Post-doc Researchers
With a background in visual arts and interaction design, Alex Zakkas explores possibilities for cross-fertilization between the two disciplines. He is a keen observer of the diverse ways in which people relate to their material environment, to themselves and to others. Through interventions and experiments, he attempts to access and reveal these relationships in a way that can inspire designers. In collaboration with the DIoPD, he intents to generate first-hand experiences that will widen and refine designers’ sensitivity to emotional complexity.
After studying Industrial Design Engineering in Delft, Irene worked as a freelance designer on various comfort related projects. During her PhD project she worked at BMW in Munich and studied car interior features that increase the pleasure and comfort experience of the driver and passengers. As a postdoc researcher at the DIOPD she focuses on how to design and assess products contributing to the user’s happiness.
Guest Researchers
Andrés is a doctoral student in Electronics Sciences at the University of Cauca (Colombia) where he also did his Master’s degree in Computer Science and his undergraduate degree in Computer Engineering. He has worked in different areas of computing, but his main interest is the user experience. He has always been passionate about studying the inherent components of digital experiences. Now his work is focused on evaluating user satisfaction from an emotional approach.
Doctoral candidate at Electronic Sciences in the Universidad del Cauca, member of the Investigación y Desarrollo en Ingeniería de Software research group (IDIS) in Colombia with background in Systems Engineering and Computing. Working in the software sales department and in the programming area, she perceived the impact of a good interface design since it completely influences the users perception. In that moment it was initiated her principal interest, that is in Human-Computer Interaction area and how to improve web interfaces through good practices of design. Nowadays she is working on how to build more attractive interfaces for the children’s attention deficit disorder treatment under the belief that with good interface design it can be enhanced their concentration level.
Sahar is a guest researcher at TU Delft. She has a background in urban design and architecture (TMU). She is interested in how designing cities, public spaces and built environment can enhance happiness of citizens. Her PhD research focuses on the Mechanism of Public Urban Space Effects on Happiness. She is now an associated researcher of world database of happiness.
Doctoral Candidates
Alberto Iberbuden is a designer interested in the design process and how designers think and act. At the moment he is working on his PhD, which focuses on meditation and creativity, and teaching “Design Theorie” at the Master of Arts “Intermediales Design”. After finishing his bachelor in product design at the National University of Córdoba in Argentina in 2014, he worked on different fields focusing on social projects, 3D printing and design management. He was a professor at the National University of Asuncion in Paraguay from 2015 until 2017. He graduated from the Master of Arts in Integrated Design (MAID) in 2019 with the project “Democratizing the Original. Enhancing the Museum Experience”. He also worked as a curatorial assistant at the Fine Arts Museum of Leipzig.
Boudewijn is interested in how design can play a role in shaping the ways people live their lives. During his master thesis (MSc Industrial Ecology) and his work as a research assistant for Pieter Desmet, this interest was reflected in his research on how design can facilitate ‘the good life within ecological means’. As a PhD candidate he explored how design can engage children with cancer in physical play and thereby stimulate their physical development.
Jay Yoon is a PhD candidate at Industrial Design Engineering of TU Delft. He has a background in industrial design and computer science. His research focuses on emotion-driven design, mainly concerning how understanding nuances of positive emotions can contribute to a design process. He has been developing design tools and techniques aiming to assist designers to be aware of differentiated aspects between distinct positive emotion types. He is currently working on identifying the opportunities to work with the awareness of nuances of positive emotions.
PhD student researching user experience in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London. He is interested in understanding how consumers experience positive encounters with products. Juan Carlos was granted a three-year PhD-fund to explore and develop tools based on an emotion and user experience innovation approach.
Young, passionate, humorous, lovely and empathic.That’s all you should know about this researcher. Wan Jou, who’d prefer to be called Lavender, has a deep interest in human relationships and subjective well-being. With the graphic design and English literature background, Lavender’s PhD research deals with various types of relationship loss such as separation, death and breakup. In this study she explores design directions that can nudge and facilitate individuals’ loss coping processes and provide a meaningful and constructive ways of coping with loss.r.
