Hi, I’m Zander
a Master's student Industrial Design at Eindhoven University of Technology. My work sits at the intersection of design, technology, entrepreneurship, and data. I am driven by creating functional products that leverage emerging technologies to solve real-world challenges and create meaningful user experiences. I aim to explore how new technologies can be part of a future with new products and services, and how these concepts can grow into real-world products through business development.
Vision
My vision as an industrial designer is based on the idea that technological advancements go fast, sometimes overlooking how they can be integrated into meaningful products to have a positive effect on our lives. These emerging technologies improve and become more accessible, but the insights on how to implement them into products with the right functions to support users is overlooked. Here, the design is critical to develop the right functionalities and qualities for real-world adaptions.
I would label myself as a data-enabled designer, where data is used as a material in the design process. Data is this invisible but continuous stream that has so much information to get informed by or support decisions when made accessible and insightful. In the process, I find iterative exploration and integrating stakeholders in the process important. These themes show throughout my projects, like FestiGuard (Final Bachelor Project) where I designed a smartwatch to monitor physiological values to prevent health risks for party drugs consumers, and AI Athletics (Final Master Project), where I designed an app to make sprint form analysis through markerless motion tracking accessible.
This connects to the vision I have for technologies to be used. I can feel great irritation by abuse of technology, for which I mean that the purpose of the designed product is primarily to make profits and not be a positive contribution to everyday life. Big companies launch newly designed features to make their product highly addictive for profits and neglect the effect on everyday lives. While the value of design can range from being meaningful, motivating, attractive, and engaging, I believe designers also carry a responsibility to create technologies that empower people rather than mistreat them.
But a product’s adaption also depends on business success, as it is a company. Therefore, the design of a feasible business around the product or service is key to making impact. I aim to further explore and understand this role in AI Athletics, which I also position as a start-up. The goal is to reach a stage where the team can fully focus on developing and delivering a meaningful innovation. For me, entrepreneurship is a way to bring ideas into the real world where many innovative concepts never go beyond a prototype or vision. By integrating business into the design process, I aim to increase the chances that meaningful innovations can be developed, sustained, and ultimately reach the people they are intended to benefit.
Professional Identity
My professional identity as an Industrial Designer is shaped by a passion to let designs and technologies support things we love to do in life. While life has negative moments and less enjoyable experiences, the time we have on earth is limited and to fill this with joyful moments, experiences and connections I aim to create designs that support these situations even more. This shows in my projects, which often aim to add another dimension to sports, music, or social events to create interactions, safety, or awareness.
When designing, I follow a user-centered approach to identify opportunities and validate assumptions to connect a concept to the using context. Here, I feel my creativity is one of my core qualities to form concepts to meet user requirements. I make the concepts clear and more concrete with visuals, sketches and prototypes, through which I can communicate the concept easily to different stakeholders and end-users to gain further insights on how the design can become valuable to users.
In my masters, I focused on developing my expertise in business and the technological components of design. For business expertise, I set up a startup called AI Athletics that creates an accessible tool for sprint analysis with markerless motion tracking to support collaboration between athletes and coaches. I do this by validating assumptions through build-measure-learn cycles, which closely involves users and stakeholders in the process. In addition, the willingness to pay is important to explore early for which I like to use the concierge method as a manual service offered to early adaptors. This also influences the design of the business and marketing methods.
In terms of the expertise in technology and realization, I created the entire system and app environment for AI Athletics. This includes developing the product myself, but also collaborating with an engineer, where my role as a designer is important in discussions. Also here, communicating app and interface ideas through visuals, systemic overviews and mockups had huge value, but also coding skills to create functions and prototypes. An important consideration here is also the user experience, where a product should be seamlessly integrated into the user workflow. This includes analyzing the user journey and how to design functions that make the product easier to use.
Earlier in my studies, I sometimes struggled to follow a predefined process or planning, as new ideas and insights could easily shift my focus. Over time, I learned to work more systematically towards deadlines and gained experience with different processes, allowing me to adapt my approach based on their strengths and limitations. Today, I use planning as a clear framework while leaving room for adjustments when new insights add value to the project.
AI Athletics has grown from a graduation project into a long-term ambition. While the willingness to pay for the service has been validated, a sustainable business model should still be established. As a result, the start-up is not ready to become my full-time career immediately after graduation. The goal is to continue refining the product and business model, with the aim of launching later this year. I try to bridge this gap by applying for funding. In the long term, I hope to grow AI Athletics into a sustainable company by expanding the team, improving the product, growing the user base, and eventually scaling into the European market and beyond.
Besides AI Athletics, I currently see two main career directions. The first is teaching in a technical environment. After four years as a teaching assistant at TU/e, I have developed a strong appreciation for guiding students and sharing knowledge. This path also combines well with further developing a startup. The second direction is digital and data-driven design. Working at the intersection of design, technology, and data would allow me to further develop my skills in creating meaningful digital experiences, while also connecting to my interest in motion design and interactive visualizations.