Qian Wan

I enjoyed observing the world and drawing objects since I was a kid, so I decided to learn industrial design through my undergrad. Then I observed the digital transformation happening in the world: the evolution of the internet, the IoT, etc. I realized that there was great potential in the digital world. That uncharted area made me excited and encourage me to make the career transition to be come a digital product designer.

Qian Wan is currently playing an important product designer role in VMware, a leading provider of multi-cloud services for all apps. She plays a leading role in many critical projects that made a great contribution to the company strategy such as VMware Aria Insights.

I appreciate the design that can enable people and improve their life quality

A good design should care about accessibility, and make all the efforts to bring equally good experience to all the demographic group

That’s a great question. I’m quite flexible and trying not limited to a certain type of visual style, but when it comes to the principle of experience design, making it friendly and understandable are the golden rules.

I started with research to understand the target users first, and I won’t start designing without enough learning. After that, I quickly created a low-fi mock-up to test out the concept and narrowed it down to 1 direction. Once it’s confirmed, I pursue the design with a higher fidelity prototype and shared it with users to get usability testing.

I like connecting with local design communities such as IXDA. I had a few chances of being invited to the panel discussion. Meeting with other amazing designers never failed to inspire me.

I’m excited to see that many design opportunity has shown up when much new business and technology have been discovered or put into implementation, such as AI, VR, etc.

I’m super excited to receive the award. The recognition shows my impact as an independent designer and it’s also a good platform to know other design experts from different industries.

Ling is a mobile-based educational purposed chatbot that provides real-time inquiry functionality and learning resources about equity, diversity, and inclusion to help Chinese international student to identify and prevent discrimination and harassment that happened to them. The reason I chose this topic is that COVID-19 has driven racism and violence against Asians. Chinese international students who are coming from a very distinct culture study abroad, and are new to a culture. They are less sensitive to racial discrimination when it is happening to them. Although those aggressions are often subtle, they can be just as harmful to health and well-being.

It was hard to initiate such a difficult topic with people who experienced racial discrimination. Sharing my own stories that resonate with people helped me drive the conversation. I also found that much existing research has been done only on post-discrimination experience, but it doesn't cover all the needs. People often didn't realize when things happened, not to mention to look for help in time. After mapping out their journey, I realized that lack of knowledge leads to those consequences.

It is a great platform to increase design visibility and the designer’s impact

User-focused, inclusive, connected

I strongly believe that AI would bring a great opportunity to the creative industry. It increases efficiency and works as a new tool for the design community. It also shapes the role of UX.

Always put your users in your mind.

Hands-on experience is always the best practice.

Sometimes jumping out of your focused area could fresh your mind and inspire you

Quantify your success and learnings, but also think about the impact you can make at the societal level

Embrace your personality and the characteristics that make you a great designer.