Master Students
After graduating as a Bachelor within the field of graphic/webdesign and as a Bachelor industrial product design in Belgium, Andreas loved to become more specialised in user interactions and how emotions and moods can be influenced and used within products and experiences. As a graduating student within the master’s program Design for Interaction, Andreas is currently researching the subject of how olfaction can improve the well-being of elderly with dementia in periods of stress. This graduation project gives him the opportunity to research a completely new field within interaction design, olfactory experience design with a strong link to well-being.
Andriy has a cross-cultural background, with a BA degree in Industrial Design from Technical University of Lisbon (Portugal), and previous education in Art History. He started his career in Denmark where he learned from the best of Scandinavian design at several design studios, among whom was the most awarded design consultancy Jacob Jensen Design.Andriy is currently enrolled in the MSc program Design for Interaction in TU Delft, plus the Honours Programme Delft, conducting a research project within Human-Robot Interaction domain, focused on creating design guidelines for future Care Robots Design.
Anna completed her bachelor in Product Design at the Politecnico di Milano, with a thesis focused on designing a piece of urban furniture for city suburbs that would contribute to improve the lives of residents in such areas. Inspired by this experience and by how design interventions can affect society, she applied for the Master in Design for Interaction at the TU Delft. She then turned her interest into Medisign, and into how the Positive Design approach could be integrated in the design of medical products. She is triggered by the challenge of combining the intrinsic beauty that characterises traditional design pieces with new technologies. For her graduation she worked on the redesign of telehealth products tailored to psychological profiles of chronic patients. The project was carried on in collaboration with Philips Research. It included psychological research to understand the motivational and behavioural patterns of patients belonging to different profiles and the development of different versions of a blood pressure monitor, each one tailored to one specific profile.
Avanika Pradeep Yammiyavar is an Architect and a Design for Interaction master’s student at the Delft University of Technology. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Architecture from India. She believes in designing for happiness and kindness. She is inspired by the secret ‘stories’ that emotions tell. Currently, she is exploring a positive design approach in the architectural context by studying the role of emotions in built environments and their influence on happiness.
Barbara studied Product and Environment Design at the “Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd“ (University of Design) in Germany. Through this time she did internships at several product design agencies such as Jahn Design, Cultureform and Feiz Desgin Studio. In 2010 she started the Master program Design for Interaction at the TU Delft, specialising in Technology in Sustainable Development.
Currently she is graduating in the Human Interaction & Experience Group at Philips Research on the project ‘How to use Slow Design to make products more sustainable?’. The goal of the project is to explore how a huger bond between products and users can be created by applying the ‘Slow Design Principles’.
Carola studied Communication Design (B.A.) at the University of applied sciences Munich and Industrial Design Engineering at TU Delft. In 2018, she graduated from the Master program Design for Interaction. Her graduation thesis “(Food) design for bliss” with the DIOPD was a positive design project. Her research on blissful eating yielded a detailed overview of relevant factors, which were illustrated in a card–set. The aim of her designs was to help people to savour their eating experiences more in order to experience some blissful moments.
Chanmi is a graduating student from the masters program, Design for Interaction. She believes that the power of design is in bringing meaningful changes to people’s everyday lives. Chanmi has a genuine interest in the subject of mood. She is now working on her graduation project to uncover the relation between mood and contextual factors in order to design an environment (including product and service) that causes people to have a certain mood, which would lead them to have positive experiences. Chanmi has a background and experience in interior and spatial design and research on cultural differences.
Christiaan studied Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University. In 2013, he graduated from the Master program Design for Interaction. In 2011, he joined the DIOPD in by participating in the elective Design for Emotion. Later, he contributed to various projects such as “D&E for Pepsico Chicago” and the “Design for Happiness Deck”. For his master thesis, “Design for Political Involvement” he investigated how design can contribute to political involvement in order to establish a better relationship between political parties and citizens. In collaboration with DIOPD, he developed the “Design for Happiness Deck”, a simple tool that helps designers and organisations more readily understand, focus on, and design for happiness. After his Master’s, he gained a lot of experience as a designer and design researcher. Christiaan is currently working as a design researcher at Round Feather, a design and innovation consultancy that believes in understanding and addressing people’s happiness as a starting point for innovation.
