CARLOS BERNAD THOMAS
Aesthetics of interaction designer with a focus on human-centered design.
PROFESIONAL IDENTITY AND VISION
During my bachelor years, I worked on developing a Professional Identity and vision to define my direction and learning goals for the future. This Identity and Vision will continue to grow and transform during future projects and experiences, whereas, for now it is as follows.
IDENTITY
I am a curious and physicality driven designer. During my bachelor years, I discovered my love for using design methodologies and tools to transform a concept into something tangible. Being able to turn a sketch or even an idea in my head into reality was my motivator, and it brought out the curious kid inside me. This curiosity drove me to explore diffferent fields in design, and build my path.
I like to design interactive products with a user centered approach, because it encourages a conversation between the user and the product, which builds a strong connection, and creates more value.
I mostly enjoy working in the development phase since I can work through a hands-on methodology(NGARU,sammasati,huging backpack). To do so, I had to focus on my making capabilities, including aesthetics, materials, and technology implementation. I position myself in the Creativity and aesthetics, and technology and realization areas of expertise. I learned fast-paced prototyping techniques such as 3-D printing, cardboard modelling, textile sewing, pattern making, or 3-D rendering (Blender). In addition, use my basic knowledge of hardware and coding to be able to integrate electronics and AI into my concepts (downhill skateboarding positions, <br>). Besides, to evaluate my iterations, I also worked on my User and Society skills by focusing on evaluation methodologies, using prototypes of different fidelities.
I have always been a very shy person, but I realized that to be able to present and communicate my ideas and design process properly, I had to work on it as a skill. I stepped out of my comfort zone and worked in highly social environments, such as a waiter, or as a tutor. This showed me that I can be self-directed and improve on qualities outside of design expertise areas.
I’m an organized person, and I find calmness in it. That is why I enjoy having a holistic overview of my design process, which allows me to look back at certain moments and make meaningful decisions. While working in a team I usually take the organizer role, and I try to push my team to keep the process organized.
I work more efficiently in a multidisciplinary team because it provides a sense of constant feedback between the team, or at least, I try to encourage it in my teams. I tend to overthink concepts and this stops me from starting the physical exploration process and staying in the conceptualization phase. This allows me to be very overcritical of my concepts whereas, sometimes it comes with problems since I get over fixated on reiterating some ideas. I managed to learn from it, and when I feel stuck, I use my time to explore the physicality of the device, and learn from it sometimes resulting in the drop of the idea.
VISION
With the vast amount of emerging technologies, industrial design has been following this trend adding more and more functionalities to their products to try to differentiate themselves from other leaders in the industries. In today’s digital age, design has a crucial role in shaping the interactions with technology.
I believe that as a designer our job is to connect users with new emerging technologies in a way that they can fully take advantage of the new functionalities that these more advanced technologies provide. Showing the negative effects of the purchase of products with poor design, and the advantages of products with good durability and interaction, can add value to products in the market. If a device has poor interaction capabilities, it can make the users frustrated, confused, and even finalize its use. That is why I focus on giving my design process a human-centred and interactive approach.
I enjoy simplicity in design, I don’t believe that a concept has to have a high amount of functionalities to become valuable for the user. If a product has the capacity of performing a lot of tasks, then its aesthetics must focus on making its interactions as simple and intuitive as possible. I like to give the example of microwaves, most users use the microwave to heat up food, and use around four buttons to do so. Many of these items come with up to 34 buttons, when the user could utilize the device with one knob. Is is clear that adding more functionalities such as heat, unfreeze, oven etc, is a technological step up, but a lot of them will never even use these modes because of how poor its aesthetics of interaction are. I consider this a design step down, thats why I focus on giving my designs a user centered focus, understanding what are the needs of the user, and designing for rich and intuitive interactions.
I believe that the aesthetics of a design play a crucial role, not only in making the product more beautiful, but also in showing its intended use, and the story behind the product.
In conclusion, for me, design is all about enhancing people’s experiences with a product by creating powerful connections. I believe that to create powerful connections in the era of digitalization, a coupling of physical and digital aesthetics of interaction is needed.
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
During my bachellor years I developed in different expertise areas, according to my goals as a designer. These will continue to grow during my next academic years, and they serve as a representation of my positioning in the field of design.
CREATIVITY AND AESTHETICS
I always liked to work with my hands, and after the course exploratory making , I knew that I wanted to continue exploring my making capabilities. One of my goals was to improve the digital modelling skills that I started working on in the course creative mechanical engineering, I wanted to be able to translate my thought into reality.
Using Blender I learned a bigger range of tools that I can use to create organic models, and also cleanly present them using their rendering tools .This has a really big learning curve and Im aware that I will still have to put in a lot more work after my Fbp to master it. When it comes to printing I have invested and purchased my own printer, this allowed me to master the machine, tinker with it and understand its limits and capabilities.
In the course digital crafstmanship I learned about the implementations of data and AI in the scope of creative explorations, and this opened my eyes to new ways to implement valuable data in my designs. In addition, I was able to apply my sketching skills during my FBP, making sure to use this methodology while exploring my concepts’ physicality.
Finally, I worked on my digital design skills. I made templates in Adobe indesign, logos and artwork in Adobe ilustrator, interface prototypes in Figma, and this website using wordpress.
