. Because of these different points I cannot make the most of this project if I would begin with this in February.

Therefore, I made a different plan for the upcoming half year. I want to have some room to be able to discover what I enjoy and what my strengths are as designer. I have some skills that I want to de-velop. I choose the elective ‘digital craftsmanship’ to develop my prototyping skills and ‘intercultural design’ to learn more about designing for a social or cultural context. These courses are both in the fourth quartile. In the third quartile I will follow the planned core course and probably as student assistant for a PhD to learn more about research. Besides these activities I will work for the new student team Enactus focused on social entrepre-neurship and will become chief text of the study association’s magazine the UNiD. These activities will both be more focused on the professional skills and meta-skills.

In this way I hope to get some rest, find my focus as designer, develop myself a bit further to be able to continue with my study after that.