PORTFOLIO WENYANG DONG X

ABOUT ME Hello, I am Wenyang DONG.I am from Beijing, CHINA.

I am a human centered designer.

I believe design can make our life better and happier.

Contents

01 Design | Inspired by Qixi Festival: the chinese valentine's day

02 Design | Beautify your life: poverty and happiness

03 Ethnographic Study | Exploring dorm caretaker's typical day

04 Ethnographic Study | Exploring In-store music experience

05 Trend Forecast | Laptop design trend report for design competition

06 Styling Analysis | Apply feminine elements to DUOWEI mobile phone design

07 User Research | New generation ABB switch design

08 User Research | XINFEI high-end multi-door refrigerator’s platform definition

09 Service Design | A solution of better packaging and more efficient tranportation for GERON textile card clothing

Design | Inspired by Qixi Festival: the chinese valentine's day

Explore the essence of chinese traditional festival, QIXI, and deliver the idea to product by using paper as it required.

Role: Individual project

Topic Areas:

Secondary ResearchData analysis Concept generationPrototype

Problem: Chinese people are celebrating western festivals such as Christmas, Thankgiving, Valentine's day. Without understanding the story lies behind, the mere act of sending a bunch of roses seems arty. QIXI, a traditional local festival, the story of the cowherd and the weaver girl, in contrast, is well known to all chinese people. However, people fail to celebrate it since there is no such ritual or act that is memorable and actionable.

Approach: In order to find out the essence of QIXI, a chinese valentine's day, a deep dive of the origin of such festival helped me understand the story lies behind. Including how people usually do on that particular day, why certain objects or natural phenomenon perceived as a sign to show one's love and etc.

Since paper was the only material permitted to empoly, a complete analysis of various types of paper products was also taken into consideration. Such as the pratical- aesthetic dimension as well as 2D-3D form dimension help me figure out features and functions of papers.

Solution: Showing one's ingenuity and handy skills by making their own set of tangrams to whom they admire following the guidelines printed and leave their question on each piece of paper. The one who receives such set, only by unfolding each peice of tangram could they read the "secrect question" inside as well as play with the tangrams using their imagination. The procedure of "fold" and "unfold" are chinese implicit and smart way of showing love.

Chinese implicit ways of showing love Interesting interaction between lovers

Implicit Conversation

Hide questions inside

FOLDING

UNFOLDING

QA

A

Busy with needle work Enjoy the full moon

Paper Cartoon Paper Wall Paper Cut

Play and Answer Questions

A

Child's Age Smilansky’s Description0-2 years functional play

2 years +constructive play

dramatic play7 years + games with rules

Design | Beautify your life: poverty and happiness

2010 Gigabyte Great Design competition cared for people in the economic depression, contestants in group of "beautify your life" were required to come up with great idea for children in low income families.

Role: Contestant

Topic Areas:

Secondary ResearchData analysis User profileScenario buidingPrototype

Requirement: During the great economic depression in year of 2010, there was a decline in consumption capacity.The contestant's mission was to design a product that encourage a possitive interaction between parents and their kids. The product supposed to be of great value of use and made their owner feel like its value is beyond its price.

Solution: Child aspect's considerationCognitive stage of play

Approach: STEP 01: Define possitive interactionConsider the major concern and meaningful interaction of both parants and kids

STEP 02: Define valueUnderstand what parents value the most and what children value the most

STEP03: Ideation and Scenario buildingPlay with the meaningful ideas and imagine suitable scenarios

Children's Needs analysis

Encouragement

Accompany

Trust

Freedom

Authority

LOVE

HATE

Peep

Failed Promise

Nag

Yell

sarcastic

Parents' Needs analysis

NEED

AFRAID

Rules Communication Intimacy

Lies Silence Spoil

Inspiration: Key word: games with rules/Accompany/Intimacy

Inspired by a Eskimo Kissing, a form of expressing affection, only between family members and loved ones.

Ideation: Inspired by the basic act of Eskimo Kissing. The idea was to involve parents and their kids in a game with easy rules, such as throw and catch a ball with their foreheads or noses.

Prototype: A quick prototype helped me test whether the game was fun enough to play.

Solution: Distant Intimacy is a set of toys consisted of two or more head sets and a soft ball. All of them were made of cotton. It involved more than one person to play. There was only a simple rule, just throw and catch! While the uncertainty of the game was where the tricky part lied. Since there were Velcros all over the surfaces, while people runing back and forth, it took a sutble angle to keep the ball stick to the head set.