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USER AND SOCIETY
As a designer that focuses on interactive products, being able to evaluate concepts with users is crucial to keep a user/human centered perpective. During my bachelor years, I have coursed subjects related to user studies, and research methods such as user-centred design, or design research. Thanks to these courses I realized the importance of having an understanding of psychology and sociology to explore the users needs. . In addition, to further develop my skills and work in a multidisciplinary team, I coursed Design for vitality in a real life setting. I learned about how to design in a real life setting, and I was able to understand the importance of planning a user study before even starting with a prototype.
Asking yourself what kind of goals you want to test before starting a prototype helps you to identify what functionalities you want to test, and how will you make them functional. Furthermore, I wanted to improove my psycology knoledge, and I coursed Acoustic awareness where I was able to induce emotions into participants and test different virtual reality settings with a multidisciplinary team.
Moreover, I decided to work as a tutor in the course Human Centered Design. This helped me to become more proficient in terms of overall user centered design methodologies. Moreover, in my concept sammasati, I was able to explore a complex problem statement, well being of office workers. During my past projects, the aim was to solve needs of very specific users,created by the team or the design brief, whereas this time I had to solve work needs of mundane characters. This was a challenge, whereas it made me realize that by keeping a user centered design process, a related solution can slowly make its way to the surface.
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BUSINESS AND ENTRENENEURSHIP
During my bachelor years, I became interested in what happens after a product has been finalized, especially after my internship at a Spanish company called Envac, where I was able to work with the design and research group of a waste management company.
Therefore, I decided to course Fundamentals of product innovation and Marketing USE line, on top of the mandatory course design innovation methods. These courses allowed me to get a better understanding of what is the role of a designer in a company, what is expected from us, and how does a concept turns into a marketed product. In addition, it gave a me a good overview of the different approaches that different disciplines have when it comes to product development and its methodologies, and how to communicate in a multidisciplinary team.
Moreover, I also cursed design innovation methods, a design course with a focus on innovation methods for bussinesses. During this course I was able to analyse the market of the company Amber, make a prototype and evaluate it with the client, which gave me a clear overview of the type of work that a design consultant does.
These skills where mainly applied during my USE line and design courses, whereas, in the project NGARU, we worked on a launch strategy, and a overall business plan. This gave our project a more professional look, and Im encouraged to apply this in future squad or personal projects.
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MATH DATA AND COMPUTING
Math data and computing is not one of my scoped areas of expertise. However, being able to understand qualitative and quantitative data, and how to analyse it is very important to create a user-centred product. In addition, data plays a really big part when it comes to smart products, thats why my main direction in this area is in this direction. After the basic course data analysis, my skills were still low. Therefore, I decided to course on Intelligent Interactive Products, where I was able to learn about machine learning algorithms, and how to apply them in design. This opened a new range of possibilities for me, specially in the field of AI and data processing, and despite not applying this in my final project, I can’t wait to do so in the future.
Finally, after this course, I was very curious about what else we can do with data, and also with AI. The course Digital Craftsmanship taught me how to use AI to create patterns, and how data as simple as Twitter messages can influence these patterns.
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TECHNOLOGY AND REALIZATION
ddThis are of expertise was very important for me because it allowed me to create functional prototypes, which is crucial to display the devices intended use, and explore its feasibility. In addition to this, I like to work in multidisciplinary teams, and having a good understanding of technology and its applications is crucial to improove the workflow. During my first coding classes, creative programming and electronics, I had a hard time adjusting to the work environment of a coder, the trial and errors made me very frustrated and made my workflow inefficient. In addition, I stated gaining some basic knoledge of sensors and actuators in exploratory making. After these courses, I felt like I wanted to dive more, and I coursed intelligent interactive products, here I was able to work on math data and computing, but also in technology and realization. I haven’t applied my MLA knowledge in personal projects, but I know it will come in handy at some point.
During my design research project, I learned about the possibilities that 3D printing and material exploration has. As a team we developed a origami structure that could be printed, and this process really caught my attention. Learning by following a material exploration process was further used in my final project.
I enjoyed prototyping and I know I wanted to develop in this design phase. That’s why I dived into the world of 3D printing and modelling. For the modelling aspect, I worked a bit on parametric modelling, whereas mesh modelling is what caught my attention. In addition, while working on the hugging backpack for the course Digital Craftsmanship, I became a lot more comfortable while making, and I gained technological knowledge of textile machinery. For my final bachelor project, I did not focus on the technological aspect of the concept because I wanted to focus on its aesthetics more, whereas I was able to integrate and explore different mechanisms and use 3D printing and modelling to explore materials and shapes.
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FUTURE
After finishing my bachelor’s degree in industrial design I want to take some time to develop and explore my making skills. Because of my curiosity, I explored a lot of courses and learning lines in university to try and find something that I feel passionate about. Now I know that my goal is to improve my design process to be able to hand in functional prototypes, using different techniques, therefore, more in line with product development.
In the next months, I want to focus on improving my computational design skills, working on more blender and 3D printing. I want to explore and decide what path of design I want to master in and what skills would be beneficial to work on before the start of the next academic year.
I aim to work on more realistic projects to find out what skills I still need to develop, or what areas of expertise I still need to work on. Because of personal circumstances, I could not take part in internship work, and this brought me a lot of frustration because I couldn’t apply my new design skills in a real-life setting. I feel like working in more professional settings will also help me to validate my skills so far, and give my skills a sense of reality.
