Interviews med Deyin Zhang

My design mainly comes from the real needs of users. Many non-native Chinese speakers have told me that learning Chinese is difficult. Therefore, I had the inspiration to design this work

The focus is on helping non-native Chinese speakers quickly master Chinese grammar knowledge and Chinese culture.

My plan is to promote it well and let more people discover this design. I am very grateful for the support and assistance provided by Design A, especially in terms of promotion and publicity.

About a year.

It was my own inspiration, no one commissioned me to do this design.

The ownership of my design comes from me personally and does not belong to the design company. As of now, this design has not been sold or leased for production rights.

I think it was because I wanted to solve this practical problem, and this driving force inspired me to design this design.

My master's and doctoral supervisor, Luo Shijian, are legendary figures in my heart. He designed various aspects, such as the famous seats in China and the exercise system for astronauts. In addition, he is also a very famous design scholar. Every time I communicate with Professor Luo Shijian, it inspires me a lot. He is my idol. He has had a significant impact on my design.

It includes many types of users, all of whom are its target users.

The innovation of this design lies in the use of design cards to learn Chinese, and the continuous use of colors to reflect proficiency in different men.

This is a very direct name, CHINESECHAIN is the meaning of the Chinese link

Digital design tools such as Figma and Illustrator, as well as paper prototyping tools.

The most unique feature is that it meets the real needs of non-native Chinese learners.

I worked with other designers to complete this design. They were my former classmates. I have collaborated with professional designers before.

Technology is a form of support, but it is not the most important part. Digging into users' real needs is one of the most important aspects of this design.

yes. We obtained real user data through research and used this data to assist our design.

The entire design process was completed relatively smoothly without encountering any special challenges. I encountered some minor communication frictions in the collaborative design, but that wasn't considered a challenge.

I have chosen the most famous design competition in the world - the A Design Award. This is a decision recognized by all members of our team.

Learned about teamwork and how to allocate design tasks. This has enhanced my design management skills.

My design mainly comes from the real and terrible reality of food waste. So I want to make some changes through design.

The key is to alleviate urban food waste, which is the problem I most want to solve.

My plan is to promote it well and let more people discover this design. I am very grateful for the support and assistance provided by Design A, especially in terms of promotion and publicity.

About a year.

It was my own inspiration, no one commissioned me to do this design.

The ownership of my design comes from me personally and does not belong to the design company. As of now, this design has not been sold or leased for production rights.

I think it was because I wanted to solve this practical problem, and this driving force inspired me to design this design.

My master's and doctoral supervisor, Luo Shijian, are legendary figures in my heart. He designed various aspects, such as the famous seats in China and the exercise system for astronauts. In addition, he is also a very famous design scholar. Every time I communicate with Professor Luo Shijian, it inspires me a lot. He is my idol. He has had a significant impact on my design.

It includes many types of users, all of whom are its target users.

FRESH is one of the few mobile phone application designs in the world to solve the problem of huge food waste caused by excessive food purchase and a large amount of food in the refrigerator in urban family environment. It can be well adapted to all smartphones on the market at present.

Whether it's scanning supermarket bills for intelligent food information, visualizing the shelf life of food through three colors of data, intelligently recommending recipes according to the shelf life of food in the refrigerator, or providing weekly and cumulative food waste data, fresh has maintained a good user experience. Surprisingly, with the permission of users, these data can support FAO and who to collect, analyze and use global dietary data, and provide a clear direction for more sustainable agricultural development.

This is a very direct name, FRESH reflects the expectation of not wasting food, keeping the food in the refrigerator fresh and not wasting.

Digital design tools such as Figma and Illustrator, as well as paper prototyping tools.

The most unique feature is that it solves the serious problem of urban household environmental waste with innovative interactions.

I worked with other designers to complete this design. They were my former classmates. I have collaborated with professional designers before.

Technology is a form of support, but it is not the most important part. Digging into users' real needs is one of the most important aspects of this design.

yes. We obtained real user data through research and used this data to assist our design.

