One of my favorite experiences from my time in Amsterdam was working with students from the University of Amsterdam on a design challenge. My team’s goal was to find ways to improve the experience of using public transportation for tourists.
Working with the UvA students, I learned a lot about noticing and sensing. To start, I learned about the importance of taking the time to accurately identify the problem before jumping to a solution that you may already have in mind. A great way to gather information on a problem is through interviews. To prepare for interviewing tourists, I learned how to create open ended questions and to always dig deeper to find the “why”. Though we ran into issues when trying to interview public transportation workers, I was very surprised by how willing people were to answer our questions and discuss their experiences traveling in Amsterdam. With its widespread public transport system, the incredible reliance on bikes for traveling, and the massive number of tourists, Amsterdam provided a unique environment to work on the design challenge.
I think there is still a lot of data that needs to be collected about tourists experiences with public transport in Amsterdam. For instance, when I interviewed tourists, most of them said they thought the current system was extremely efficient and on time. However, talking to some locals and some UvA students, I learned that strikes can happen often and lead to major shutdowns and delays that leave people unable to travel using public transportation. I think it would be interesting to explore what might be helpful in assisting tourists navigate these kinds of situations.
Moving onto the brainstorming and prototyping phases, I moved over to the new challenge of promoting healthy eating amongst college students. It was exciting to get the opportunity to switch my focus and work to address a different issue. During this experimenting phase, we worked with students from the Avans school.
I think I struggled with brainstorming the most because I tend to automatically start the idea selection phase, limiting myself to what is realistic instead of focusing on generating as many ideas as possible. However, once a solution is chosen, prototyping and testing are my favorite part of the design process because I really enjoy getting to create something and seeing how people respond to it. My team and I created a low fidelity prototype for a smart fridge system that tracks what food you have and what food you need, using AI to generate personalized shopping lists and recipes.
For me, the highlight of the asynchronous activities was the wallflower activity because it sort of forced me to take the time to just sit in a park and learn a bit about Amsterdam through observation. Outside of class, some of my favorite experiences have been taking day trips to different cities, such as a beach day in Zandvoort and visiting the food market in Rotterdam. In Amsterdam, I enjoyed exploring the city by walking around the many canals, visiting museums, and going on late night fry runs.
My advice to students doing iSEED in Amsterdam in the future is to remember to take some time to stop and rest because going to all these places and meeting all these new people can be exhausting in addition to exciting. Spending some time sitting at a café or at a park can be a great way to not only recharge, but also to take in and enjoy the city around you. Also, if working with local students again, you should definitely take advantage of their knowledge about Amsterdam. Try to spend time with them outside of class and ask for recommendations for places to go, things to eat, or just about any other questions you may have about Amsterdam.
Harold with our smart fridge prototype
View from canal boat tour