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S.E. Baha

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Master thesis (2021) - C.A. Visser, H.J. Hultink, S.E. Baha, Ir. L. Ferrigno
The consulting industry is at the forefront of disruption (Parakala, 2015). Agile, more digital-driven competitors enter the consulting market (Nissen, 2017a, p. 33). Furthermore, clients are becoming more digital and seek more digital and agile consulting services. The company of this project, a professional service network, is part of this changing market. To answer to the changing client needs and to stay competitive, they need to rethink their way of their ‘traditional personnel-intensive ‘face-to-face’ delivery model of consulting’ (Bieler, 2017). And thus, they need to re-design their client relationship that serves the changing demands of their clients. An in-house product of this professional service network focuses on bringing their client relationship into the digital age. This project aims to deliver a product positioning and strategy for this in-house product to support the future client relationship. The project approach is both systemic (Jones, 2020) and iterative. This means the author has a system view on the future client relationship integrating multiple factors that are influencing this system. Furthermore, the author has committed to an iterative design approach involving company stakeholders throughout the research and design phases with the use of co-reflection (Yukawa, 2006). Thorough research on the future of consulting, in addition to internal interviews and three different co-reflection sessions with multiple stakeholders have lead to a design for a future client relationship: The future client relationship will be humanly digital. A relationship that is characterized by co-created touch-points and a digital infrastructure that facilitates the people of the firm to use their knowledge and experience to offer clients personalized services. Three different digital experiences are driving this humanly digital relationship: pro-active selling solutions, interactive project experiences and digital business solutions. Design reflection sessions with internal stakeholders suggest: the product should facilitate these three digital experiences and should be positioned as a client-experience expert. This project gives a view on a potential future for the digital client relationship. Moreover, it provides the client of this project with a strategy and future vision on how to position their in-house product in the future. ...
Master thesis (2021) - I.L. Nielen, E. Tempelman, S.E. Baha
The graduation project assignment was to design a strategy for a concept for HARMAN Automotive's partnership with Bang & Olufsen and Ford Motor Company. By means of the design-driven innovation method (Verganti, 2009, 2016), a product-service system was created. ...

How The School of Life Amsterdam can make self-development a norm in society

Master thesis (2021) - G. Kuiper, R.A. Price, S.E. Baha, D. Tsuff
This graduation project aims to change the way people look towards self-development, and make self-development a norm in society so that people will be leading more meaningful and fulfilling lives. The School of Life Amsterdam is an organisation that aligned with this personal vision for society with their mission of helping people get more fulfilment out of their lives. For The School this project was an opportunity to expand their target group. A strategic design process was used to design a vision and strategy for The School of Life Amsterdam. First, research was performed in three directions. 1. Self-development: Why is it important and what are obstacles in doing self-development? 2. The School of Life Amsterdam: What are their strengths and weaknesses, which opportunities can be identified? 3. (Potential) customers: Who are they and what do they think about self-development and The School of Life Amsterdam? The research was analysed and used to create a vision for The School of Life Amsterdam: Growth as a shared responsibility of both The School of Life Amsterdam and its customers. For The School, that means business and impact growth, and for the consumers, it means personal growth. The strategy is built on the research's insights, especially the appeal of The School has to customers, and the self-help paradox, meaning that people need to do self-development to realize the value of self-development. The strategy aims to make self-development a norm in society by using The School’s community, people who are already into self-development. The community members will be provided with the knowledge and tools to interact with people who are not yet aware of the value or doing self-development. The interactions will be based on ‘We-development’: Self-development as a means to create deeper and more meaningful connections. With more people doing self-development, the School of Life Amsterdam's market will expand. A roadmap with three phases was created to implement the strategy in the organisation. Finally, further recommendations for the project are that The School of Life Amsterdam creates a clear definition of fulfilment to measure its impact on customers. Next, the strategy’s value and impact needs to be evaluated during execution. And lastly, further research needs to be done on community building. ...

Care and conviviality as a means to community resilience and adaptation

Master thesis (2020) - Iosif Kesisoglou, S.E. Baha, R.A. Price, Michel Becks
In the midst of climate change, a global pandemic, and an increasingly complex world, urban communities are in need for novel ways to adapt to the new climatic conditions.

