Dennis L. Kappen

Dennis Kappen (born 1968, in Kerala India) is a Canadian Industrial Designer of South Asian origin. He is currently Professor of Industrial Design, teaching in the Bachelors program in Industrial Design at Humber College. He is a design consultant, business strategist and brand experience designer with specialization in interaction design, ergonomics and human factors design, computer aided design and plastics product design. He is also a researcher at UOIT pursuing research in strategic human interaction in the realm of living spaces and spatial interaction for older adults and vulnerable population.

Early life and education

Kappen was born in Kerala India. He graduated with a Masters in Design in 1992 from the Industrial Design Centre (IDC) at the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. During his student life he secured two international design awards from Sony Corporation, Japan: an Honourable Mention in the Shapes of Sound to Come International Student Design Competition in 1991 and Second Prize in the International Idea Design Competition in 1992.

Career in design

Kappen worked in Mumbai at a design consulting firm from 1992 to 1995 as an industrial designer providing branding and packaging designs to cosmetics containers and perfume bottles. He then secured a full entry scholarship to the Advanced Product Design program at Art Center Europe. He continued to study at the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena campus, California. He immigrated to Canada in 1996.

Kappen worked in product design and development for Brita Canada, Black and Decker, Perkin Elmer, MDS-Sciex and G-Tech Corporation, amongst others. His design projects have covered various fields including new technology, consumer products, kiosks and internet technology, medical products and hand held electronic devices. Some of the designs for which he was responsible for were: the Brita Atlantis water filtration jug, a product that was exhibited at the Universal by Design Exhibition, 2000, at the Design Exchange, Toronto; Grass shears for Black & Decker; mass spectrometers for medical electronics firms; automated medical sampling device for Dynacon Inc; and the P5 glove to name a few notable industrial designs.

Kappen incorporated 3D Ideation Inc. a product development firm which provides strategic business innovation through design incorporating the basic values of enhancement of human life, convenience of use, interaction design, human factors and ergonomics and plastic product design.

Awards and Achievements

1. Dell Regeneration Award 2009 : Design Educator Award
2. Lead product designer on the Bloomberg B-Unit design team which won the IDEA 2005 award from IDSA
3. Lead product designer on the Bloomberg Terminal design team which won the IDEA 2004 award from IDSA
4. Honorable Mention” @ Sitag Design Competition 2003, NEOCON-2003
5. Grand Prize Award 2001 @ the Annual Solidworks Design competition for the P5- Glove, wearable computing device. This device was profiled in the Toronto Star in their business section and on the discovery channel.
6. "Atlantis" Water Filtration System, designed for Brita Canada was selected from amongst Canadian Industrial Designers for the Unlimited by Design 2000 exhibition at the Design Exchange in Toronto, in collaboration with the Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
7. Editors Choice Award @ the 1999 Design Engineering Awards: "The Dream Station” - Spielo Lottery Terminal designed and manufactured won this award.
8. Editors Choice Gold Award 1999 @ PITCON:The mass spectrometer designed for Perkin Elmer - Sciex won the prestigious 1999 Gold award at the Pittsburgh Conference in Orlando Florida for the Best New Product Introduction.
9. 1999 IBO Design Awards (IBO - Instrument Business Outlook):The mass spectrometer designed for Perkin Elmer - Sciex: Elan 6100 DRC ICP-MS won the silver award at the prestigious 1999 IBO Design Awards
10. Full Entry Scholarship – 1996 Art Center College of Design, Europe and Pasadena.
11. International 2nd Prize – 1994 International Idea Design Competition for the Future of Home Entertainment hosted by Sony Corporation, Japan.
12. Award of Excellence - 1991 Sony Design Vision - International Student Design Competition hosted by Sony Corporation, Japan.

