skip to Main Content
design lab sheng-feng qin

Spotlight on Sheng-feng Qin: His take on Design from China to the UK and US

Spotlight on Sheng-feng Qin: His take on Design from China to the UK and US

Spotlight on Sheng-feng Qin: His take on Design from China to the UK and US

Sheng-feng Qin is a professor at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle in the School of Design in Northeast England. His research spans everything from digital design with high-speed rail systems in China to crowdsourcing-based and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) tools in the United Kingdom. As a visiting faculty and researcher at the Design Lab at UC San Diego, Qin has been working to marry the principles of emotional design with the development of social platforms. Here’s our conversation with Dr. Qin.

How can we link more design solutions directly to people and business?

Qin: The process of product development involves idealization, prototyping and finding partners for manufacturing. When identifying platforms for product development, people often use a variety of different tools to bring their idea to fruition. Instead of creating one singularly-focused platform, we should create platforms that are adaptive to a wide range of needs. It’s this dynamic dialogue that drives the creation of better, more useful products. In manufacturing, there are networks of companies and universities that rally around ideation and production. Unfortunately, a lot of those ideas end up unused and forgotten. So, how can we link solutions more directly to the people who would find them useful?

When we first start looking at a problem, we are presented with constraints. The magic happens when we go beyond the problem and come up with an idea that cuts through expectations. For example, technology companies often believe that good business simply means acquiring more users. However, research tells us that an increase in users is often the result of a product’s ease of use, ability to engage people and create an emotional connection that inspires people to want to participate. So maybe instead of seeking to acquire users, we should set out to create tools that are easy to use, effectively engage people, and evoke an emotional connection.

Having worked in China, U.K., and the U.S., how is design viewed differently or similarly across the different countries?

Qin: China tends to focus more on the engineering aspect due to their rapid industrial development,” says Dr. Qin. “The U.K. favors graphics and animation associated with the arts and social sciences. Design in the U.S. looks to be more inclusive and interdisciplinary across research, engineering, social sciences, and the arts. In the U.S., I find there is a strong emphasis on public service, which appears to be the future of design thinking.

About Dr. Sheng-feng Qin:

Dr Sheng-feng Qin is Professor of Digital Design at Northumbria University with an extensive career in design academia. Prior to this post, he was a Reader in Product/Industrial Design at Northumbria University (January 2014-July 2015).

Before joining Northumbria School of Design in 2014, he worked in Department of Design at Brunel University as a Senior Lecturer in Product Design (September 2007- December 2013) and a Lecturer in Industrial Design (September 2001-August 2007). At Brunel University, he led the Computer Aided Design and Engineering research group between 2007 and 2013.  Dr Qin was a post-doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Loughborough’s Manufacturing System Integration Institute (MSI) between 2000 and 2001, and a Research Assistant in the School of Product Design at the University of Wales Institute Cardiff (Cardiff Metropolitan University now) between 1998 and 1999. Before his visit to the University of Birmingham between 1996 and 1997 as an Academic Visiting Scholar in the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, he was an Associate Professor at East China Jiaotong University of China. He worked as a Design Engineer in HuaiBei Coal Mining Construction Company in China between 1983 and 1985.

Prof. Qin has published more than 150 papers in journals and conferences and 2 books.

Sheng-feng Qin is a professor at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle in the School of Design in Northeast England. His research spans everything from digital design with high-speed rail systems in China to crowdsourcing-based and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) tools in the United Kingdom. As a visiting faculty and researcher at the Design Lab at UC San Diego, Qin has been working to marry the principles of emotional design with the development of social platforms. Here’s our conversation with Dr. Qin.

How can we link more design solutions directly to people and business?

Qin: The process of product development involves idealization, prototyping and finding partners for manufacturing. When identifying platforms for product development, people often use a variety of different tools to bring their idea to fruition. Instead of creating one singularly-focused platform, we should create platforms that are adaptive to a wide range of needs. It’s this dynamic dialogue that drives the creation of better, more useful products. In manufacturing, there are networks of companies and universities that rally around ideation and production. Unfortunately, a lot of those ideas end up unused and forgotten. So, how can we link solutions more directly to the people who would find them useful?

When we first start looking at a problem, we are presented with constraints. The magic happens when we go beyond the problem and come up with an idea that cuts through expectations. For example, technology companies often believe that good business simply means acquiring more users. However, research tells us that an increase in users is often the result of a product’s ease of use, ability to engage people and create an emotional connection that inspires people to want to participate. So maybe instead of seeking to acquire users, we should set out to create tools that are easy to use, effectively engage people, and evoke an emotional connection.