This set of toy was low-tech oriented, affordable, easily washed and barely took up any spaces to keep, and most of all, it brought laughters and intense connection to families.

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

1.turn off alarming clock

2.seal stamp3.push the door

4.turn on switch

5.clap-stick

6.press book sewer

7.seal stamp

8.turn on night light

1 2

3 4

1. Normally, each patrol point is a clock.2. Instead of bring a scaner with caretaker, the only thing they have to bring is their finger print. By recognizing their fringer print, they will receive a clear feedback of their personal ID. It serves as a key to operate this machine.3. Press the button to save information including ID, patrol point number and time.4. It goes back to normal status and other students are unable to operate.

Ethnographic Study | Exploring dorm caretaker's typical day

Explore a typical day of dorm caretakers by adopting the method of non-participant observation and semi-structured interview. Our intention was to understand who they are, what they do, and tried put forward possible solution to one of their problems from work by mean of design.

Role: Team Project in class "Anthropological Method Applied to Design"

Topic Areas:

ObservationOne-to-one semi-structured interviewShadowingContext analysis

Observation: 1. Caretaker's working environment2. Caretaker's routine duties3. How caretaker interact with students4. Other interesting phenonmenon

Conversation: 1. Main responsibilities and tasks2. Frequently happened situations3. Bothering issues

Dorm No.3 Floor 1 layout

Temporary package deposit area

Information desk(Place where you can borrow keys; report any facilities damage; check

with incoming letters and packages)

Title: chief manager

Working Experience:4 and 1/2 years

Happiest moment:"For me, there is nothing more happier than helping junior students move in and helping graduate students move out."

Most busy time periods of the day:"It's around 12 am and 5 pm when students dismissed from class and go back to dorms."

Most bothering issue:"This dorm is for girls, but you always have to keep an eye on their boy-friend or boyfriend, cause they are not allow to come inside."

Most worried tasks:"There are over 2600 students live in this building, it is our routine to make sure everything is working properly. We keep maintain our facility on a regular bases. However, there are constant reports of facility disfunction. We have close contacts with our repair partners including electricians and carpenters, so that they can fix things as soon as possible."

Problems: 1.Defend themselves painfullyCaretakers were not special trained security guard, but their defensive equipment were no special. It was so heavy and sophisticated to carry around and work efficiently as it should be.

2.Vague patrolPatrol in turn in each and every floor was one of the main routine work of caretakers.They had to patrol for 3 times a day. However, the feed back of both the plastic card with the bar code and the scaner were weak and vague. It made the caretaker feel that the whole process was tiresome and boring.

Solution(Problem 2):

Ideation of human behavior: confirmation

Improved way of "routine punch in and punch out"

Ethnographic Study | Exploring in-store music experience

Explore customer's experience of Eslite Bookstore Music shop of Xinyi, and try to understand the relationship between CD trial players and customer's audition behavior.

Topic Areas:

ObservationShadowingContext analysis

Role: Individual Project in class "Design Research Method"

Approach:Place:Eslite music store was an prime source of CD in TAIPEI, it remained popular although digital music industry has a great negative impact on CD industry.

Time:We asked to do this field trip on a particular week day and also on a weekend day so that we could see the whole picture.

Observation:1. Fundamental layoutsSettings of different music types, CD shelves and two different types of CD trial players.

Suggestion:1. According to a simple descriptive statistic result, the chances of using button trial players was very low.

Press button to play

Scan code bar to play

2. Audition behaviorSome customer kept immersing in their own music world with their headphone on, ignoring CD trial players.

The CD trial player placed on each side of a CD shelves, however it failed to provide rich and interesting information cohesively. Customer lost their interests quickly.

T h e s h o p p i n g b a s k e t s underneath CD trial players served as seats to customers who had anditioned for over 20 minutes.

2. A smart change of sett ings of CD trial players might improve customer's experience and encourage customer stay in-store longer.

耳機

結帳台

諮詢台

耳機

結帳台

諮詢台

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3

21

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231353

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311

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Trend Forecast | Laptop design trend report for design competition

The organizer of the second session of KUNSHAN laptop design award incooperated with LKK design research department to provide a design oriented trend report for all contestants. It included four parts, laptop evolvement history, design trend, user needs and overall trend.(social trend, technology trend, etc.)

