Haiyan Zhang is an interaction designer, technologist and maker of things.
Working at the design consultancy, IDEO, she has created innovative new digital experiences for community building, entertainment, and financial services. She has also worked with leading videogame makers on research and game concepts for new play experiences. Clients Haiyan has worked with include Mattel, Electronic Arts, HBO, France Telecom, Alcatel, Cisco, and AT&T.
Haiyan believes in a holistic approach to design. Starting from user research and insights, she leverages her design skills to bring ideas into tangible form early on in the process. Haiyan creates prototypes, interfaces, sketches, scenarios, advertisements to reflect the user’s experience as a journey beyond a single product moment.
Haiyan’s work is informed by her previous profession as a software engineer and user interface designer creating applications for the biomedical and data-mining industries. For example, as part of a team of software developers from Excel Tech in Canada, she created an electroencephalograph (EEG) visualization tool for intra-operative monitoring which is currently being used in hospitals across North America.
A scholar of both technology and design, she graduated in 2006 with distinction in a Masters degree in Interaction Design from the renowned Interaction Design Institute in Ivrea, and has a Bachelor of Computer Science (First-Class Honours) from Monash University, Australia.
Haiyan has lived in China, Australia, Toronto, Italy, San Francisco and now resides in London.
Haiyan was a featured designer in the UK edition of Wired magazine (June 2009):
Present & Past Work:
OpenIDEO- An open collaboration platform for solving the world’s tough challenges.
BBVA ATM- A new self-service experience.
Control Freaks - Turning everyday objects into opportunities for play.
Future Currents – Designing for a changing climate. With the British Design Council, RED Team.
Tug Tug Phones – Telephones for haptic communication across distances. Featured in Wallpaper* (Oct 2005) and exhibited at the Salone del Mobile (Milan Furniture Fair), 2005.
Standby Energy Visualisation - Interactive widget for revealing your standby energy usage.
Big Conversations & Small Talk – IDEO’s ongoing conversation with the wider community about innovation and design thinking.
Inspired? Share – An IDEO Facebook app to share what inspires you.
Lost Paradise – Generative art piece inspired by the work of William Morris.
