Profile: Graduated from East China Normal University. With fifteen years of experience in the field of product design, whether it is an international top 500 or a well-known domestic enterprise, it is the object of its innovative services, serving customers including Unilever, South Korea's Samsung, Honeywell, The British Cuifeng, British Museum, Xinhua Net, Alibaba and other industry first-line brands, landing products more than 100 pieces, and many times won domestic and foreign design awards. He has served as a product innovation consultant in many enterprises such as Carl Zeiss in Germany, French Bow and Arrow, and Cuifeng in the United Kingdom, and the fields of innovation mainly include medical treatment, home appliances, consumer electronics, daily necessities, cultural and creative design, etc. Engaged in design education in many universities, it is favored by students with its high international vision, outstanding personal qualities and rich industry experience.
When I was younger, I always felt that time passed very slowly, and I could have a lot of time for me to squander. Gradually, along with growth, we suddenly find that time passes quickly, and we dare not look at it directly, and slowly we do everything to explore its essence. New designers often ask the question: Should young designers focus more on the training of design skills, or more exposure to the exercise of business thinking? Whenever I encounter such a problem, I will think of the design road I have traveled, since I entered the industrial design industry in 2002, the definition and method of design are also constantly iterating, and the process of product development has changed from the previous "single fight" to the "big synergy" strategy. Nowadays, in the context of the new definition of industrial design, the essence of design is constantly changing, and the success of a product is inseparable from the support of many aspects. Whether it is a platform, a company, a design company, or a designer, it is necessary to have a clearer understanding of its essence, so that product innovation can go smoother and healthier. As a designer, you should not only have a good and solid technical foundation, but also have a complete understanding of the entire innovation process, content definition, business thinking, etc.
Today's design innovation is inseparable from the support of the platform, a good platform can provide brand, capital, supply chain, users, design and other dimensions of resources, so that innovators can focus on their core values, so as to be closer to success. The most important function of the platform is no longer management and incentive, but empowerment. Motivation is biased towards benefit sharing after the fact, while empowerment emphasizes stimulating the interest and motivation of creative people. Only from the heart can we inspire continuous creativity. As a result, the function of the platform is no longer to assign tasks and supervise the market, but more to better match the expertise, interests and needs of the innovator. We could even argue that the relationship between innovators using the platform's public services, rather than the platform hiring innovators, has changed subtly.
As an enterprise, we must open up all development links to form a closed loop of innovation. From product definition, design and development to supply chain and marketing system, products are more competitive through the superposition of efficiency in each link. At the end of 2018, we opened the course "Design Thinking Leads Business Innovation" at Huali Business School, and when we served as an entrepreneurial mentor and judge, we came into contact with many entrepreneurs and their innovative projects. Entrepreneurs will use the four keywords of who, what, how, and why to make a short project introduction, who: Who are we? What: What are we prepared to do? What is the product; how: how do we do it? What are the advantages; why: why do you want to do this? What problems have we solved? Some entrepreneurs start from the "why" and thus reach the other side of the "product", and they often know why we do this? What is the value of this to the customer? What is our philosophy and goal in doing this? What do we exist for? Only when the fundamental problems that need to be solved are identified, will the innovation efficiency of an enterprise be improved.
Kenya Hara said that "the greatest function of design is discovery". From service to discovery is an important shift in the fundamental value of design companies today, and it has become even more important to discover value and opportunity points for customers in the era of cross-border competition. Looking back at the past year, we have looked at society and business with a development perspective and found that many concepts are changing and showing very different states. For example, the hot sharing of bicycles in 2017 needs to solve the problem of oversupply of bicycles in 2018; the new retail that emerged in 2017 has evolved into a new consumer experience through the upgrading of the new retail service model. These changes stem from the continuous thinking and progress of the whole society. Design is like a mirror of the evolution of the whole society, in the industrial age we focus on industrial design, and in the information age we focus on interaction design, to today's Internet of Things era, we turn more to service design and vertical innovation. An excellent design company should not only have a perfect service system, but also have a keen observation of society, keep up with the trend of the times, and be forward-looking, and use its own innovative thinking to lead and promote the development of society.
A good designer can predict the development path of innovative activities, lead the organization to seek breakthroughs in difficult situations, and find the best solution. Innovation is a very tedious and painful process, and it is impossible to grasp all aspects of knowledge as a designer. I'm often asked what the most successful product I've designed is, and I'm often overwhelmed by this question. The success of a product is the result of the concerted efforts of various roles, not the credit of one designer. This is made up of many factors, including accurate product positioning, excellent structural design, moderate marketing strategy, and stable supply quality, which are necessary conditions for the success of a product. Designers play a more coordinating and organizing role, and put forward corresponding requirements for product design goals. For example, Trojan design for Xiaopai developed the world's first 8kvr glasses, and finally crowdfunded more than 4.23 million US dollars on Kickstar, in addition to excellent industrial design, the pre-definition of the product and the post-marketing strategy are also the key to the final success; we developed an air purifier more suitable for the Chinese market for Samsung, spent nearly half of the time in the early stage for user research, and conducted household interviews in 13 cities across the country to understand the views of first-line consumers on the product. It is to provide us with the most accurate goal for the final product development.
Why better understand the nature of design? Only by understanding the essence can the function of each role in the design process be accurately defined. For example, the role of the designer is a very important part of the entire innovation process, and the designer must not only grasp the aesthetic standards of the work, but also be responsible for the later mass production. An excellent idea in the creative stage, it is the designer's work, we will look at it from the academic point of view of innovation, aesthetics and other academic points of view; in the mass production stage, it is the innovator's product, we use processability, cost and process feasibility to ask for it; in the sales stage, it belongs to the innovative commodity, we measure it with sales performance and social value. Therefore, today's designers should not only see themselves as a link in the innovation chain, but also have a global thinking and deep integration with the entire innovation process in order to play a greater role. Finally, I would like to quote Donald Norman, the author of The Psychology of Design, to further illustrate my point: "The essence of design is not creativity, but communication. It is a discipline of silent communication between designers and users through products. From the perspective of a product development, the key to success is the frequent communication between designers and enterprises, enterprises and platforms. We understand the essence of design, in fact, we understand why we design, and finally achieve the goal of using design to enhance product value, activating designer value with design, and creating higher commercial value with design.
Representative works:
Carl · ZEISS optical coherence tomography scanning systems
Ou Lin "CEO" range hood
Qinyuan product pi design
Qinyuan kitchen water purifier
Baidu intelligent robot
British Museum · Majorica Golden Hi Easter Egg Set