PDP
Personal Development Plan
Semester B2.1/2 By: Charlotte van der Sommen - s109229 - 0743683 Coach: Gabriella Bustamante
Table of Content
Vision
Page 2
Identity
Page 3
Activities
Page 4
Growth
Page 5
Future
Page 7
C-verdict
Page 8
Reflecting plan
Page 9
Vision
Design is improving life. Ether it is meant to help disabled people, to make people more aware or to make people live happier. As designer I see myself as a life improver. I want to make functional products. To me the service, system or thoughts behind a product is more important that the form or looks. For me it is very important that a product is easy and logical in use. Abstract products can be very inspiring but I will never be happy to create these kind of products myself. Life should become easier, more logical, happier, more complete, more aware, without concerns and accessible.
Page 2
I see the world in a very positive way. I see the positive side of everything in my surroundings. When I am working I tend to build structure around me. I create to-do lists and documents during my design process. By doing this I get an overview of my activities and development. I am an open-minded and social person. Things around me do not easily get grip on me, meaning I listen to others opinions. Although I am interested in their thoughts, I always choose my on path in the end. The result of my structured mindset lets me classify the influences in order for me to decide what is important to me. Finally I can say I’m a dreamer. During the day I often get sunken into my own thoughts. It can go into all directions and is not always related to my current activity or to something what is happening around me. It helps me to come up with out of the box ideas that help me a lot in my ideation process.
Page 3
Identity
Activities
DP148 – Growing Systems
This project was my third chose of project, I plan on doing a project that was focused on “Business Process Design”. For that reason I haven’t many other activities in which I develop my “Business Process Design” skill. In my project I will put the focus on “Integrating Technology”, “Ideas & Concepts” and “User Focus & Perspective”. I plan on developing my ideas and context by experimenting and building instead of choosing the concept and user-group before the ideation phase.
DG622 - Exploring Intuitive and Aesthetic Interaction
I choose the assignment “Exploring Intuitive and Aesthetic Interaction” because I plan on developing the competency area “User Focus & Perspective” and because I want to learn more about interaction design. I also hear that it is a very valuable assignment from fellow students that already did this assignment.
DG309 - Co-reflection
The reason I choose the assignment “Co-reflection” is because I want to develop the competency areas “Design & Research Processes” and “User Focus and Perspective”. I also want to practice my critical thinking and I thing this assignment is perfect for me to do that.
Extracurricular activities
For my extra curricular activities I plan on doing four activities. - Making my portfolio and finding an internship. This will be necessary to find an internship for my next semester. You can read more about my internship in “Future”. - Learning to make 3D prototype in the computer. I want to learn to work with Solidworks, or a realted 3D render program. I think this is an important tool for a designer. In order to improve my design portfolio for my internship I want to be able to make 3D models. - An activity to develop the competency Design and Business processes, since I wasn’t able to put my focus on this competency area in my project. (see “DBP”) - Making the financial account of the Ludic. (The bar of s.v.i.d. Lucid)
Page 4
Growth
Depth
Awareness
I&C
IT
UF&P
SCA
DBP
I&C
For this semester I plan on developing the competency Ideas & Concepts within my project and my two assignments. For my project I want to create ideas by making and experimenting instead of already choosing a concept and user. For my assignments I plan on learning new ways to create concepts. IT
Page 5
I want to develop the competency area “Integrating Technology” within my project by building a lamp and practicing a lot with sensors, arduino and leds, in order to be able to make a low-fi electronic prototype myself. I will also develop a little in this competency area by making my portfolio, so practicing with HTML and CSS.
F&S
DRP
DMM
T
C
SD&CL
UF&P
I plan on developing the competency area “ User Focus & Perspective” within my project and my two assignments. In my project I plan on testing my low-fi prototypes with users. This way I hope to learn how to ask the right questions when testing with prototypes. I’m learning how to design interactive products for users in my assignment “Exploring intuitive and aesthetic interaction”. For my assignment “Co-reflection” I plan on learning how to design for the client in collaboration with the client. SCA
I plan on developing the competency area “Social Cultural Awareness” in my project by doing a new not context-focused project.