Role: Team Project, LKK design

Topic Areas:

Secondary data analysisInterviewQuestionnaireTrend forecast

Project: The first session of KUNSHAN laptop design competition was very successful. However, the host realized many pieces of work were creative, well-developed, but far from being realistic. A good design should have a thorough understanding of laptop, and bring together with aesthetic tastes, technology viability, and human needs.

Approach: 1. Find out host's needs and hopeWe conducted a focus-group interview with judges and hosts to understand their needs.

2. Listen to contestants storiesWe also talked with the first session's contestant, tried to find out the behind scene stories about their puzzle and confuse.

3. Develop a strategy

evolvementHost: "Don't want to see a repeated design."

Contestant: "I hope history will show me the right direction "

user needsHost: "I would like to see our designers walk in the shoes of real users."

Contestant: "I normally design as the way I want it."

design trendHost: "Actually, there are a lready many technology oriented reports, we would like to see different points of view through the lens of design"

Contestant: "Is there any rules that we can follow?"

SET trendHost: "Showing a greater picture would broaden contestants' eyesight."

Contestant: "It might be challenging."

Solution: Evolvement:In the first part, we did huge amount of secondary data analysis. We generally divided the history into four periods: the miniature period, the sprout period, the mature period and the dream come true period.

1968

1968年，D yna b ook

1973 1978

1975年，美国IBM 公司推出了现代个人电脑的鼻祖—IBM 5100

1983

1981年，O sb orne 1

1981年，Ep son H X-20

User needs:I n t h i s p a r t , w e h a n d e d o u t 1 0 0 questionnaires to investigate obvious pain points and latent user desires. In this survey, we concentrated on how user buy and use their laptops. We not only pointed out where the problem was, possible solutions were also prepared for them.

PA RT 4 您是怎样使用笔记本的

0 10 20 30

书桌狭小时光驱打不开

书桌狭小时屏幕角度有局限

趴在笔记本上怕把它压坏

想触摸屏幕可是害怕屏幕脆弱

公共场合别人知道我在做些什么

夏天放在膝盖上会很热

时间久了电脑屏幕角度难以固定

硬件故障不会查找原因

在室外环境使用找不到电源

面对笔记本电脑时间久了脖子疼

水倒在笔记本上它容易出现故障

不好体验的程度

您现在的笔记本使用过程中哪些不好的体验？（多选）

电池的续航能力差，风扇的散热能力不佳以及键盘的防水功能不到位是大多数使用者形成不良体验的三个主要原因。

开机键与屏保键为一键，经常在屏保状态，按下为自动关机，也不提示

长时间看屏幕眼睛花，重装系统麻烦

多人看电影时角度不能面面具到

在没有鼠标的情况下很难完成复杂操作

U SB插口设计不太好，有时候不够用或者太拥挤

键盘无数字键，方向键拥挤

打字时容易碰到触摸板

开放式问题中用户提出的其他不好体验：

II 笔记本电脑现实

Design trend:In this part, we discussed design from four aspects. Form, CMF, patterns as well as detail transformation.III 设计趋势 细节趋势

2006年

触控板

触摸板位置向左偏移右手移动更灵活

带有弧度的腕托设计 触摸板向左移动一点，使右手使用起来更加舒适

触摸板位置居中

III 设计趋势 C M F趋势

磨砂颗粒质感的橡胶涂层带来立体生动的高档审美意趣

表现处理工艺

N 310N etb o o k

la titute 2100

SET trend:Social trend: nostalgia, gender blur, growth of virtual world...

Technology trend: cloud computing, v irtual reality, voice

recognization...

Consumer trend: rent, crowd sourcing, self-service, private

consutomer...

From passive to engage!从被动的到参与的！

1. Social contact circle matters

2. Careful optimistic

3. Materialism prevailent

4. Kidult complex

5. Naughty/ideal 6. Consult, not instruct

Styling Analysis | Apply feminine elements to DUOWEI mobile phone design

A local mobilephone company DUOWEI was a leading brand on female mobilephone market of China. This project aimed to design a new generation of mobilephone targeting at a group of young girls around 16-23 years old. We tried to deliver the "concept" to a more concrete level, thus helped designer deconstruct the idea into actionable elements.

Role: Team Project, LKK design

Topic Areas:

Secondary data analysisCompetitive analysisOnline analysisTheme boardImage board

Project: Our intention was to help DUOWEI position their next generation product line targeting at young girls around 16-23 years old.

Solution: Competit ive analysis and benchmark analysis of local female mobilephones gave us a holistic picture of this segment market in china.