Deniz is collaborating with the DIOPD in 2019 for his graduation project. His interest towards experience design grew as he studied design ethnography and cognitive psychology as part of his Service Design MSc Courses in Politecnico di Milano. Design for sustainability has been one of his main aims since his bachelors degree years and driven by his passion for cognitive science, Deniz decided to graduate with a project that aspires to sustainability, through the study of product emotions. With Pieter Desmet and Anna Meroni as his supervisors, his research addresses hedonic adaptation from a design perspective.
Emanuele studied Product Design at Politecnico di Milano. After his bachelor’s degree, he moved to the Netherlands to take part in the Design for Interaction Master program. He joined the DIOPD to develop his graduation project, and receive support while analyzing how design positively affects the spirituality of Catholic LGBT+ people. The result of his graduation project is a digital service that enriches personal spirituality through connections with other catholic members of the LGBT+ community.
Emma is currently graduating from the master ‘Integrated Product Design.’ As a designer she likes exploring contexts as a starting point for a project, thus her graduation project has more of a ‘Design for Interaction’ set-up. She is graduating for the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, for which she will design a support for people with bothersome tinnitus that will help them learn to live with tinnitus.
Erika completed her Design for Interaction degree at the Delft University of Technology. In her previous education, she studied product design – first at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BSc), followed by the University of Leeds (MSc). Her interests lie in supporting personal development, knowledge, and wellbeing through design research, and firmly believes that all things we create should bring value and meaning to society. She is especially passionate about people’s stories and their connection with their ‘stuff’.
Ezgi completed her Master’s degree in Design for Interaction at TU Delft. In her Bachelor’s she double majored in Visual Arts and Psychology with specialization on human-centred design and cognitive sciences at Koç University (in Istanbul, Turkey). Since the beginning of her higher education, she has been passionate about how much the fields of psychology and design has to offer each other. Her design projects have been particularly guided by the principles of positive psychology. She became a part of DIOPD during her graduation project for her Master’s degree at the end of which she designed a tool for individuals who are languishing that contributes to subjective well-being through everyday activities.
Felipe is a Product Designer with a degree in Industrial Design from PUC-Rio, Brazil. In 2019, he completed his Masters in Design for Interaction at Delft University of Technology. He conducted his master’s thesis in partnership with DIOPD in 2019. Entitled “Meaningful Voice Interactions: How to design smart speakers that foster well-being”, his research investigated the impacts of voice assistants on people. Its outcome was the Repertoire of Meaningful Voice Interactions, a toolkit for design practitioners with design guidelines, traps to avoid, in-depth analysis and reflective questions to help create more positive voice interactions.
During her bachelor programme at IDE in Delft, Fleur discovered an interest in user-centred design, which became a leading topic during product design projects in her master Integrated Product Design. For her graduation project, she studies the application of Reversal Theory together with two other graduation students. What interests her is that the theory claims that a certain kind of instability is essential for a full and happy life. In order to bring this into practice, the group creates a guideline for other designers to show how the theory can be applied to design products and services that have a better impact on people’s emotions, motivations and needs. This guide forms the basis for the individual challenge to design a product for the KLM to create a better air travel experience, focussing on the changes in the passenger’s mental energy level.
During the last project of her bachelor (which she did in Delft) Fleur discovered her predilection for design for interaction and the importance of the consideration of emotions in the design process.
For her graduation project Fleur is working at the Dienst Justitiele Inrichtingen (the organization that manages all prisons in the Netherlands) to research and redesign the experience in isolation cells and make this a more rich and sensory experience, in order to shorten the time prisoners stay in the isolation cell.