Through a vision-led iterative design process, I explored how community resilience can flourish, by focusing on human relationships. Focusing on the values of care and conviviality, the process of commoning, and the act of being mindful, I investigated how urban dwellers can contribute directly towards the wellbeing of their community.

A digital platform is proposed for the empowerment of urban dwellers, to address collectively, great challenges, as the heatwaves, through the proactive sharing of relevant information, and awareness of community needs. A prototype of the concept provided depth on the potential of commoning. A pilot is proposed in collaboration with the Netherlands Red Cross.

An extensive literature review was performed on the areas of heatwaves, urban heat islands, international environmental agreements, the impact thereof in national policy and local resources, participatory practices and the commons, volunteering, care and conviviality.

A transition towards collective futures becomes a necessity in order to address the climate crisis, its effects on our communities and most importantly, personal and collective resilience and adaptation.
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A Design Education Tool for Revealing the Hidden Curriculum

Master thesis (2020) - Celeste Volpi, Peter Lloyd, Ehsan Baha
In this project, I research how to unveil the hidden curriculum in Design Education. The hidden curriculum is the curriculum that students develop tacitly during their studies. It is also defined as tacit knowledge developed in education. tacit knowledge is a part of knowledge that everybody takes for granted without being fully aware of its influence on perceptions and actions. Unveiling tacit knowledge by design students has been considered by several authors a source for students to support awareness in judgments and decision making (Grey, 2018; Vakantesh & Ma, 2019; Wang, 2010; Whelan et al, 2017) because it allows students to become more aware of their perspectives when learning. However, tacit knowledge, as well as the hidden curriculum, are difficult to make explicit (Grey, 2018), because they are hidden in ourselves and our culture (Mareis, 2012). In the course, IDE Academy, a first-year master course in the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering of the Technical University of Delft, the hidden curriculum plays an important role for students. The course set up allows students to choose skills to learn in a free-fail environment, thus, the curriculum of the course is highly dependent on the students and their decision making. This means that the hidden curriculum of the students becomes the curriculum of IDE Academy.The aim of this project was to find ways to make the hidden curriculum more explicit in IDE Academy and to contribute knowledge of how to unveil the hidden curriculum in design education. ...

Explorations towards a more decolonial participatory design process

Participatory Design (PD) has been used as a medium to democratize the design practice and include in the process the people intended to use the outcomes. When working for social change and justice, the practice intends to maintain its democratic nature by giving voice and agency to the most vulnerable in society. However, when engaging in complex societal problems PD can perpetuate systemic oppression and reproduce in the design process the same harmful mechanisms that are intended to be changed. For this reason, it is crucial for the PD practice to engage in matters of power dynamics so more socially just processes can be developed. Acknowledging this urgency, this research project has the aim of proposing an alternative understanding for a decolonial PD process that accounts for more power balanced and socially just dynamics between designers and members of marginalized communities. To accomplish the alternative understanding, the project was performed in three main phases. The first phase (research for design) is formed of a literature review and interviews with design practitioners familiar with participatory processes with oppressed communities. With these activities it was understood that the PD practice can reproduce systemic oppression in three different levels (individual, communal and systemic) because the role of the designer entails advantages in decision making, project ownership and process control among others. To overcome these oppressive practices, the work of the philosopher Paulo Freire was studied to find analogies between his pedagogy for liberation and the PD practice. In this study, it was learned that to create more horizontal relationships, it is necessary to create the space for a co-learning process based on dialogue between the designer and the members of a community. The second phase of the project (research through design) started by proposing a detailed structure for a process inspired by the research for design to be carried out with the community. However, earlier in the initiation of the phase, it was realized that in order to decolonize the PD process also the PD designer inside the process needs to be decolonized and that the structure could be propose if and only if it was developed together with the community of Afrikaanderwijk. Accordingly, the second phase of this research was based on non-structured explorations in the neighborhood allowing different moments of engagement between the designer and the community based on horizontal relationships and dialogue. In this phase was found that a decolonization of the designer and the design process entails a constant re-evaluation of the designer’s role that can move in a spectrum from facilitator to participant in the context. Other statements about the alternative understanding of PD processes were drawn including the need to see the process as a collaboration instead of just participation and to intend the project as something bigger than just what design is able to frame. The last phase of this project intended to make the insights of the research practical and useful for other designers. In this way, the final findings were translated into a series of reflective questions to challenge assumptions and biases in the initiation of a PD process. ...

