General introductionThe department of Industrial Design is one of the nine departments of the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). Research at the department is focused on two areas or thematic clusters: Future Everyday and Systemic Change.

The Future Everyday cluster investigates the everyday interactions between individual people and the highly interconnected technology that surrounds them. We measure, model and design for the user experience when individuals interact with social-technological networks in their homes, at work, in transit, while doing sport or going out.

The Systemic Change cluster focuses on designing innovations that have impact on systemic structures and groups of people, ultimately aiming to address large-scale issues such as urban health, future mobility and sustainability. Field data is used in novel iterative and circular research-through-design processes involving strategic alliances of stakeholders.

Research and education at the department are highly interconnected. In particular, Bachelor, Master and PhD students intensively collaborate with research staff in so-called squads dedicated to specific research topics.

Future Everyday

'Future Everyday bridges the gap between emerging technologies and people's everyday life.'

The Future Everyday cluster is concerned with understanding, exploring, and shaping an everyday life of individuals/small groups that encompasses the new reality of living and working, in spaces that are becoming more responsive, continuous and experiential in the future with emerging technologies. Currently, we focus on designing with technologies such as internet of things, wearables/soft things, small/local data, machine learning --- and designing for aesthetics in an everyday life with all the nuances and subtleties, that is inherently dynamic, ever-changing and shaped by personal and collective values, needs and desires. We seek to better understand how to create the right conditions --- over time and space --- to allow human-technology relationships to grow and adapt to future situations. We aim to characterize the innate or emergent qualities these future objects, artefacts and tools need to be endowed with.Research AreaOne of the central application domains for the Future Everyday is mobility. Mobility, and more specifically automobility, is a central part of everyday life.

Currently, the automotive domain is going through a major and disruptive change, from manually driven vehicles to self-driving vehicles. There is a need to understand and anticipate the effects of this disruptive change, and investigate (research) and tune (design) the technological developments towards the (emerging) interests of people. Therewith, autonomous driving offers an ideal case for developing research and design methods and for designing for disruptive changes in everyday life, and for collecting insights into how disruptive changes are integrated in everyday life. Furthermore, such methods and insights are generic in the sense that they can also be applied outside the automotive domain.

The research area builds on a tradition of research of about ten years in the area of Automotive Human Factors. In the period 2006-2014, the focus of the research was mostly on interaction design for drivers, addressing topics such as the user experience for cooperative driving (STW project Connect and Drive), steering control for Drive-by-wire (STW project Verified), speech interfaces (together with ikspreek.nl), driver health and well-being (EIT Digital project Fit2Perform). In addition, research has been conducted on user research methods, in particular for the evaluation of very early design concepts (Co-Constructing stories method, developed in the STW project REPAR).

In recent years, the focus has been more specifically on the subdomain of human factors for autonomous driving, with topics such as trust and acceptance, shared control, situation awareness and motion sickness, and interaction between autonomous vehicles and other road users. Furthermore, efforts in the domain of user research methods have been continued, but on a smaller scale.

Prospects
For the next decade, the department would like to continue and develop the research and design in the area of smart (auto-)mobility as a subdomain within the work on Connected Everyday. Possible directions for research are urban mobility with topics such as Car sharing and Mobility as a Service and autonomous driving, with topics such as shared control (as opposed to a full user-out-of-the-loop approach), keeping users engaged in the context of a very low probability of failure, the interaction between autonomous vehicles and other road users and the combination of car-sharing programs and autonomous driving. Furthermore, once autonomous driving has become proven technology, the car becomes a space for other activities and therefore the automobile context would provide an application context for design and for research on design methods in the area of Connected Everyday.EmbeddingMobility is an excellent application domain for research and design in the area of intelligent systems (the mission of the Industrial Design department). At the same time, Automotive Human Factors is an essential subdomain in the spearhead Automotive of the Smart Mobility Strategic Area of TUE.EducationThe associate professor will actively contribute to education in ID. Education shall address all levels in this department: at Ba, Ma and PhD levels. A major contribution will be provided to the Smart Mobility cluster in terms of further developing a vision managing the coaches and the budget of the cluster. The vision will be translated into educational activities and design projects with industrial clients. Furthermore, the associate professor will contribute to the development, running and evaluation of courses (mandatory and elective) related to the expertise area User and Society Focus. He/she will contribute to further develop integration between education and research, which is also in line with the expertise in a design research approach. Finally, the associate professor will also contribute to the courses on automotive human factors at the Bachelor and Master level.

You are expected to have the following qualifications:

The candidate should have a PhD degree, building on a background in Industrial Design, Cognitive Psychology or an Engineering program with a strong affinity with human factors/user experience research;

The candidate has an outstanding international reputation as evident from a range of high standing publications, proving that the candidate is contributing to the development of the area;

The candidate should have shown to be able to create bridges between education and research, and collaborate with colleagues in a multi-disciplinary context;

Documented ability to attract external funding, as the candidate is expected to secure substantial additional funding through national or international grants;

Have published in good international scientific journals;

Have an excellent command of English;

A network in the (automotive) industry is an advantage, as the candidate will be expected to strengthen contacts with industry to enhance education and research activities.

We offer:

a challenging job in a dynamic and ambitious university;

a full-time (development track) appointment for a period of five years; a tenure evaluation will be conducted after three to four years. 

a gross monthly salary between € 4.210,- and € 6.438,- (based on a full-time appointment), depending on experience and knowledge;

a yearly holiday allowance of 8% of the yearly salary;

a yearly end year allowance of 8.3% of the yearly salary;

a broad package of fringe benefits (including an excellent technical infrastructure, moving expenses, savings schemes and excellent sports facilities).