After completing the bachelor degree of Industrial Design Engineering in Delft, Frank decided to grasp human-product interaction and its effect on human well-being by continuing with the Master Design for Interaction in Delft. Frank believes design should not just lend a hand, it should make life more pleasurable. He tries to accomplish this by focusing on the use of game experiences in non-gaming contexts. In his graduation project Frank is trying to increase work engagement for employees whose job is currently changing due to automation by using gamification.
My name is Geert Brinkman and I am a Design for Interaction student at the Delft University of Technology. As I believe a design’s function is experiential, taking emotions into consideration when designing is necessary to make truly engaging products. As a research intern I’m part of a collaboration adapting Hans Ruitenberg’s Tiny task concept to the work environment. Working with psychologists from the Positive Organizational Psychology Lab of Erasmus University Rotterdam makes this internship really interesting.
Gijs studied the bachelor Industrial Design Engineering at the Technical University Delft. After finalizing his bachelor in 2018 he started his Master in Design for Interaction, also at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. Gijs has an interest in designing for mental wellbeing. In 2021, he joined the DIOPD, with his graduation project “Prana: Your luminous meditation assistant”. In this project he designed an interactive wall-mounted lamp to support people in their meditation ritual. With his design Gijs wants to support people’s mental health while providing an aesthetically pleasing product.
Personal website → spierings.studio
Gracia studied Industrial Design Engineering at the TU Delft. She finished the master Design for Interaction in 2018. Here she became intrigued with the emotions and motivations that drove human interactions. Gracia recognised that it is also essential to look to the interactions with animals. She graduated at the Design for Animals lab, which is part of the DIOPD. Her graduation project ‘Telltail’ aims to create meaningful interactions between human and cats to improve the human-animal bond in order to prevent the relinquishment of cats. This resulted in a toolkit for the owner where the owner gets to know the cat’s behavior and personality through playful activities based on fun cat facts.
Gül Onat studied for her bachelor’s in Industrial Design at METU and pursued her master’s degree in Design for Interaction at TU Delft. She joined the DIOPD in 2024 during her graduation project. For her master’s thesis, “Design Speculations on the Future of Psychedelic Microdosing in the Workplace”, she explored how design can surface the benefits, risks, and challenges of microdosing as a future socially accepted practice. Focusing on the key tensions in psychedelics use, the project aimed to stimulate public discussions from a critical perspective by using speculative narratives. The project resulted in a concept film intended to spark discussions with a wider audience.
Project information: https://diopd.org/design-speculations-on-microdosing/
Hannah is pursuing a masters in Design for Interaction at the Delft University of Technology. Previously, she studied her bachelors of Industrial Design at Carleton University in Canada. She explores how design can influence people to experience daily life in unexpected, playful, and positive ways. She values a hands-on approach to design and believes in continuously prototyping and testing her assumptions in order to bring her ideas to fruition.
Personal website → https://hannahgoss.com/
Hans has worked on the domain of positive emotion and well-being from a design perspective. In his thesis ‘Design for Subjective Well-Being’, he developed designs to answer the question: ‘Can strategies for subjective well-being be translated into or supported by tangible designs that inspire and persuade people to adopt these strategies into their daily lives?’ Together with the DIOPD he has set up a pilot project for Tinytask; the product-service that resulted from his thesis.
Positive design acquainted me with new ways to shape the future as a designer. I’ve gained a different perspective in addition to my industrial design background through DFI Master Programme. I became passionate to create meaningful experiences through interactions. My recent study is based on the Tiny Task concept, which aims to transform happiness enhancing activities into small tasks. The goal of the project is to adopt the concept into office environments to stimulate work engagement and increase happiness of employees.
During her bachelor IDE at the TU Delft, Hester developed an interest in the social aspects of design. She continued her studies with a master in ‘Design for Interaction’ and ‘Design Cultures’ (VU Amsterdam), and seeks to understand how designers can (positively) impact society. Hester was assisting the Tinytask research project and got inspired by theories of the Positive Design movement: how can we increase the well-being of individuals and communities? Especially the latter aspect, community well-being, is an unexplored field in design practices that will be the scope of her graduation project. Hester will carry out her graduation project in collaboration with Waag Society. The context of her graduation project is ‘Stadsdorp Nieuwmarkt’, a group of local residents of the neighbourhood in Amsterdam who wants to form a cohesive and active community that can serve as a local social safety net when needed. Leading question in the project will be: What are design opportunities to enhance community well-being in general, and in Stadsdorp Nieuwmarkt in particular?