The entire design process was completed relatively smoothly without encountering any special challenges. I encountered some minor communication frictions in the collaborative design, but that wasn't considered a challenge.

I have chosen the most famous design competition in the world - the A Design Award. This is a decision recognized by all members of our team.

Learned about teamwork and how to allocate design tasks. This has enhanced my design management skills.

I received my undergraduate design education in the Department of Product Design at Chongqing University under the supervision of Prof Xia Jinjun. Then I received my Masters and PhD education from the famous Chinese Professor Luo Shijian. Now, I am doing a visiting PhD student exchange in Prof Liu Wei's lab at King's College London.

I have a background in art and design, industrial design and engineering design.

Design is an innate human instinct, and I'm fortunate to have been able to make it my major of study and my profession. I became a designer because I'm doing a job that can change the world - specifically, I'm designing experiences, designing products and designing satisfactory.

Certainly an active choice, designers are one of the most respected, great and enjoyable professions!

I'm designing experiences, I'm designing products - to be precise, I'm designing a kind of fulfillment. In the future, I hope to design more products and service experiences that can be experienced by people and improve their quality of life. In addition, I would like to be involved in more social design because society is one of the most complex systems, one of the most challenging design projects, and one of the design projects that can directly enhance people's life experience.

I think the most important thing for designers to grow is an open and inclusive mindset. When doing design, be good at integrating art, technology and business attributes. In addition, learn from the best. I am very lucky that my mentors, Prof Luo Shijian, Prof Xia Jinjun and Prof Liu Wei, are among the most famous and knowledgeable professors in China and the UK, and they have given me tremendous energy.

Good designers are designing the future, and great designers are creating the future.

Good design is not just about satisfying the user, it is also about meeting green development and meeting the needs of society in the long run. Overall, good design needs to combine art, technology and business. When I evaluate a design work, I will bring three perspectives: artistic evaluation, technical examination and commercial insight.

Most directly - good design can create the future and can change the present. This is the reason why we must invest in good design.

Back to this question, the value of good design may not be in the present, but to use the developmental perspective, there are designs in the present may knowledge conceptual design and can not be directly on the ground, but in the future certain environment, technology to meet the future, there will be greater value.

I would love to work in social design, designing for this huge system of society, such as green zoo service systems, such as pet healthcare system innovations.

Develop a design that is used by millions of people daily.

When I design a piece of design work, I will bring three perspectives: artistic evaluation, technical examination and commercial insight to evaluate and modify, which is the secret of my design success.

My Masters and PhD supervisor, Luo Shijian, is a legend in my mind. He has designed everything from famous seats in China to exercise systems for astronauts. In addition, he is a very famous design scholar. Every time I talk to Prof Luo Shijian, he inspires me a lot and he is my idol.

I admire the designs of Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, whose philosophy ‘less is more’ is a great influence on me. I also admire many designers such as Gio Ponti and his masterpiece Superleggera. They are all masters of minimalism.

I have a piece of work focusing on social green design, Fresh. FRESH is a design piece that aims to reduce food waste by addressing the problem of food waste due to over-buying and hoarding. It records food information by scanning the shopping list and uses three colours to indicate the shelf life of the food. Meanwhile, FRESH can recommend recipes based on leftover ingredients in the fridge, provide weekly waste food reports and cumulative statistics to help users develop sustainable consumption habits. With users' consent, FRESH can also share regional food waste data to support organisations such as the FAO in promoting more sustainable food production and agriculture.

I think this design is good because it takes into account the user experience and reflects on food waste behaviour from a higher perspective, and proposes feasible solutions.

Designers need to maintain a mindset of continuous learning. In my case, I read a lot of design literature as well as design perspectives on a daily basis and follow the latest technological developments, taking into account their application in the design field.

I haven't thought about it. If I don't become a designer, I'll probably become a college teacher.

