I'm a service designer focused on innovative service, experience, and design trends, with an interdisciplinary background in design innovation and service design, user experience research, and computer science and technology.
I believe service design could cultivate holistic and critical thinking to tackle social and commercial issues and bring future changes to warm others.
My undergraduate major, Computer Science and Technology, have cultivated my logical thinking and fundamental prototyping skills.
Inspired and suggested by my first master's degree supervisor at Shanghai university, I began to work on user experience research and design, gaining theoretical and practical( e.g, IXDC, UXPA Award) knowledge in understanding design methods, user behaviors, along with the workflow to conduct completed interactive design works.
After my four years' work experience as a UX researcher in Shanghai, I applied for my second master's programme in Design Innovation and Service Design at the Glasgow School of Art. During the one-year study journey, I had opportunities to participate in social innovation projects, including a healthcare project organized by Philips Europe and the other designed for RCF (Rangers Charity Foundation), as well as my diploma project, 'Home on Tap', to reverse the shutdown of community pubs. These projects led me to dive deeper into the human-centred research methodology, cultivate my holistic and critical thinking mindset, and guide me to become a more kind and patient person.
I previously worked in YANG DESIGN, a design consultancy based in Shanghai, as a UX designer for four years (Sep 2015- May 2019).
The primary clients I have served include different industries, such as transportation (e.g., Boeing), consumer electronics(e.g., VIVO), fast food (e.g., KFC), FMCG (e.g., Symrise), and stationary (e.g., Supernote). My primary duties were to plan, conduct, and execute the design strategy research with different methods, and transform the informed insights into visualized research reports for product design teams or clients. Some of the projects I was responsible for the design strategy research have already been manufactured to the mass market.
These various projects cultivated me of different practical research abilities. The user experience design project highlighted the application of qualitative and quantitative research methods during the whole research and design process. Most product design strategy projects not only asked me to apply user research methods in different scenarios and cities but also trained me to cooperate reasonably with product designers to explore the CMF preference of customers and define the pain points. Compare with these two categories, the trends research projects focus more on desk and field/ marketing research from cultural and social perspectives, expert interviews, and design elements analysis.
Based on the axis diagram I found on LinkedIn, I matched the projects I was responsible for or participated at YANG DESIGN and the Glasgow School of Art to that. Systematical and integrated theoretical instruction and practice along these years have initially equipped me with acknowledges of design research in the commercial fields of transportation, consumer electronics, FMCG packaging design, and design trends, along with the holistic thinking of service design.
Despite the design research experience in a few particular fields, I would also like to embrace and explore new areas. They will inspire and bring me unknown pleasures of discovery, and explore new opportunities in real life to bring changes with service design thinking. I like to discuss different topics with cross-background people to share diverse perspectives and keep my horizon widened.
Axis Diagram Source: LinkedIn @ 唐小敏