Hyunjoo Bae has been interested in design for emotion and the color. As a research intern, she has started a project related to mood and colors of the light. She is exploring how people can interact with the lights as a tool to regulate their mood. In future, Hyunjoo would like to make people have more positive experiences in daily life through her design research.
Ileana is a Design for Interaction Master student at the Delft University of Technology. She studied Industrial Design at Universidad Iberoamericana de Torreon, in Mexico. She believes that everyone could benefit from being able to laugh about themselves. As such, Ileana likes to add a touch of humor or playfulness to the (design) projects she’s involved in. She’s intrigued by human behavior and emotions.
Ilona is an emerging Design Researcher and Psychologist. She is graduating at Technical University of Delft with M.Sc. in Design for Interaction and simultaneously at University of Mannheim with M.Sc. in Psychology whilst doing freelance user research work alongside her two degrees. Ilona’s experience so far has included working with Frog Design, Design Research Lab Berlin and the Universities of Kassel, Mannheim and Heidelberg in industrial and academic projects as an intern or independently. Passion and fascination fuel Ilona’s commitment to working with a wide variety of people from different backgrounds. Her graduation project combines two disciplines, aiming to design and evaluate human product interactions that elicit positive emotions in elderly people with dementia.
In 2008 Iris started Industrial Design Engineering at the TU Delft. During this bachelor she found that she was less interested in the technical aspects of product development and more interested in human behavior and emotions. She started the Master program Design for Interaction, and participated in courses like Design for End of Life, where she investigated how design can help people in their mourning process. Iris became intrigued to design for well-being. She graduated in March 2014 with the master thesis ‘A gratitude ritual’, as expressing gratitude has an impactful contribution to subjective well-being.
Born in eastern Berlin and growing up in the Netherlands for most of his life, Jonas has always struggled with the abundance and obsolete character of conventional design. While studying Design for Interaction at the TU Delft he fell in love with the hopeful vision of DIOPD: Design for human flourishing.
At the moment Jonas is graduating to shed some light on the question: how to design for mood regulation? Together with ‘International Flavors & Fragrances’ this question is being approached from a fragrance perspective. Which brings up a new question: how to design for scents? Its fascinating journey about a new field that is characterised by unexplored opportunities for interaction designers. More on that during the final presentation in september, so stay tuned!
Jack hails from a combined engineering and design background at Northwestern University (US) and now pursues his master’s in Integrated Product Design at TU Delft. He believes that experiences, not possessions, define our lives and seeks to allow people unfettered access to the richness of lived human experience. His graduation project researches how touch-mediated product interaction can encourage deeper sensory appreciation and thereby enable people to consciously self-regulate emotions.
Her whole life, Josephine has been wanted to make others feel good about themselves. For her graduation, she got the chance to bring a bit of happiness to lives of very sick children, who are hospitalized on the Intensive and High Care in the Wilhelmina Children’s hospital in Utrecht. She found that these children start to feel different and lonely, when being there for longer times. During her graduation, Josephine will explore how the new playroom can facilitate the means to get in contact with peers, at times they have the need to play and socialize.
Joy graduated at the department of Design for Interaction at the Delft University of Technology, where she also completed her bachelors in Industrial Design. She is a designer that believes societal issues can be addressed through design and wants to contribute to discussions around great societal themes through expositions, product design, film and more. This means she doesn’t keep her design conceptual, but loves to get her hands dirty and prototype to give life to her designs. For her graduation project, she studied the phenomenon beauty ideals for female faces.
