For the first time researchers at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering have received Veni grants. The grants should lead to greater insights into 3D perception and the ways consumers perceive products.
New products that look high-tech and of good quality should sell well, if, that is, the price is not too exorbitant. But according to dr. Ruth Mugge of the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, products that look modern and sophisticated may trigger conflicting feelings in consumers.
Mugge recently received a Veni grant, worth a maximum of 250,000 euro, from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) that will allow her to continue her research for three years. In total seventeen TU Delft researchers received Veni grants this year.
The dean of Industrial Design Engineering, Prof.Dr Cees de Bont, believes that in the years to come his faculty will receive this grant much more often. “The NWO created a category for interdisciplinary science this year, and most of our projects are interdisciplinary. Our applications were set aside in previous years because they were not technical enough, nor did they fit under the category of humanities.”
Mugge found that people may perceive a novel product appearance as user-unfriendly and complicated. “It’s really interesting”, she says. “In an experiment I exposed groups of test subjects to two washing machines. Both machines were exactly the same except that one was painted black, which is quite out of the ordinary. The people thought that the black and novel washing machine was more high-tech and hence they feared it might be more complicated to use.”
The way people evaluate the functional attributes of products simply by looking at their external characteristics is something that is hardly being studied, says Mugge: “Designers work by intuition. They don’t fully understand the way consumers think.” With her new grant she plans to investigate these interactions more thoroughly.
The designer partly elaborates on some of her previous studies of the personality characteristics that people use to describe specific products. A Volkswagen Beetle is ‘cheerful and friendly’, while one could describe a Volkswagen Touareg as ‘dominant and tough’.
Based on these perceived personality characteristics, consumers may have expectations about the product’s functional attributes. A Volkswagen Touaregs personality for example may elicit positive expectations about the power of its engine.
To assess product personality based on product appearance during the design process, Mugge and some of her departmental colleagues developed a 20-item scale, which they published this year in the scientific magazine, Design Studies.
“We tested the scale by letting people describe eight vacuum cleaners, which are typical utilitarian products, and eight cars, which are much more symbolic products that people use to enforce their identity. The spread of characteristics was what we hoped for. Not all cars and vacuum cleaners were for instance as cheerful or tough as one another.”
Look outside and you see cars, trees and buildings, and like everybody else you see it all exactly the same in 3D. At least that’s what most people think. The truth is that everybody perceives shapes differently.
“There are many different phenomena and techniques that come into play for people to see 3D”, explains dr. Maarten Wijntjes, the other TU Delft industrial designer to receive a Veni grant. “Occlusion for example. You see that a car is parked in front of a tree and this makes you realize that the tree is furthest away. Then there is disparity – the slightly different images that each of your eyes sees, which helps you to see depth. And there are reflections from objects combined with your knowledge of the direction of the incoming light.”
The ways that all these factors help people to create 3D images is poorly understood, according to Wijntjes. He doubts whether people see shapes and images optimally in 3D films while wearing the accompanying glasses, as this technique mostly relies on disparity. Other factors may be just as important, he believes. His research must result in greater insights that could be useful for the movie industry.
Wijntjes wants to make an experimental set up with abstract three-dimensional shapes obtained with a 3D printer. He will know the exact 3D structure of these shapes. With two lasers he will then pinpoint two spots on the shape and ask people to say which spot is furthest away. He will do the same experiment with recognizable objects, such as a bunny rabbit, which should make it easier for people to judge the distances.
“I’m very curious to see the outcome”, says Wijntjes, who believes this subject area has never before been investigated.
Nu de economische crisis verergert, trekt het kabinet zich weinig meer aan van politieke taboes. Zelfs de hypotheekrenteaftrek is niet meer heilig. Ook in onderwijsland groeit het geld niet aan de bomen en daarom rakelt de Onderwijsraad in een nieuw advies een oude discussie op: moet de overheid überhaupt betalen voor de masteropleiding? Of moeten afgestudeerde bachelors de vervolgopleiding als investering in zichzelf zien?
Al jaren pleit de raad voor ‘collegegelddifferentiatie’ in de masterfase. Ook nu weer. Maar de Tweede Kamer ziet er voorlopig weinig in. Als het ervan komt, dan zal het nog jaren duren.
“We kunnen die discussie pas voeren als de universitaire bacheloropleiding iets betekent op de arbeidsmarkt”, zegt CDA-kamerlid Jan Jacob van Dijk. “Als je met je bachelordiploma geen baan kunt vinden, dan is het gesprek over de masteropleiding niet aan de orde.” Ook als crisismaatregel ziet hij de verhoging niet zitten. “Op de korte termijn wil je mensen juist langer in het onderwijs houden. Collegegelddifferentiatie betekent onvermijdelijk dat er meer bachelors de arbeidsmarkt opkomen, dus dan stijgt de werkloosheid.”
Oppositiepartij VVD valt hem bij. “Eerst moeten de masteropleidingen volwassen worden”, zegt Kamerlid Halbe Zijlstra. “Nu zijn ze nog te sterk verweven met de wo-bachelor. Wie geen masteropleiding heeft gevolgd, krijgt de vraag waarom hij zijn studie niet heeft afgemaakt. Op de lange termijn zou zo’n verhoging wel kunnen, als het bespaarde geld weer wordt ingezet om de kwaliteit van het onderwijs te verhogen.” De maatregel zal in elk geval niet helpen om de haperende economie weer vlot te trekken, meent hij.
Ter linkerzijde van het kabinet is de Socialistische Partij mordicus tegen iedere verhoging. “De crisis dwingt tot extra investeringen en niet tot bezuinigingen”, zegt parlementariër Jasper van Dijk. “Onderwijs en innovatie zijn juist nodig om de crisis te bestrijden. Verhoging van het collegegeld zorgt ervoor dat minder mensen zullen doorstuderen. Vooral mensen met weinig geld zijn huiverig om te lenen voor hun studie.” Maar ook voor de toekomst ziet hij de verhoging niet zitten. Studeren is nu al te duur, vindt hij. “Thuiswonenden moeten meer collegegeld betalen dan ze studiebeurs ontvangen.”
Vorig jaar zei minister Plasterk dat hij in principe weinig bezwaar heeft tegen ‘collegegelddifferentiatie’ in de masterfase. Zolang het onderwijs maar wel toegankelijk blijft. Studenten zouden hun collegegeld moeten kunnen lenen.
De Onderwijsraad houdt voet bij stuk. “In de toekomst zouden we meer naar het Angelsaksische model toe kunnen gaan, waarin het grootste deel van de studenten de studie afsluit met een bachelordiploma”, zegt voorzitter Fons van Wieringen. Het collegegeld in de masterfase zou dan worden gedifferentieerd. Volgens hem is het geen probleem dat studenten meer moeten betalen in hun opleiding. “Nu investeren ze vaak al zonder het te beseffen, bijvoorbeeld door een relatief laag betaalde baan bij een advocatenkantoor aan te nemen, omdat ze er veel kunnen leren.”
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