Design is an innate human instinct. In addition, design is a way of solving problems by putting yourself in the shoes of the user.

Allow me to mention my three mentors: Professor Luo Shijian of Zhejiang University, Professor Xia Jinjun of Chongqing University and Professor Liu Wei of King's College London. The three professors are my greatest supporters. In addition, my parents are also my greatest supporters.

I believe that perseverance and persistent learning is the foundation for becoming a great designer.

I've encountered a lot of deliberate disapproval from people (even from some of the teachers at my school) and it used to frustrate me. Then I learnt to ignore the voices and stick to my choices.

Talk to other designers, participate in forums and design competitions.

The most mysterious and intriguing aspect of design is the unknown, and I don't know exactly what projects I'll be designing in the future (which partly depends on the client's requirements), but what remains constant is that I'll be sticking to design at all times in the future!

Getting approval from my mentor, my students and my parents, that's what I'm aiming for.

I'm not sure, but I'm sure I'll make more satisfying design projects in the future.

Design improves the quality of life by solving practical problems and meeting the needs of users, in particular, inclusive design projects, for example, which focus on the needs of people with disabilities, the elderly and other disadvantaged groups to create a more egalitarian society.

I think it is also important to note that design can also help build a more harmonious society by creating public spaces, digital platforms or cultural events that enhance human interaction and social cohesion.

I'm doing design practice and design research, and recently I've been working on design thinking, specifically on big language modeling for design thinking. This project is very exciting to me.

I think that my most satisfying design project is always the next one, because facing the unknown and accumulating the existing experience, the future design project is the one that is most likely to satisfy me.

The intelligent era has arrived, and with the popularity of big language modeling tools and AIGC tools, changes in the design industry are inevitable. But I hope that the design industry will still focus on the needs of people themselves, and start from the needs to solve the actual problems of users. This is one of the most important values of design.

I think there are many directions of development in design and it is difficult to say which one is the mainstream or which direction of design development is the future. So it is difficult for me to give an answer to this question.

Six months to about a year. During this time, preliminary research is critical.

I would start by identifying my client's needs (which of course is not the most critical), and I think the most critical thing that needs to be done very quickly is desktop research of the user's needs as well as actual research. I think this is the starting point for my design projects.

My life motto is: surpass your idols!

This is a very interesting question. I think it's hard to come to a definitive conclusion. It may be that every designer wants to set trends, but the vast majority of designers are led by trends.

Design is a fusion of business, art and technology, and technology is a key player in ensuring the realization of design.

Computers, paper prototyping tools, model cutting tools, brushes, online collaboration tools (like Figma) and Photoshop which is used by everyone, Illustrator and so on, I try out almost all of them and then find the one that works best for me.

These things are key to the success of the design, especially the choice of color, which directly determines the user's first impression.

I want people to forget about the designers and focus on using and enjoying the designs. Just like a singer would only want the audience to listen to their performance without asking questions.

I will study the methodology and visual presentation of this design and think about whether I am capable of doing better than him.

Co-design is a very common way of designing in the modern world, and my design partners are my friends who may or may not be designers. I like to hear from different people.

My mentor, Prof Luo Shijian, has the greatest influence on my design. In addition, the philosophical views of many entrepreneurs have had a great influence on my designs.

I enjoy reading philosophical books, especially those by Chinese philosophers, such as the Tao Te Ching.

I didn't deliberately cultivate it, but I've always had an open and inclusive mindset, and I learnt from anyone.

If I had the time, I would really like to have the most in-depth conversation with my parents. We haven't had a very deep conversation in about 10 years because of my full work schedule. I love my parents as much as they love me. I would talk to them about career choices and planning, and I'm curious about their perspectives.

Don't be obsessed with being a celebrity or proud of the awards you've won. Keep all your focus on the design itself - on the user's needs!

I love the color pink. I love my hometown home of Nanjing. I love chocolate (although chocolate makes me fat). I like spring. My favorite brand is Apple, I appreciate their innovative design thinking.