Karen is a Design for Interaction student in TU Delft. She studied Industrial Design in Spain where she became interested in experience design, user research, and medicine. She believes that multidisciplinary projects are key to create impact. During the master she has become especially interested in how design and user research can add value to the healthcare technology industry in order to have a positive impact on users’ lives. Her graduation project is focused on how to create meaningful conversations with users through the data of smartwatches to improve peoples’ wellbeing and health.
Katelijn completed her bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design at Eindhoven University of Technology. In 2023, she graduated Cum Laude from the Master program Design for Interaction at Delft University of Technology. For her Master thesis, “Designing for responsible practice in introspective design studies”, she joined the DIOPD. The project goal was to support researchers who use introspection as a method to minimize the ethical risks of their study while maximizing the opportunities. The project has resulted in the development of a practical toolkit that helps researchers to understand, identify and manage risks and opportunities of their introspective studies.
Lara is a Design for Interaction student at the Delft University of Technology. Previously, she studied Industrial Design Engineering at the same university. During her master, she became especially interested in social design and the impact design, and contextual changes can have on people their lives and the way they fulfill their fundamental needs. Her graduation project focuses on how to create relatedness and belonging among younger football supporters to elevate the social relevance of football.
I studied creative media in my bachelor in China. During that, I was charmed by the diverse roles design can play in people’s daily life. As a graduating student within master program of Design for Interaction, I’m currently doing a graduation project on design for meaningful goals and well-being.
Lisa studied Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University. In 2016, she graduated from the Master program Design for Interaction. She joined the DIOPD when doing her master thesis on community well-being of a disadvantaged neighbourhood in Rotterdam. Her thesis, called “Embassy of Youth”, was specifically about teenagers hanging out on the streets. She wanted to design something that could change perspectives – from the outside world towards these teenagers, as well as from the teenagers towards themselves. This resulted in a toolkit for local workshops to help teenagers discover and explore their talents.
Lotte graduated from the master ‘Design for Interaction’ in 2015. For her graduation project ‘Design for parenting wellbeing in daily interactions’ she worked together with the Delft Institute of Positive Design and the young design company Spuni, located in New York. This project resulted in ‘Kookid’. After her graduation Lotte published a paper on her research: ‘Still in its infancy: Design for co-wellbeing among different user groups’, together with Anna Pohlmeyer and Stella Boess. Kookid was included in the ‘Exceed’17 exhibition at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. Lotte now works as a designer and researcher at ‘Reframing Studio’.
Maaz is a Strategic Project Design student at TU Delft. He has a diverse background consisting of mechanical engineering, graphic design and photography/videography. At the very core, he believes in spreading happiness through design and innovation. He strives to understand the influence of authentic happiness on creativity and how that creativity can be used to design practical ways to flourish positivity and well-being in social systems.
Marieke is a master student Design for Interaction at the Delft University of Technology, and studied the bachelor Industrial Design at the same university. Marieke is interested in how design can create solutions for societal issues in the bigger picture of context, but also what it can add to an individual’s everyday well-being. Throughout a project, she likes to switch between these levels. With an optimistic view Marieke explores new ways of reflection, alternatives to current perspectives and encouraging a positive mindset for those who are in need of seeing things differently.
Matthijs is a graduate Design for Interaction student at the Delft University of Technology. Previously, he has studied Industrial Design at the same university. He believes that the essence of designing lies in critical thinking, empathy and focusing on the small, 2mm shifts. He believes that it is in the details that we can find the driving forces of human behaviour and that the smallest changes can yield the biggest results and bring quality into people’s lives.
Maik is currently graduating from his master’s degree ‘Design for Interaction’ at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering in Delft. During his bachelor at the same faculty, he became interested in how design can have a positive impact on the lives of people. As a designer, Maik loves to dive into a new context to explore design opportunities. His graduation project is about designing a product that supports psychiatric adolescents in coping with a psychological crisis. He is working together with Karakter, an institution for child and adolescent psychiatry in several places in the Netherlands.
n his previous working experience as a product designer (particularly consumer electronics) in S.Korea, his biggest value was designing a product that makes people smile by means of form giving and interactions. Now, he wants to go beyond his previous expertise, and is enthusiastic about applying experience-driven design approaches, aiming to create positive user experiences. At the master program ‘design for interaction’ of TU Delft, he is working on a graduation thesis project that focuses on facilitating positive commuting experiences for Seoul citizens with smart future buses.
