Ralph Smits
Creative Developer & Digital Designer
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Creative Developer & Digital Designer
For CMD students, insight into 'good work' is essential to develop a growth mindset and sharpen their own creative identity. Yet, valuable projects often disappear from view after delivery, causing educational knowledge to be lost.
Students should never be in the dark at the start of a module about what is expected of them. CMD Verse brings authentic student work together on one central platform to showcase concrete examples.
Based on extensive user research, we developed an interactive 3D world with an integrated upload system. Because students can independently submit work within this environment, it creates a living, continuously expanding archive that sustains itself.
CMD Verse is an interactive 3D data visualization that brings the creativity and diversity of CMD students to life through a striking physical arcade cabinet.
During my internship at Veiligheidsregio Midden- en West-Brabant, I redesigned the Operational Daily Journal (ODj), an information system used by firefighters. What started as a UX/UI assignment evolved into a broader role focused on concept development and Creative Technology.
The existing ODj was functional but did not always match the needs of firefighters and station commanders. The goal was to create a clearer and more flexible way of presenting important operational information.
I visited several fire stations and gathered feedback through conversations and usability testing with interactive prototypes. I used these insights to continuously improve the design while collaborating closely with firefighters, developers and the communication department.
The result was ODj Widget, a modular dashboard that brings important operational information together in one place. I designed a flexible interface with widgets for information such as weather conditions, vehicle status, reservations, work activities and incident information.
The Lantern is an immersive VR experience that transforms visitors into a paper lantern floating high in the sky. Combining VR, movement, sound, and physical construction, the installation creates a sensory experience around freedom, fragility, and the passing of time.
The Lantern explores embodied experience design by making users physically experience the fragility and passing of time. The temporary flight of a wish balloon becomes a metaphor for life, freedom, and the value of each moment.
The Lantern is an immersive VR installation that places visitors inside a physical enlarged wish balloon. Through movement, light, VR, and sound, it simulates the feeling of rising, drifting, and falling.
The installation consists of a wooden frame covered in translucent fabric, with a motion-enabled seat inside. An Oculus Quest 3, surround sound, fans, and an Arduino-controlled relay system work together to create the illusion of floating.
As digital tools replace traditional textbooks, elementary schools face an emerging paradox: screen-based learning captivates students' attention, but often erodes reading depth and focus. Between the Lines explores how to transform reading comprehension for upper elementary students (ages 9–11) by combining immersive 3D game mechanics with tangible, physical learning materials.
Primary school students often find reading comprehension passive, while purely digital texts encourage hurried skipping and superficial scanning. The objective was to capture the high engagement of 3D gaming while retaining the deep, deliberate focus needed to actually understand text.
Through iterative testing at Basisschool de Klinkert, earlier all-digital prototypes revealed that students consistently prioritized screen action over reading. To fix this, the crime scene remained on screen, while the evidence was moved to physical paper to enforce focused reading.
The result is a blended learning mystery game where students explore virtual crime scenes on their computers and must analyze the physical suspect statements on their desks to solve the case. Progress is impossible through guesswork alone, turning reading comprehension into a functional, rewarding investigation tool.
I am a Creative Developer and Digital Designer who believes the best digital products are not just used—they are felt. My process is fundamentally rooted in rigorous user research. Before designing anything or writing a single line of code, I dive deep into testing prototypes and validating concepts to understand exactly what the audience needs. Informed by my background in audio production, I focus heavily on the rhythm, flow, and spatial awareness of a digital space.
