Portfolio Bob Schellekens - Expertise Areas

Expertise Areas

Design is a continuous journey of learning, refining, and pushing creative boundaries. On this page, I'll walk you through my development across the different expertise areas, using key projects and courses as examples to illustrate my growth.

For a deeper dive into the projects, you'll find more details at the bottom of this page.

User & Society

As a designer, I aim to create rich yet intuitive interactions by integrating objects and data that resonate with users on a personal level. My previous education lacked user implementation and emotional depth, prompting me to explore these aspects through various courses and projects.

During my pre-master project, I conducted field research using the Wizard of Oz method and semi-structured interviews, remotely observing users interacting with a probe we designed. Later, in my master's, Constructive Design Research shifted my focus from problem-solving, something I was trained for in Mechanical Engineering, to problem identification in a societal context. For example, observing people at a Repair Café helped uncover the hidden benefits of doing repairs, such as maintaining social connections among older community members. This field study made me realize its potential to uncover unexpected design opportunities. As a result of these activities, I can now confidently conduct field research based on observation and interviews.

I further explored societal impact in Interactional Morality, Design for Social Innovation, and Design for Behavioral Change. In Interactional Morality, I examined who defines social norms, developing a manifesto prompting participants to reflect on personal agency in shaping values. The idea for this manifesto came from first-person perspective, while reflecting on a personal struggle, this method has proved to be a valuable asset for my FMP as well. Design for Social Innovation involved ethnographic research on fast-food chains’ readiness for reusable packaging, where we analyzed workflow disruptions and proposed models for sustainable transitions.

In my M1.2 project, I facilitated a workshop on why people value outdated technologies. Thematic analysis revealed that the experience extended beyond device usage to collecting media carriers, shaping my perspective on designing experiences beyond functionality—insights that influenced Reminiscence Radio.

My FMP has shown me the value of identifying and verifying problems through a combination of first-person and third-person perspectives, combining personal experiences with scientific research. Having personally experienced the negative effects of social media on self-esteem and identity, this helped me to develop the ability to identify and tackle problems in a broader societal context through introspection. I have also established a set of tools for testing and evaluating my designs, for this same societal context. These skills will remain valuable as I continue evolving as a designer.

Technology & Realization

During a chaotic creative process, making provides structure, anchoring me in a tangible environment rather than endless ideation. I embraced this early in my FMP, using my mechanical engineering background to develop practical solutions. Understanding how things work has always been a core interest, causing me to constantly expand my toolbox of making methods. This enabled me to choose from a wide range of knowledge and experience which resulted in the creation of a modular prototyping model and a weight detection system, combining 3D modeling, 3D printing, laser cutting, systems thinking, wiring, and programming, forming a versatile prototyping toolkit for integrated system development.

I believe that practical skills are best learned trough peer to peer collaboration. I actively learned from peers, such as acquiring soldering skills during M1.1. Working alongside a teammate on separate hardware components, I observed and asked questions, later integrating our parts into a connected system. This introduced me to MIDI connectivity and programming, expanding my technical knowledge through hands-on collaboration.

As a human-centered designer, I highly value the opinions and insights of potential users and experts, aiming to integrate their perspectives into the development process. I therefore, believe that this expertise area is strongly connected to User & Society, as one does not exist without the other when designing user-centered products. I am confident that I can retrieve, analyze and implement the input of users, to make a design benefit from multiple perspectives.

Creativity & Aesthetics

From a young age, I’ve been drawn to designing visually appealing things—whether products, fashion, or services. While my engineering mindset once prioritized functionality above all, I’ve come to see aesthetics as a functional tool in itself, shaping user interactions and communicating connections between interactional models within a design.

In my FMP, I used aesthetics to communicate the function of Reminiscence Radio, ensuring it visually read as a radio while incorporating my own stylistic influences. By researching, exploring, and moodboarding the functionalities and aesthetics of traditional radios from the ’60s and ’70s, design eras I deeply appreciate, I left a personal mark. This process helped me craft a design language that reinforced the project’s themes of music, time, and nostalgia. Aesthetics, therefore, not only convey the object's functionality but also, obtain a sense of timelessness or engage a specific target group, which can also be seen as functionalities.

My pre-master course Exploratory Sketching introduced me to product sketching as a way to develop styles and functionalities in an exploratory way. I adapted this exploratory approach to 3D modeling, a skill I had refined in my prior education and frequently used for both team communication and aesthetic exploration, such as in the Pre-Master Reset project. Before starting my master’s, I had already developed 3D modeling and laser-cutting skills, which I used to train my spatial visualization ability. This allowed me to envision 2D puzzle pieces as components of a 3D object, strengthening my ability to translate flat designs into tangible forms, as can be seen within the demonstrator of Reminiscence Radio.

