Luciole : lighting up the design process

The Industrial Design Department of Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) is continuously developing and putting in practice a holistic and integrative educational approach, focusing on designing intelligent systems, products, and related services for societal transformation. This approach requires students to continuously reflect upon their design process and their results. Therefore, we are exploring how to support them in documenting and reflecting on their design projects. This paper introduces the first design iterations of Luciole, a design process visualisation tool based on and integrated in the educational model of TU/e.ID. These first iterations show clearly the students' benefit of using Luciole. This tool supports students in their design processes and in their reflection upon them. It is viewed as a tool to assist reflection upon designing, communication with coaches, and assessment. Finally, a first functional prototype of Luciole is introduced, as a means for further research. A long term user-test is currently conducted in order to validate the actual relevancy of Luciole as a tool to support education at TU/e.ID, and to evaluate the students' appreciation and use of the tool.