Supporting young adults in sustainable financial decision-making

Money is a key element in people’s overall well-being (Abey & Ford, 2008). Young adults are behaving very differently towards finances compared to previous generations (Williams et al, 2010). In addition, young adults have little trust on financial institutions and no one to turn to for actionable advice (Deloitte Millennial Survey, 2019). Adults in their twenties and thirties are struggling with money, feeling overwhelmed and lost (Foundation for Economic Education, 2018). A gap in the market was found, where no current solutions fostered long-term behaviors for young adults towards a secure financial future. I wanted to use my skills as a designer to solve this paradigm involving young adults and finances. The goal of this graduation project is to provide guidance and support for young adults in changing their current money habits so they can ensure their future well-being. This societal issue regarding young adults and money is a shared problem in countries all over the world. For a better understanding of the relationship young people have, the context was scoped down: the project was based in Madrid, Spain and it was targeted for young adults belonging to this country. Under this context, the research of the project provided valuable findings which led to the final design. Those findings can be extrapolated to non-spanish young adults. Young adult’s current money habits and the desired financial behavior for a sustainable well-being were identified and mapped in two frameworks. The transition between both was possible through the creation of a new product- service-system. As a result, a product-service-system, named Volt, was designed. Volt crafts a new meaningful relationship between young adults and money and consists of a smart phone case, a related digital application and the system that sustains both. Through the phone case, young adults will progressively save by clicking a button and check their financial health thanks to a coloured light. The digital application will first help young adults to budget on their personal financial goals into vaults or buckets and keep track of their financial health and progress. After some digital application use, the digital application will provide young adults with actionable financial advice and the entrance to a community of young people with similar financial situation, so they can feel supported and have the peace of mind they crave. ...

A strategy for housing corporations to facilitate sustainability in neigbhorhoods