Having worked in China, U.K., and the U.S., how is design viewed differently or similarly across the different countries?

Qin: China tends to focus more on the engineering aspect due to their rapid industrial development,” says Dr. Qin. “The U.K. favors graphics and animation associated with the arts and social sciences. Design in the U.S. looks to be more inclusive and interdisciplinary across research, engineering, social sciences, and the arts. In the U.S., I find there is a strong emphasis on public service, which appears to be the future of design thinking.

About Dr. Sheng-feng Qin:

Dr Sheng-feng Qin is Professor of Digital Design at Northumbria University with an extensive career in design academia. Prior to this post, he was a Reader in Product/Industrial Design at Northumbria University (January 2014-July 2015).

Before joining Northumbria School of Design in 2014, he worked in Department of Design at Brunel University as a Senior Lecturer in Product Design (September 2007- December 2013) and a Lecturer in Industrial Design (September 2001-August 2007). At Brunel University, he led the Computer Aided Design and Engineering research group between 2007 and 2013.  Dr Qin was a post-doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Loughborough’s Manufacturing System Integration Institute (MSI) between 2000 and 2001, and a Research Assistant in the School of Product Design at the University of Wales Institute Cardiff (Cardiff Metropolitan University now) between 1998 and 1999. Before his visit to the University of Birmingham between 1996 and 1997 as an Academic Visiting Scholar in the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, he was an Associate Professor at East China Jiaotong University of China. He worked as a Design Engineer in HuaiBei Coal Mining Construction Company in China between 1983 and 1985.

Prof. Qin has published more than 150 papers in journals and conferences and 2 books.

Sheng-feng Qin is a professor at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle in the School of Design in Northeast England. His research spans everything from digital design with high-speed rail systems in China to crowdsourcing-based and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) tools in the United Kingdom. As a visiting faculty and researcher at the Design Lab at UC San Diego, Qin has been working to marry the principles of emotional design with the development of social platforms. Here’s our conversation with Dr. Qin.

How can we link more design solutions directly to people and business?

Qin: The process of product development involves idealization, prototyping and finding partners for manufacturing. When identifying platforms for product development, people often use a variety of different tools to bring their idea to fruition. Instead of creating one singularly-focused platform, we should create platforms that are adaptive to a wide range of needs. It’s this dynamic dialogue that drives the creation of better, more useful products. In manufacturing, there are networks of companies and universities that rally around ideation and production. Unfortunately, a lot of those ideas end up unused and forgotten. So, how can we link solutions more directly to the people who would find them useful?

When we first start looking at a problem, we are presented with constraints. The magic happens when we go beyond the problem and come up with an idea that cuts through expectations. For example, technology companies often believe that good business simply means acquiring more users. However, research tells us that an increase in users is often the result of a product’s ease of use, ability to engage people and create an emotional connection that inspires people to want to participate. So maybe instead of seeking to acquire users, we should set out to create tools that are easy to use, effectively engage people, and evoke an emotional connection.

Having worked in China, U.K., and the U.S., how is design viewed differently or similarly across the different countries?

Qin: China tends to focus more on the engineering aspect due to their rapid industrial development,” says Dr. Qin. “The U.K. favors graphics and animation associated with the arts and social sciences. Design in the U.S. looks to be more inclusive and interdisciplinary across research, engineering, social sciences, and the arts. In the U.S., I find there is a strong emphasis on public service, which appears to be the future of design thinking.

About Dr. Sheng-feng Qin:

Dr Sheng-feng Qin is Professor of Digital Design at Northumbria University with an extensive career in design academia. Prior to this post, he was a Reader in Product/Industrial Design at Northumbria University (January 2014-July 2015).

Before joining Northumbria School of Design in 2014, he worked in Department of Design at Brunel University as a Senior Lecturer in Product Design (September 2007- December 2013) and a Lecturer in Industrial Design (September 2001-August 2007). At Brunel University, he led the Computer Aided Design and Engineering research group between 2007 and 2013.  Dr Qin was a post-doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Loughborough’s Manufacturing System Integration Institute (MSI) between 2000 and 2001, and a Research Assistant in the School of Product Design at the University of Wales Institute Cardiff (Cardiff Metropolitan University now) between 1998 and 1999. Before his visit to the University of Birmingham between 1996 and 1997 as an Academic Visiting Scholar in the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, he was an Associate Professor at East China Jiaotong University of China. He worked as a Design Engineer in HuaiBei Coal Mining Construction Company in China between 1983 and 1985.

