The work referred to throughout this section. Hover any card for the full backgrounder.
How my five expertise areas developed across my bachelor, internship and Final Bachelor Project.
Viewing Year 1.
Business and Entrepreneurship was an expertise area I actively wanted to strengthen, because I realised that meaningful designs only have impact if they can realistically reach the people who need them. Courses such as Design Innovation Methods, Entrepreneurship in Action and Introduction to Business Design challenged my earlier assumption that good concepts naturally lead to impact. They helped me understand that desirability, feasibility and viability are not final checks at the end of a project, but conditions that shape whether an idea can become real.
During my internship at Signify, this understanding developed significantly. Working as a Product Management intern for Philips Hue taught me that business decisions are also design decisions. Strategy, positioning, pricing, feature definition and launch planning all influence how a product is experienced, understood and adopted by users. Through the New Product Development Launch process, I learned to connect user insights, competitor benchmarking, market data and business constraints into clearer product directions.
I also became more aware of the practical realities behind product development, such as margins, pack sizes and go-to-market strategy. This showed me that many important design decisions happen before anything is visually designed. Business and Entrepreneurship therefore became less about making a concept commercially attractive afterwards, and more about designing with implementation, adoption and long-term impact in mind from the beginning.
Business and Entrepreneurship developed strongly during HoldOn because one of my clearest FBP goals was to integrate reach, adoption and feasibility into the design process early, rather than treating them as final implementation details. I am proud that this became one of the most important shifts in the project.
Early research into existing solutions showed that technical effectiveness alone is not enough. TrueCall appeared effective once active, but the wider challenge was reach, installation and continued use. This made adoption part of the design problem from the beginning.
This directly validated my goal of considering who would introduce, recommend, fund or support the intervention. HoldOn could not rely on an older adult independently discovering, setting up and maintaining the system. The project therefore considered family members, carers, charities, telecom providers and care organisations as part of the ecosystem that would determine whether the system could realistically reach users.
HoldOn Business Model Canvas
The use of TAM and UTAUT also helped me analyse adoption beyond usefulness. Users also need to trust the system, understand it, feel capable of using it and have support available. This shifted the project from designing only the older adult’s direct phone interaction towards designing how the system might be introduced, configured and supported over time.
This goal was achieved more strongly than I expected. HoldOn strengthened my ability to think about implementation, partnerships and long-term sustainability as design decisions, not just business decisions.