Solution: A on l ine ana l ys i s he lped us be t ter understand this group of girls. Such as their likes and dislikes. Their beliefs and tastes.

Theme board: We collected life style images of our target consumer, thus tried to find out main stream patterns and concepts.

Image board: After we had agreement on several patterns that were worth developing. We looked for proper semantics and symbols to deconstruct the pattern.

soft hard

sporty

elegence

Innocent Love

Concept Semantics Symbols

warm

exquisite

hazy

pure

soft

candal

scarf

ballet skirt

lace

slush

gauze curtain

love letter

white shirt

quilt

feather

Bring the idea further:

1 2 34 5 67 8 9* 0 #

Visual element:The pleat of envelope, the bule and red colors, and the handwriting style calligraphy, all of these are significant symbols of letter.

Motion element:The movement of silpcover phone recalls the memory of open a letter from the loved ones.

Front back

User Research | New generation ABB switch design

Understand obvious needs, discover latent desires, pain points during operation and possible blind spots.

Role: Team Project, LKK design

Topic Areas:

Home visitObservationSemi-structured interviewContext analysisSynthesis

Project: ABB wish their new generation switches design brings not only about a attractive appearence but a lso e levate users ' experience to a higher level by meeting their needs.

Approach: 1. Define problemBefore everything is started, we defined limits and opportunities of this project, since ABB had their core electrical components settled. We turned our attention to switch's panel rather than its way of connect or disconnect with power supply.

2. Find peopleThis switch belonged to a middle-end product lines of ABB switches which gave us clues to define several important aspect of target users including their ages, incomes,

and current switches brand in use etc..We finally decided to select 8 people as participants which is a minimum number of people that would help us carry out a qualitative research that answer the question of how and why instead of answer the question of how many and what.

3. Plan a approach(1) Home visitSince this series of switches aimed to serve as residental solutions. We realized that home, the natural environment of using switches, could not be excluded from the product itself. A home visit helped us undercover the reality of how they use and how they take care of it.

(2) Collect dataWe adopted several ways of collecting data, such as taking photos, video, audio, hand written notes by different people. Aside from observation, we also prepared a general guideline of topics, it ensured us go through all major topics. We also used preprepared images of different emotion reactions to evoke users' feelings. Since verbal communication became limited even deceiving when we came to topics of emotion.

(3) Competitive products testAccording to given competetive brands and product models, we selected four brands, nine products as our samples. These samples served as a frame of reference for our users. During the interview, we noticed our repondents became more involved and free to talk, answers became more specific and clear.

Insights:

Prototype:

Insights Ideas

People are unwilling to pay any attention to switches, since there are too many home appliances to worry about.

W h y n o t c r e a t t h e f e e l i n g o f "invisible"? Go minimum rather than complex. Find a intuitive way to operate switches.

Switches are inseparable from walls. Dirty fingerprints, scratches are all over the panel and the wall nearby. Wifes are normally in charge of cleaning, but switches obviously off the list.

Taking the need of cleaning into consideration. Think not only as a user but also as a caretaker.

E a c h s w i t c h c o n t r o l s a corresponding light. When one switch panel contains more than two switches, it fails to indicate direct relationship with seperate electric power.

An easy way of display the "on" and "off" status and direct relationship between each switch and light are encouraged.

A simple movement of "Press" make user feel satisfied. They love the clear and dexterous way of feedback.

A better way of providing user with sufficient yet creative feedback.

The prototype above explored a smart way that help user differentiate between the status of "on" and "off". As it illustrated in the side view, the panel has two flat surfaces. When the switch and the panel share a same surface, it symbolized a status of calm and stillness which means the light is "off". To change this status, the user has to break such silence and seperate the switch from the panel. The semantics of "open" and "closed" lead user to a more intuitive way of recognizing and operating the swithch.

User Research | XINFEI high-end multi-door refrigerator’s platform definition

Understand current chinese refrigerator users' needs, find out chinese users' special characteristics, habits and longings.

Role: Team Project, LKK design

Topic Areas:

Home visitObservationSemi-structured interviewTask analysisSynthesis

Project: A chinese leading home appliance brand XINFEI planed to release a high-end multi-door refrigerator in the next year. This product supposed to cater chinese users' habits and needs since one of their brand strategy is to provide the best refrigerator for local residents.

Goals: 1. Understand why things did not work as we expected.