Prof. Qin has published more than 150 papers in journals and conferences and 2 books.

Read Next

Opinion: Becoming a World Design Capital would improve life in San Diego-Tijuana

San Diego Union Tribune Op-Ed by Mayor Todd Gloria

I believe that San Diego is one of the world’s greatest cities, and together with our sister city Tijuana, we form a dynamic, multicultural area unlike anywhere else. Both as a lifelong San Diegan and the mayor of San Diego, I am proud that our city is one of two finalists in the running to be selected as the World Design Capital in 2024. Earning this designation would highlight the unique character of our binational region and show the entire world that our diversity is our strength.

Just as design has continued to address complex challenges at our border and between our cities, we continue to improve the quality of life in San Diego through thoughtful, human-centered design. The transformation of the Plaza de Panama at Balboa Park, Waterfront Park and Liberty Station are only a few examples of how we’ve begun to think about public space differently in San Diego over the last decade.
Idea Lab Design Lab

IDEA LAB Spring 2021

In collaboration with UC San Diego The Design Lab and The Basement, the Idea Lab is a quarter-long foundational program designed to introduce students to the ideas of design thinking and how it complements entrepreneurship through hands-on experiences and collaborative work with students from a variety of academic disciplines, backgrounds, and perspectives.  This program is ideal for both students who want to learn about design thinking and for students who need help getting “unstuck” from their current problem space.  Participants who successfully complete the program requirements of the Idea Lab may have the option to continue their journey with a focus on entrepreneurship in The Basement’s Summer Converge Program.

Application opens Monday, Feb. 1st at 12PM noon, closes Sunday, Feb. 21st @ 11:59pm
San Diego Profs Tackle Dying Oceans

San Diego profs tackle dying oceans and idea cross-pollination at global exhibition

San Diego Union Tribune

Design Lab member and Visual Arts Professor Pinar Yoldas joins the 2021 Venice Biennale to promote discussion of dying oceans and idea cross-pollination through a global exhibition.

This summer, 112 artists and architectural teams from around the world were invited to the annual Venice Biennale in Italy to create artworks that answer the forward-thinking question: “How will we live together?” Two of the invitees to this prestigious exhibition are from San Diego.

Pinar Yoldas, a multidisciplinary art professor at UC San Diego, took an imaginative look at what the world’s endangered oceans might look like in 30 years, while Daniel López-Pérez, a founding faculty member for the architecture program at the University of San Diego, studied the global dialogue of ideas inside a spherical structure inspired by R. Buckminster Fuller’s geoscope design.
Design Lab Ibm

IBM Design Thinking Workshop at The Design Lab

IBM believes in design thinking. And design doing. So much so that throughout the company,…

Sd Design Trek Ucsd

Design Trek Brings San Diego Design Community Together

This past March, SD Design Trek took students and early-UX career professionals on a three-day showcase of design companies in San Diego to gain a firsthand look at what the local design community has to offer. The March 4 kickoff and showcase took place just down the hall from the Design Lab, in Atkinson Hall’s Auditorium. 

The event commenced with the words of keynote speaker, Amish Desai, who graduated from UCSD in 2003 with a Cognitive Science HCI degree and currently serves as the VP of Experiences at Moonshot. “[The talk] was about being design minded, in terms of design being much more than a craft and is actually a driver for business growth,” he says. “The idea is to instill some lessons I learned in the last 17 years as to why the importance of design is not just beautiful things but is also about doing experiments and making, driving cultural changes, creating experiences, analytics, and having business rigor.”
J. Tanner Cusick

J. Tanner Cusick joins the Design Lab as a Designer-in-Residence

When J. Tanner Cusick took a class called Social Architectures, he never expected that the trajectory of his career would change forever. While pursuing his MFA at UC San Diego, Cusick explains that it was in this class that he and his classmates designed “interventions” around campus. "Basically, we would change the environment and see how it influenced human behavior,” says Cusick. “I did a piece under Geisel that challenged people to use the space differently by creating a game of human Candy Land. I colored all the blocks beneath the library, and everyone came in costumes.” He reflects that what he didn’t realize at the time was that they were really practicing experience design.

It was the combination of this event and Cusick’s experience as a teaching assistant (TA) that taught him what User Experience (UX) was. “While I was a TA, I taught a digital art class and students were assigned The Design of Everyday Things, by Don Norman. I'd never read the book before and I was amazed by it," said Cusick. It was the ideas in the book that influenced Cusick to shift the context of his work. “I ended up teaching myself about the discipline and doing a lot of UX design and content design. And that's what I have been doing since then."
Back To Top