Academic career

He is a professor of design at Humber College and teaches in the 4 year Bachelor's program in Industrial Design. His specialization includes human interaction design, ethnographic research, computer aided design and visualization using various 3D modeling tools such as Autodesk Alias, Solidworks and 2D vsualization tools such as Photoshop, Illustrator and web creation software like Flash and Dreamweaver. He is also a researcher at UOIT exploring human interaction design in the context of digital gaming for vulnerable populations under the guidance of Dr. Lennart Nacke, Director of the HCI and Game Science Group. Prior to joining Humber College, he was design strategist and consultant to various companies in Toronto, Canada and in USA. He continues to be engaged in design consulting projects, teaching and research.

Trademarks

BUSINESS INNOVATION by DESIGN in USA (4065052) and CANADA (TMA819989)

Patents

1. Paula M Doritty, Dennis L Kappen, Ercole D'Amario Jr: Water pitcher.The CloroxNovember 1999: US D416163 (24 worldwide citation)
2. Richard Coulson, Ian Gvozdek, Dennis L Kappen: Water pitcher.The SingerMarch 2000: US D421361 (17 worldwide citation)
3. Michael R Bloomberg, Helmars E Ozolins, Alfonso Castagna, Dennis L Kappen: Telephone handset.BloombergFebruary 2004: US D486483 (1 worldwide citation)
4. Michael R Bloomberg, Helmars E Ozolins, Alfonso Castagna, Dennis L Kappen: Telephone handset.BloombergFebruary 2004: US D486484 (1 worldwide citation)

Publications

1. Kappen, D. L., & Nacke, L. E. (2013). The Kaleidoscope of Effective Gamification : Deconstructing Gamification in Business Applications. In Gamification 2013 (pp. 1–4).
2. Kappen, D. L., & Johannsmeier, J. (2012). Deconstructing “ Gamified ” Task-Management Applications. In Gamification 2013 (pp. 1–4).
3. Kappen, D. L., Wehbe, R. R., Gregory, J., Stepchenko, D., & Nacke, L. E. (2013). Exploring Social Interaction in Co-located Multiplayer Games. CHI EA’13.
4. R. Wehbe, D. Kappen, D. Rojas, M. Klauser, B. Kapralos, L. Nacke (2013). EEG-Based Assessment of Video and In-Game Learning. CHI EA’13.
5. Kappen, Patel, Castagna, (2004)OPTIMIZING THE HANDLE GRIP DESIGN FOR CENTRAL VACUUM MACHINES USING INNOVATIVE 3D CAD MODELING TECHNIQUES – A SUCCESS STORY. Association of Canadian Ergonomists 36th Annual Conference -2004

Poster Presentations

1. Klausser M., Kappen D.L., Wehbe R.R., Nacke L. (2013) CYCLOSHOOT Exergaming, heart rate and user experience. GRAND 2013
2. Kappen, D. L., Wehbe, R. R., Gregory, J., Stepchenko, D., & Nacke, L. E. (2013). Exploring Social Interaction in Co-located Multiplayer Games. DIGRA '13

References

1. Design Patent: Brita Atlantis Des.416163
2. Design Patent: The Singer Company Des.421361
3. USPTO Patent No: US D486484S
4. USPTO Patent Application No: US 2008/0061207A1
5. USPTO Patent No: US D 486483S
6. Rina R. Wehbe, Dennis L. Kappen, David Rojas, Matthias Klauser, Bill Kapralos, and Lennart E. Nacke. 2013. EEG-based assessment of video and in-game learning. In CHI '13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '13). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 667-672. DOI=10.1145/2468356.2468474 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2468356.2468474
7. Dennis L. Kappen, John Gregory, Daniel Stepchenko, Rina R. Wehbe, and Lennart E. Nacke. 2013. Exploring social interaction in co-located multiplayer games. In CHI '13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '13). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1119-1124. DOI=10.1145/2468356.2468556 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2468356.2468556
8. Design Canada
9. ACIDO Professional Member
10. Dennis Kappen Academia
11. Research Notes
12. Dennis L. Kappen's publications indexed by the DBLP Bibliography Server at the University of Trier
13. Kaleidoscope-Design Framework by Dennis Kappen at Gamification 2013
14. Deconstructing 'Gamified' Task-Management Applications by Dennis Kappen at Gamification 2013