2. Capture obvious deficiency that user defined as problems.

3. Uncover latent desires or patterns that user themselves did not realized.

Approach: 1. CaptureVerbal communication A general guideline keeps us within the realms of topics prepared before hand.

Visual communicationPictures helped us elicit user's emotions and feelings. It did show user a brand new way of thinking. And we gained empathy from it.

Insight:

guideline

lifestylediet

acknowledgement

Extreme situation

aesthetic

Taks analysisA task of fetching and arranging different sizes and types of objects clearly revealed how they make the best use of such space.

2. SynthesisWe sorted raw datas such as handwriting notes, photos, videos into a more structured form. By telling the stoies of each users to team members, we tried to extract certain patterns or themes out of chaos. It was a costant process of realizing the connections between things.

Doors are recognitive obstacles for chinese users, they can barely tell a functional difference between fresh food area and zero degree preservation area. There is no need to add more.

During the research, we amazed at how organized is everything on the door side, and how messy is everything in side. A single layer way of placement gave user a sense of control. A different layout in side might increase the availability of food in storage.

Ice makers would not popular in china since chinese people consider cold food as unhealthy diet habit. In contrast, users felt they always have to wait for hot food to cool off so they can put left dishes into fridge. A temperature transition area might be a great opportunity.

Service Design | A solution of better packaging and more efficient tranportation for Geron textile card clothingUnderstand the whole manufacture procedure, how each department involved in this process, why the package worn out when they arrived at their clients' depositories, and come up with a improved solution that take concerns of stakeholders, clients, as well as workers into consideration.

Topic Areas:

Secondary data analysisInterviewParticipatory researchContext analysisPlanningSynthesis

Project:GERON CO., LTD. is a textile carding equipment joint venture company. Their “DIAMOND” , “PIONEER” ,“LANCE” series products of GERON and technical service provide customers complete carding solutions from normal carding machine and high production carding machine. Aside from the professional products, they wish they could provide their cilents with best services. They awared of their product packaging and their current transportation method may have negative influence on their brand image as a whole. Our responsibility was to find out the reason that cause the ragged package and provided them with a viable as well as valuable solution.

Role: Team Project/Researcher/ LKK design Approach:Participatory researchWe worked and lived with workers in Nantong factory for over a month. During that period of time, we arranged interviews with different department leaders in charge, including production, physical distribution, quality control, sales and customer services. We also followed the freight van to the nearest clients depositories. The participatory research serves as a natural way of understanding problems generated from the complex procedure.

PHASE 1Geron Flow ChartThe flow chart reflected two ways of production, one is Make-To-Order, another one is Make-To-Store. We traced a typical procedure of each production pattern from the department of sales who received a order form to the department of finanial who close an account. We paid intensive attention to the way a roll of card clothing being packaged with the materials of paper boards and wooden boxes, moved around from workshop to depository and delivered by different means of transportation.

PHASE 2Package Problems DiagnosisWe rated package problems into four catagories: A: major impact on appearence/frequently happened situation; b: major impact/seldom happened; c: minor impact/frequently happened; d: minor impact/seldom happened; We analyzed three aspects of each problem including the phenomenon, the possible explaination from the package itself and the possible problem generated from the way workers interact with the package.

Service Design | A solution of better packaging and more efficient tranportation for Geron textile card clothingUnderstand the whole manufacture procedure, how each department involved in this process, why the package worn out when they arrived at their clients' depositories, and come up with a improved solution that take concerns of stakeholders, clients, as well as workers into consideration.

Solution:PHASE 1Solution based on packagingThree principles guided our solutions. First, we prefered not introduce more problems in order to solve the old one. Second, we should always try to balance costs and efficiency. Third, setting up rules to regulate workers' behavior should be our last choice. Our final solution was efficient, cost-saving, yet smart way of changes.

PHASE 2Solution based on transportationWe followed two major principles when we evaluated this process of transportation. First, we standardized card clothing model numbers right from the start. The movement of sorting numbers should be initiated at the workshop so that hundreds of seperate models could be grouped easily. The former way of seperation costs a worker duouble effort to lift each roll of card clothing weighed 60kg on average. Second, as the cost of man power increases, Geron realized it is time to introduce semiautomatic way of operations. We introduced forklift trucks into this procedure to reduce laborious steps of transportation.

Before

After

Drop Weigh Pile up Transport Instock Pile-up according to models Outstock Packaging Unloadload

"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind."——Bertrand Russell,1872-1970 Thanks