This exploratory mindset was also key in Design for Social Innovation, where hands-on prototyping sessions enabled both aesthetic and functional experimentation. These experiences reinforced my belief in an iterative approach, where form and function evolve together to create meaningful and engaging design solutions, with aesthetics finding its functionality in appeal, as well as communication.

Math, Data & Computing

Today, vast amounts of data are collected and used in algorithms to predict user interests, especially in digital media. However, rather than simply feeding users theoretically relevant content, I find it more compelling to present people with their own data to evoke nostalgia. This idea formed the basis for Reminiscence Radio, where I identified a personalized data bundle based on Spotify usage, not only tracking what people listened to but also when, where, and for how long. As can be read in my vision I believe reflecting this data back to users adds a deeply personal layer to digital experiences.

An essential aspect of this area is data gathering and analysis to extract value, the data gathering methods are detailed in User & Society. I have been able to conduct thematic analysis within multiple projects to make sense of large qualitative data sets. During my M1.2 project, it helped me identify patterns in persona development, distinguishing shared themes from individual nuances, such as why different people collect vinyl records.

I also explored holistic system connections during my time at New Futures Squad and the course A Designerly Perspective on IoT: A Growing Systems Approach. These experiences challenged me to view devices as part of a larger ecosystem rather than isolated products. The IoT sandbox exercise reinforced this, requiring all solutions to be smart, communicative, and aware of each other’s functions. A practical example was the Exsom project, where multiple sound-based systems in a home office needed to function cohesively, avoiding interference by behaving as an embedded system rather than separate, conflicting entities. Working on embedded and holistic systems has deepened my understanding of systems thinking, not just recognizing how functionalities intertwine but also how systems communicate and adapt based on their perception of each other, and the data they share to function like a hive mind. This mindset continues to shape how I approach interconnected design challenges.

Business & Entrepreneurship

Altough I chose not to specialize in this area, I have built a strong foundation in business and entrepreneurial skills. My first exposure came during Introduction to Business Design, where I created a Business Model Canvas (BMC), about a robot I had designed before to clean solar panels on roofs, to structure and analyze business models. This later expanded in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Project, where defining value propositions became a key focus. These value propositions were used to identify the relevance of a project. This often lead to the killing of darlings, as pivots were often needed when value propositions proved ineffective, which became an approach that helped me make a late-stage hardware change in Reminiscence Radio efficiently.

At Innovation Space, I learned the value, and challenges, of multidisciplinary teams. While different interests initially slowed progress, once aligned, they became a strength. As a designer I positioned myself as a mediator during this project, being able to communicate with all expertises to guarantee a smooth working flow, while also being responsible for my own separate tasks.

I also developed skills in persona creation and usage, first in my M1.1 project at New Futures, where we designed for a fictional family, and later in M1.2, analyzing why people contribute to the revival of dead technologies like vinyl records. These experiences taught me how to narrow down design focus before broadening applicability. Personas connect to User & Society by enhancing user understanding, but I see them as more than that. I believe, they bridge user needs and market positioning, ensuring designs are both meaningful and strategically viable.

I further refined my business thinking through benchmarking, and strategically analyzing competitors to position Reminiscence Radio’s added value. Additionally, working solo on my graduation project highlighted the importance of expert consultation. While I enjoy learning independently, I recognized that time and resources can limit this, in situations like this I am able to communicate with experts in their language.

Looking ahead, I aim to become a sales engineer, bridging development, sales, and users by combining my technical foundation with strong communication skills—translating complex solutions into real-world value.

Design Research Processes

When formulating design challenges and research questions, I combine intrinsic motivation and personal interests with societal problems. With a background in mechanical engineering, I feel most at home in the ideation and development phases, using my experience within these stages to bring order to my otherwise chaotic creative process.

My design approach is human-centered and aimed towards positive psychology. My process is largely intuition-driven, often beginning from a first-person perspective, in case it can be reinforced by third-person insights from literature. As the process unfolds, second-person input from potential users, peers, and experts becomes essential for decision-making and development. This multi-perspective approach ensures that my designs remain truly user-centered and grounded in real-world insights.

I feel comfortable while performing the engineering design process—not just because the name reflects my background in both engineering and design, but because it provides a familiar structure to work within. I can move through its stages intuitively, defining problems early on and then engaging in a structured, result-driven approach for both development and evaluation. A key advantage of this process is that its final stages often reveal new opportunities, allowing for iteration, continuous improvement, and realization by repeating the cycle.

Process Pictures

Courses overview

My Work

In this section more information about prior projects can be found, click the pictures in the frames to find out more.