The first time I travelled in London I was delayed for an hour because I couldn't understand the underground lines, which I later found out was not a problem of my understanding but a bad design, haha. I also privately designed my own visual system for the London Underground, but of course, it was just a self-indulgence for me.

Every day is great for me because I'm doing the most rewarding job in the world - designing.

I've never thought about it, I just study and do design. It's not something I should think about in terms of winning awards or becoming famous.

In the future, I hope designers can become presidents or mayors. Will the earth still exist in a thousand years? I don't know.

They can chat with me by e-mail (deyin.zhang@kcl.ac.uk) or WeChat (a Chinese social software) with the ID: Deyin_1990 .

I received excellent design education in the Product Design Department of Chongqing University during my undergraduate studies, under the guidance of Professor Xia Jinjun. Afterwards, I studied under the renowned Chinese professor Luo Shijian and received master's and doctoral education. Now, I am conducting a visiting doctoral exchange in Professor Liu Wei's laboratory at King's College London.

I have backgrounds in art design, industrial design, and engineering design.

I really enjoy being a designer because it gives me a sense of accomplishment. I believe that design is a meaningful and valuable profession.

I am a doctoral student in design. I am engaged in research on intelligent design, art design, design evaluation and so on. My design laboratory comes from Zhejiang University, and I mainly work on user experience design and industrial product design.

Design is an innate instinct of human beings, and I am fortunate to have this instinct as my major of study and profession. I became a designer because I am engaged in a job that can change the world - specifically, I am designing experiences, designing products, and designing satisfaction.

I like designing experiences, designing products - to be precise, I am designing satisfaction. In the future, I hope to design more products and services that can be experienced by people and improve their quality of life.

My favorite design is not only about satisfying users, but also about meeting green development and the long-term needs of society. Overall, good design requires a combination of art, technology, and business. When evaluating a design work, it is necessary to approach it from three perspectives: artistic evaluation, technical investigation, and commercial insight.

The first thing is to find your users - who are you designing for.

I like to use wood for design. I think wood is synonymous with nature and green.

My favorite platform is various design competitions, which can quickly expose our designs better (such as the Italian A Design Award)

My favorite technology is 3D printing, which can quickly bring our ideas and concepts to fruition.

I feel most creative while taking a shower.

Always know who you are designing for - always remember the needs of users, especially the real needs

I will be very happy because I believe design is a very valuable and meaningful activity, so I will be very happy

After the design project is completed, I will feel more proud

Success design is not only about satisfying users but also about meeting green development and the long-term needs of society. Overall, good design requires a combination of art, technology, and business. When evaluating a design work, it is necessary to approach it from three perspectives: artistic evaluation, technical investigation, and commercial insight.

When I judge a design work, I evaluate and modify it from three perspectives: artistic evaluation, technical investigation, and business insight. This is the secret to my successful design.

The responsibility of designers is not to waste social resources and to create sustainable green design.

The field of design is a combination of art, commerce, and technology. In the future, intelligent design may create more possibilities for society.

The last exhibition was held in Hangzhou, China in 2022. The next exhibition may be in London.

My design inspiration comes from small yet touching details in nature, culture, and daily life, especially the needs of users. In addition, I constantly stimulate creativity by reading interviews with other designers.

My approach to design is the pursuit of balance between simplicity and functionality with form and emotionality. The idea behind testing out this style is the desire to enhance user experience and detail aesthetics. I begin with research, followed by ideation through observation, sketching, and experimentation, and ultimately I aim to produce desirable visual designs.

I reside in London now with a lot of culture. The cultural background has a major influence on my designs and motivates me to create traditional elements in a contemporary format. The difficulty, however, lies in balancing the local expectations with what international design market demands.

I collaborate with design laboratories to complete design projects

Clear contracts are needed to ensure the income of designers. Excellent designers need to have empathy and find the real needs of users

My design process is not fixed. For major design projects, I will communicate with other designers and quickly find the target users to directly communicate with them. For small design projects, I will directly complete them based on my own design experience.

