Development

At the start of my Master’s, my interest broadly centred on human behaviour and experience. As the programme progressed, this focus gradually shifted toward the health domain, where I became increasingly aware of the tension between clinical systems and the everyday realities of managing health, and intrigued by the opportunity to create value within this space. My growing awareness of this tension led me to position my Master’s projects within healthcare contexts.

My development began with Physi, where we explored how physical health experiences for children could be designed in a more engaging and less clinical way. This line of thinking continued in projects such as HeartLoop, DiaDiary, and DiaLog, where my focus moved toward empowering self-management in chronic conditions. Through these projects, I explored how elements such as social interaction, daily routines, and communication shape health experiences beyond the clinical setting.

Through my projects, I have learned to not see design as the development of 'final concepts', but as a research tool to explore and reframe existing health practices. In doing so, I generate both design outcomes and insights that contribute to understanding and transforming healthcare practice, representing my focus on the Research, Design and Development track.

Working within sensitive health contexts challenged me to develop greater awareness of context, responsibility, and ethical considerations. Over time, this has shaped the way I approach design problems, strengthening my ability to work thoughtfully and critically within complex healthcare environments.

User & Society

Developing a deep understanding of target groups in healthcare requires engaging with complex and often unfamiliar needs and vulnerabilities. My design process therefore involves the deliberate selection of research approaches that enable meaningful, multi-perspective inquiry beyond confirming assumptions, focusing instead on understanding lived realities and translating these insights into design decisions. This approach is reflected in projects such as DiaLog, where the target group’s values informed concept development, which was subsequently used as a conversational research tool. Ethical awareness is a fundamental part of this process, encompassing both responsible, low-risk participant involvement and continuous reflection on the ethical implications of design decisions and envisioned outcomes.

Creativity & Aesthetics

For me, Creativity and Aesthetics play a central role in communicating concepts and shaping interactions. This means that my design process includes in-depth research into existing interaction patterns and stylistic references, followed by exploration of how these can be re-imagined.

In this development I aim for aesthetics that align closely with the target group, both in physical and digital interactions. This is well-represented in Physi and DiaLog, where interactions are grounded in the needs and values of the specific user groups.

To me visual style is a form of storytelling that supports understanding and adoption, which makes it an essential tool in my practice. I always create a professional and coherent visual style in my design materials, while also moving fluidly between different levels of fidelity, adapting to the related design phase and purpose.

Business & Entrepreneurship

While my design approach strongly emphasises research, I do not see research as an end in itself. I focus on translating insights into concrete proposals that explore how design concepts can function in real-world contexts. This includes formulating design implications for development or implementation based on rich research insights, as demonstrated in projects such as HeartLoop, DiaDiary, and DiaLog.

I actively build networks with experts and stakeholders to understand existing systems and explore realistic implementation scenarios. Using business-oriented tools iteratively, I map users, stakeholders, and value relationships, and critically analyse existing healthcare systems to position design outcomes for feasible adoption and real-world impact.

Technology & Realization

Technology and realisation play an important role in my design practice as both design enablers and research instruments. I develop prototypes with deliberately chosen levels of fidelity, depending on the goal of the design activity. This ranges from technical renders used to explore and communicate concepts, as in HeartLoop, to high-fidelity prototypes that enable meaningful interaction, as seen in Physi and DiaLog.

I find it important that both physical and digital prototypes communicate a realistic path toward implementation. I therefore emphasise technical knowledge, which I have strengthened through coursework (e.g., LightWork, Cooking Buddy), as it informs decision-making and allows me to assess technical opportunities at an early stage and ensure feasibility for development.

Math, Data & Computing

Across my projects, I consistently investigate existing data practices in healthcare, including current data collection methods, and how data is experienced by patients and/or healthcare professionals within broader care systems. This system-level perspective allows me to identify opportunities where design can improve how data is gathered, interpreted, and communicated across stakeholders.

My projects aim to create more accessible and actionable data interactions by supporting patients in understanding, reflecting on, and communicating their own data.

In DiaLog, this also included investigating data architectures and exploring ethical opportunities for data storage, sharing, and long-term use within healthcare systems.

Design and Research Processes

Healthcare is an inherently complex field, and developing meaningful understanding within it requires a considered combination of research methods. In my projects, I draw on both novel and established approaches to navigate this complexity and to foster an interplay between different expertise areas, enabling limitations to be addressed and new possibilities to be explored. This is reflected in DiaLog, where a prototype was carefully developed as a research instrument to incorporate user input while navigating ethical constraints.

A key component of my design and research process is therefore the reduction of complexity without oversimplification. This is reflected not only in my methodological choices, but also in how I analyse qualitative and quantitative data, identify patterns and tensions, and translate these into clear insights and actionable implications for design and implementation.

Integration of the Expertise Areas

I do not view the expertise areas as seperate skills, but rather competencies that are interlinked together. I have experienced how the various expertise areas are interwoven through my learnings and activities in projects and courses.

My FMP (DiaLog) brings together these learnings from my Master’s program and reflects my development across the expertise areas and how these together have formed a well-considered patient-centric design research process.