Growth
I will also develop this competency area by arranging my internship. I will search for companies and will learn how design companies communicate their profession and what difference there is between Dutch and abroad design companies. DBP
Because I haven’t got my first choice of project, which was focused on the competency area “Design Business Processes” I also haven’t chosen an assignment about this competency area. I plan on doing a business-focused activity during the RSDL-weeks in order to develop this competency area. I don’t know yet what exactly but I will discuss this with my coach.
search together with the client in order to improve the product. DMM
I plan on developing the competency area “Descriptive Mathematical Modeling” within my project by creating a complex growing system. I also plan on developing this competency area by making the final account of the Ludic (bar of s.v.i.d. Lucid) and by improving the financial model of the bar. T
Within my project I have to work together in a team to come up with a system. This way I will develop the competency area “Teamwork”.
F&S
For this semester I plan on developing the competency area Form & Senses within my project by making a lamp and within my assignment “Exploring Intuitive and Aesthetic Interaction” by learning about Aesthetics in interactions. Finally I will develop this competency area when learning how to make 3D models.
C
By communicating with my team members and my coach I plan on developing the competency “Communication” within my project. Also I will be searching for an internship for my next semester wherefore I will have to approach companies. I expect finding an internship will help me to develop this competency area.
DRP
For my project I plan on testing the interaction with my prototypes. This way I will develop the competency area “Design Research Processes”. I will also develop this competency area within the assignment “Co-reflection”. I will learn how to do re-
SD&CL
For the competency area “Self directed & continuous learning” I will develop in all my activities during this semester, especially within my RSDL-activities.
Page 6
Page 7
My next semester I will do my 3.1 semester. I plan on doing an internship at a design company since I want to work in a company or even have my own company when I’m finished studying. I think it is very valuable to already get insight in the important constraints of companies in order to complete my view on design companies and to ensure my choice of company for my future job.
By reading my vision and identity you will see I’m more interested in solving real problems like coming up with solutions for people that for instance have roof above their heads instead of coming up with luxury products. Because I would like to experience a project focused on that ‘real problems’ I want to do my internship in a third world country where this kind of problems occurs a lot.
I’m more a service designer than a product designer so I would like to do my internship in a company that focus more on service design.
During my internship I hope to strengthen my vision and I hope it will be clearer for me what I would like to do after my study at Industrial Design.
Future
C-Verdict
Conditional: Perform 3 iterations of (re)writing your identity and vision and consult with your coach (and maybe another expert, to get another opinion) to improve your written identity and vision and to make it more personal. My Plan: My three iterations will be: 1. For my PDP (14-03-13) 2. During the RSDL-weeks (I will also find an expert to discuss my vision and identity) (16-04-13) 3. A few weeks before I have to finish my showcase (13-06-13) I will discuss with my coach how to do these iterations.
Page 8
During my last assessment I realized my reflections need to improve, that is why I made a reflection plan: I had a meeting with an expert on reflecting (Migchiel van Diggelen) and together with him I made a plan on how to attack my problems with reflecting. We discus that together with my coach I should formulate what is a good reflection, and how far my reflections are from a good reflection. Finally I should make a plan on how to make my reflections better by help of smart goals. With my coach I discuss that I would learn more if I came to a definition myself and that we could discuss that definition. We talked about a method for me to come to a definition. I can check the reflections of other, different students and check what I think is a good reflection and what not. There is a website (www.quora.com) where I can ask a question and people would give me answers. I can also google what the definition of a good reflection is. This way I check it myself, I ask the crowd, and I find a definition. With this input I should be able to define what a good reflection is, than I can check it with the coach, and eventually with the other expert.
Page 9
Other approaches that I will use to improve my reflections: - Recording my thoughts and write it down later. - Keeping a dairy (revenues and experiences) - Potentially I can follow a writing course
Reflecting plan