Design of refrigerator, curtains, carpet, kitchen chairs, and toilet

I have a meaningful day every day. In the morning, I go for a morning jog and complete user research, in the afternoon, I do design practice and other important tasks, and in the evening, I read books to enrich my design knowledge.

When I design a design work, I evaluate and modify it from three perspectives: artistic evaluation, technical investigation, and business insight. This is the secret to my successful design.

Designers need to meet the needs of different people during design, which sometimes makes them feel very frustrated.

But the advantage of design is that it is a very valuable job that may make designers feel very happy.

Design should meet the unity of art, commerce, and technology, and truly meet the needs of users.

Communication skills and the ability to identify opportunities.

I will try almost all tools such as computers, paper prototype tools, model cutting tools, brushes, online collaboration tools (such as Figma), and Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. that are used by everyone, and then find the most suitable one for myself.

Effective communication can save a lot of time, which is my experience.

I'm not sure, it could be as fast as a week or as slow as a year

The question I often get asked is: Why can you always maintain your passion for design

Always maintain passion for design in work

Users of some creative products, including ordinary consumers and start-up design companies.

I love doing experience design the most, especially designs that make users feel happy. I think this design is the most valuable.

I will try to complete a personal design monograph to express some of my design viewpoints

I usually work with teams

I am currently working on a collaborative design project and cannot disclose it due to a confidentiality agreement signed

My email is: deyin.zhang@kcl.ac.uk

Thank you for your question. Colour coding can more quickly remind the user of the quality of different foods (black for expired, red for soon to be expired, yellow for reminder, green for still fresh), the use of such colours compounds the psychological model of the global user (refer to traffic lights), and serves as a reminder of food information at minimal cost.When users use it, they will inevitably react differently to different colours. Based on our research and simulations, we found that when faced with a yellow reminder, users would take prompt action, especially to consume the ‘yellow’ food as soon as possible because it is still within the edible period.

Thank you for your question. We find that close to a third of food is wasted globally, and this happens particularly in developed countries, and in developed cities. In my own case, I live in China (developing countries), but having spent the last year in London, UK (developed countries and cities), I've realised that food waste does seem to be a much more prevalent problem in London.We made a series of designs for food waste, including scanning the bill to get electronic data and electronic images of the food right at the time of purchase and recording the shelf-life time of these foods (and allowing and encouraging the user to manually edit them for a more accurate reminder of the food's shelf-life).In addition, we provided food to be managed and reminded during its shelf life, using four colours - red, yellow, green and black - to remind the food of each of its four states.We have built in an electronic fridge function that allows the user to place purchased food in the ‘electronic fridge’ with a simple operation.We also built a ‘food pairing’ function based on the yellow lighted food items within the food, which is designed to help the user consume the food as soon as possible within its shelf life (as in our example, broccoli, shrimp, etc. can be paired with a tasty fat-reducing salad). This feature can significantly reduce food waste.Finally, food waste data is recorded and converted into data that is more likely to resonate with consumers (e.g., the amount of food wasted by a family in one month could be consumed by a child in an underdeveloped area for one month), which serves as an awareness-raising campaign to reduce food waste.According to our research, these features can serve as an effective reminder of food waste.

Thanks for the question. Our Fresh actually includes a number of features, the last one being this weekly waste report. This feature is designed to bring reflection on food waste to consumers after it has already been wasted.Through this feature, food waste data is recorded and converted into data that is more likely to resonate with consumers (e.g. food wasted by a family in a month could be consumed by a child in an underdeveloped area for a month), acting as a campaign to reduce food waste.We hope that the food waste data (especially the food conversions) will give users a deeper understanding that food is meant to provide essential energy for humans, not to be thrown away. We hope to evoke a special kind of ‘food waste shame’ in our users, as well as a sense of environmental awareness through the food waste data, which in turn will help to build long-term sustainable consumption habits.