Muryani did her Bachelor study in Visual Communication Design in University of Pelita Harapan, Indonesia. She did her practicum in Concordia University, Nebraska, in the United States. Upon her graduation, she worked as a graphic designer in a design studio in Singapore for two years. She’s currently enrolled in the master program of Design for Interaction in TU Delft.
During her master Integrated Product Design , Nathalie discovered positive design as a way for her to create meaningful products and to add to the beauty of everyday life. Her passion for various creative pursuits, such as knitting and printmaking, has been rekindled over the past few years. For her graduation she is now exploring how design can encourage engagement in such creative hobbies, with the aim to make leisure time be experienced as more fulfilling.
During a bachelor degree in Industrial Design Engineering at the TU Delft, Nienke became fascinated by the power of design. The opportunity to design for human flourishing gives her the motivation to dive into the users’ ind. Coming from the master “Integrated Product Design”, she is now using the positive design thinking to address the problem of lonely elderly in Rotterdam for her graduation.
From the moment she was introduced to the DIOPD approach in design Paula felt home. It covers the responsibility she feels as a designer to not just design things that make people’s lives easier or more efficient. The data-driven world we’re living in often does not leave much room for people to ‘simply’ experience human moments. As a (interaction) designer Paula uses her skills to empathize and synchronize with people in diverse situations to recognize the essence of what matters to them. As graduation student at the DIOPD she dedicated herself to design for happiness in offices by fostering prosocial behaviors in organizations.
Petra is a Design for Interaction student at the Delft University of Technology. Previously, she studied Product Design at the School of Design in Zagreb, Croatia. She is fascinated by human behaviour and emotions, and how design can influence the way a person feels and acts. She loves colourful graphic design and is mesmerized by its effect and composition on creating positive emotions. Currently, Petra is working on using design for wellbeing methods and tools to combat the taboo of menstruation in India.
Qianqian was a Master student in the track of Design for Interaction at the Delft University of Technology. She has a background in Industrial Design from Beijing. She is keen on meaningful interactions that enhance the communication of people’s inner feelings. In her study, based on project Mood Regulation, she explored the correspondence between moods and their physical representations. Personal website: https://www.whoisqianqian.com
Roby is a passionate and cheerful Italian guy, strongly guided by values: humanity, sensitivity, respect for people, integrity, ambition, perfectionism. After a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics, he revolutionised his life and started a design career at Politecnico of Milan and then at TU Delft as a Design for Interaction student. His deep interest in (positive) psychology guides his personal and professional mission to improve people’s sense of life pleasantness and meaningfulness.
Roderick finished a bachelor education at IDE in Delft and continued with a master Design for Interaction. During this period he discovered his interest in user centred design and took up courses to help him better understand and influence the user experience.
Roderick is now working on a graduation project to enhance the inflight experience of the airline KLM. By researching Reversal theory in the field of design he is trying to help other designers use this holistic theory on human behavior. Also, he will use the theory to come up with new concepts for KLM to improve their inflight user experience.
Ruocha is an Integrated Product Design student following Specialisation Medisign at TU Delft. She studied Mechanical Engineering and Arts & Design at Tsinghua University in Beijing and worked as a design research intern at HK PolyU in Hong Kong. She has a keen interest in healthcare. “To cure sometimes. To relieve often. To comfort always.” She believes that product design has the power to bring comfort and positivity to patients and their families. Her graduation project is focused on sexuality and intimacy care for young cancer patients.
Rushil has a background in product design. His fascination with human-product interactions began during his bachelor’s after one of those late night conversations about life, meaning and ‘deep stuff’. His quest for designing meaningful interactions and memorable experiences led him to opt for the Design for Interaction master track at the Delft University of Technology. He’s currently working on his thesis project involving stress and positive psychology.