Master thesis (2019) - Eline van Terwisga, Ruth Mugge, Ehsan Baha
This graduation project investigates the stimulation of sustainable behaviour among residents from a housing corporation in Eindhoven, Wooninc., and proposes a program for grassroots infrastructure as a way to support sustainable transitions in neighborhoods.As a partner of the “Duurzaamheidspact Eindhoven” housing corporation Wooninc. formulated the ambition to be more sustainable (Theeuwen, 2018). In order to do so, they not only want to improve their core business but also wants to engage their residents with a more sustainable lifestyle. They adopted the method of ‘De Verborgen Impact’ which includes a train-the-trainer process that trains leading residents, so-called peers, to motivate their fellow residents for a (more) sustainable lifestyle. This led to the key objective for this project: “Design a fitting intervention that peers can use to motivate residents of Wooninc., so that they feel activated to make their lifestyles (more) sustainable.”ApproachBy exploring the design brief and using the designers’ Personal Principles for Good Design the Transition Design method was chosen as the main driver for this design process to understand the project within a broader system context. In addition, the 1:10:100 scheduling technique was applied to allow rapid iterations and to create a concept that is successful and supported by each of the stakeholders. Research & findingsBy conducting four iterative cycles insight in behavioural change was gained from literature and interviews. This resulted in insight in how to reverse internal and external barriers into levers that can be used to support residents in the transition towards a more sustainable lifestyle. This led to the development of the ‘Sustainable Transition’- framework. Which incorporates relevant theories found in literature and maps seven leverage points to inspire for transition towards sustainable behaviour. Based on this framework concept development happened iterative from preliminary vision to the final concept of ‘Onze Verborgen Impact’ Transition Program and Transition Toolkit. The ‘Sustainable Transition’ - framework indicates that to engage residents, as well as peers on their intrinsic motivation all the dimensions of a personal transition should be supported including: motivation and ability, personal values and their position in the process of change. Based on this framework a vision for the final concept was developed: “Making sustainability transparent and accessible (lower the external barriers) by emphasizing the positive side and the advantages of sustainable behaviour (reversing internal barriers). To show that sustainability, in different ways, is accessible for everyone.” The ‘Onze Verborgen Impact’ Transition ProgramTesting prototypes with peers and residents, showed that this concept should not predefine how the peers encounter their fellow residents in their neighborhoods but should enable peers to create their personal approach. This led to the final concept, a transition program called ‘Onze Verborgen Impact’. This program exists out of different elements: - Train: training of the peers by experts- Create: supported by experts peers create their personal approach with which they want to involve residents- Join: residents can participate in the local initiatives set-up by the peers and explore sustainability in their own phase. - Impact: the structure of the program makes it possible to bring new ideas that are generated for improving sustainability at neighborhood level to a higher level - Transition Toolkit: a toolkit with instruments to support the above-mentioned elements such as: three training templates, different recruitment materials and a ‘Mijn Verborgen Impact’ - booklet to support peers and residents in their personal sustainability journey. The final concept taps into the intrinsic motivation of peers by recognizing their personal ideas and creates favourable neighborhood initiatives where residents can experience and discover the benefits of sustainability in their own pace. ...
Master thesis (2019) - Jesse Tas, Erik Tempelman, Ehsan Baha
This project focusses on the creation of a hydrofoil specifically for the windsurfing market. The assigment was created for PWsurfsport. PWsurfsport is a windsurfing company based in Leiden. The company has two subsidiary companies called Tribal and KA. Sails. Tribal produces windsurfing fins and KA produces windsurf sails. Tribal wanted to add a new product to its product portfolio. In this case, the key objective for this project was to create a windsurfing hydrofoil, fitting the current product portfolio of the company and the future windsurfing market.
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Master thesis (2019) - Taresh Ghei, Anne Kranzbühler, Ehsan Baha, Joost Olieroock, Tanvi Pande
This master thesis report is the culmination of six months of collaboration between TU Delft and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. The aim of the project is to investigate ways by which KLM can change the perception of passengers during a disruption event such as flight delays, cancellations, and missed connections. In order to accomplish this, the Double Diamond approach was used along with the addition of an envisioning phase based on the inside-out process of meaning innovation pioneered by Roberto Verganti (Verganti, 2016). KLM is one of the world's oldest airlines that still operate with their original name. Their ambition is to become Europe’s most customer-centric, innovative and efficient network carrier by offering memorable experiences by leveraging new market opportunities and technological developments to deliver superior customer service. KLM has done extensive research and examined and identified certain gaps in their customer journey experience to focus on and improve. One of the key gaps identified is disruption handling. KLM projects almost 4.5 million passengers to be affected by disruptions in 2019 (KLM, 2019). During a disruption, passengers experience increased stress and seek guidance and quick resolutions to their problems. A disruption is a sudden event and that passengers do not have control over it. Thus the only way they will feel some sense of control is if they have information about it, information that is transparent and information that will help them take their next steps. In fact, one of the core customer needs gathered from research is the receiving of proactive information in the event of a disruption. Regardless of the cause of the disruption, passengers are usually quick to blame the airlines for the negative situation. Therefore, effective communication might help in reducing that perception and might generate a positive sentiment about the airline. According to KLM’s own disruption communication mandate, passengers should receive information that is consistent, relevant, contextual, personalized and transparent at the right time. However, that is sometimes not the case. KLM uses a number of communication channels to provide information. However, most often, all these pieces of information are not consistent, relevant, personalized or on time. In addition, as per the KLM compass and their new emphasis on customer intimacy, KLM wants to show passengers that they care about them, that passengers feel recognized, comfortable and touched. However, these particular aspects of customer intimacy do not translate to the information that the passenger is being sent. Therefore, the tone of voice, the nature of the information ( helpful, not helpful, feed-forward ) also makes a big difference in how passengers perceive KLM as a brand. In order to make all information more coherent and consistent across all channels and touchpoints, there was a need to evolve a communication structuring, design, and dissemination framework which effectively and consistently delivers the most relevant informational content as expected and desired by passengers under conditions of flight disruption and otherwise. Thus, The Asix structure for information content was created to unify all the information content. The Asix structure provides guidelines as to how the information should be structured along with giving guidelines about the tone of voice of the message as well. In essence, messages designed on the basis of the Asix structure make the passengers feel more recognized, acknowledged and seem to be more sincere and heartfelt which positively influences their perception about KLM and their situation as well, thereby increasing their trust in KLM and their belief that KLM truly cares for them. This is a good positive step towards positively changing the perception of the passengers during a disruption. ...