Thank you for your question. I have always believed that design is a ‘synthesis’ of three attributes: technology, art and business, which means that design tools are a special kind of ‘blending agent’.In my design work, I always practice the concept that technology serves design and design serves user experience. Therefore, when designing, we will fully consider whether a certain technology can be easily accepted, appreciated and used by users.Therefore, we will choose the technology that is more easily accepted and relied upon by users as the entry point to assist us in the process of enhancing user experience.

Thank you for recognising this function.The hardest part of integrating Fresh mobile apps with supermarket shopping lists is not so much the technical aspect, as the visual recognition modelling and image matching features are now fully commercially available on a large scale. Instead, we think the hardest part is how to make users accept and get used to scanning shopping lists after shopping in the simplest way possible.Of course, we didn't go into more details when we pitched this design in 2022 (due to space reasons), but we think it's important to propose more interesting interactions and incentivised points design to improve the user experience of this feature, so that users can become familiar with, satisfied with, and accustomed to scanning their shopping lists more quickly.

Thank you for your question. As I mentioned before, colour coding can more quickly remind the user of the quality of different foods (black for expired, red for soon to be expired, yellow for reminder, green for still fresh), and the use of such colours compounds the global user's mental model (refer to the traffic light) to minimally costly serve as a reminder of the food information.When users use it, they will inevitably react differently to different colours. Based on our research and simulations, we found that users will take prompt action when facing yellow reminders, especially consuming the ‘yellow’ food as soon as possible.In the design, we tried many strategies, such as text reminders, vibration reminders, etc. Finally, in the actual research, we found that the design similar to the traffic light is the most intuitive and effective, and best meets the user's mental model - finally we chose this design, and got all the pre-testers and the design and development team's approval.

Thanks for the question. Yes, there is a big difference. As I mentioned before, we have found that households in urban environments unknowingly create a lot of food waste, which seems to be a huge problem that is well known but not yet solved. What I think is most different about our design is that our design fits very well with the user's mental model, intervening and reminding throughout the whole process of buying, storing and using the design. Rather than being a stereotypical reminder or condemnation of waste, our design unknowingly makes the user realise that a certain period of time has resulted in a lot of food waste. In fact, we consider it a socially reflective design.During the development process, I have always emphasised to the design team the need to enter into the lives of the users, and to look for rationality and creativity in the design from the practical perspective of life.

Thank you for your question. Firstly, expand the incentivised design for saving food (e.g. offer green points, green medals, etc. to increase users' participation and satisfaction in saving food)Secondly, let's collaborate our design with more supermarket chains and companies so that our design can be found, accepted and used more quickly.Thirdly, we need to refine the visual presentation design (in fact, the currently submitted version is a few years old and we have iterated the visual design)Fourthly, and most importantly, we need to improve the food pairing feature, exploring more specialised food combinations and ways to teach how to prepare them, so that all the food that's about to expire can be ‘perfectly consumed’ and less wasted. (This ‘perfect serving’ means that there are many food combinations and cooking methods to teach)

Thank you for the questions. Collaboration is a very effective approach to design.In fact, design is required for almost all processes to be realised, including visual design, design research, and technical application evaluation.With a team of approximately 70 percent designers and 30 percent technicians, we approached the design and development process for this Fresh application from a combined technical, design, and business perspective.

Thank you for the interview questions. I think design is a fun and fulfilling job. I am very grateful to the jury for being able to award me with one of the most important design prizes in the world, which gives me a lot of encouragement. As you know, the A’ Design Award is one of the largest, most professional and attractive awards in the world.Unfortunately, because the design was not perfect when we submitted it, we didn't win the gold medal or a higher award (which shows the fairness and the high value of the A Design Italia Award).Anyway, I hope that in the future I will have more projects that will be recognised by the A Design Award!Thank you again for the encouragement and recognition from Italy A’Design Award.