Santiago studied Industrial Design at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. After a couple of years working as a concept and product designer, he decided to start the Design for Interaction (DfI) master program at TU Delft. During his working experience he became interested in the importance of people’s behaviors and how those behaviors could be translated into objects, products and services with powerful meanings. Currently he has started a research project about the act of saving, using a piggy bank product as a starting point. This research aims to understand the importance of saving as an experience and its relation to happiness. As part of his graduation project plan, Santiago wants to take this knowledge about the act of saving and implement it in a larger scale.
Simon studied Industrial Design Engineering at EAFIT university in Colombia, and completed the ‘Integrated Product Design’ master’s programme at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University in 2014. He joined the DIOPD as a graduation student with the project “Positive Design in office environments”. The result was an office chair that is meant to engender a positive experience at the office. After graduating, Simon joined the DIOPD as co-editor of the “Positive Design Reference Guide”. The guide is an entry point for designers and practitioners interested in design for experience and wellbeing. Recently, he collaborated with the DIOPD in the design and production of The “Design for Happiness Deck”. The deck is a tool that designers and organisations can use to tap into the vast potential of lasting wellbeing in their design processes.
My education at IDE (TUDelft) has taught me the responsibility that I have as a designer to put meaningful products (and services) into the world. Products that will enhance the richness of people’s lives, and that will contribute to people’s wellbeing. Currently I am graduating from the master Design for Interaction, on the subject of funerals. I am fascinated by how we have tried to place death out of our lives as much as possible, avoiding interaction with it, turning our funerals into inconvenient things. I will explore new and meaningful ways to cope with funerals.
Thijs te Velde is an Integrated Product Design student. Doing his Bachelor’s in Eindhoven, he came here with a strong focus on speculative interaction design and research. He came to Delft wanting to combine those skills with the more practical direction of IPD. He believes design can have a large impact on people by integrating it into daily life and is interested in working at the fringes of human experience, which are oftentimes very emotional contexts.
Titus Wybenga is inventor by birth, educated at TU Delft (B.Sc. Industrial Design). Driven by the social impact of design. For his master thesis he would like to apply ‘Research through Design’ in Delfshaven, Rotterdam. The goal of his graduation project is to find ways that avoid (food) leftovers to end up on the street. By providing a meaningful alternative he hopes to reduces the amount of food waste and create social bonds on street level.
Veronika is an Integrated Product Design student at the Delft University of Technology. Previously, she studied Industrial Design Engineering at Budapest University of Technology and Economics in Hungary. She founds that positive design can complement the more technology-oriented approach of her master programme. For her, design is a means to improve the quality of lives of people who need it the most. This steered her in the direction of healthcare and medical design.
Ward is a student Design for Interaction at the TU Delft. He believes that people could sometimes use a little help in enhancing their wellbeing and that of people around them. Inspired by psychological theory on behaviour and human needs, he seeks to design ways in which people can gain new perspectives on the world. And through this new set of glasses, a sustained feeling of wellbeing.
Wang Long is currently graduating at Philips Research on the project ‘Ambient Experience Sensory Rooms’, the next generation of isolation cells for psychiatric patients. In collaboration with GGzE, he is challenged to redesign the interaction and experience of the seclusion procedure, to avoid the current negative effects and create a positive impact on the mental recovery of these people. Following a double degree master program at TU Delft (Integrated Product Design & Design for Interaction) and specialising on medical design (Medisign), he is currently directing his interest in the impact of positive design on the medical sector.
Wies is a Design for Interaction student at the Delft University of Technology. Previously, she studied Industrial Design Engineering at the same university. With a love for research, she believes in user-focused design and targeting psychological aspects of well-being, while specifically focusing on emotions and moods as a basis for design. Hereby creating products that fit the user’s needs and desires and improves their lives.
Yancheng is a Design for Interaction student at the Delft University of Technology. Previously, he has studied Industrial Design at Hunan University. He believes that design makes the life better and let everything possible.
