Workshop Results 1
Four-Week Intensive (Shanghai, April – June 2025)
By collaborating with Shanghai Industrial Design Association, we invited students from Donghua University and East China University of Science and Technology, and we went deeper:
• Research and Observation: Students visited communities, cooked blindfolded or with one hand, and listened to personal stories from elderly and visually impaired participants.
• Problem Framing: They identified recurring issues—measuring water without sight, cutting food safely with one hand—and applied the principle of “the body as a tool” to rethink kitchen tasks.
• Prototyping and Testing: They made real, functional prototypes—tactile spice jars, pot lids with sound cues, multifunctional cutting boards—and tested them with users, refining designs after feedback.
Working with students from different schools was eye-opening. Their creativity was high, and once they stepped out of their comfort zones, they could connect with real users and translate those experiences into tangible, thoughtful solutions. Many had never tested their work with actual users before.
The process wasn’t easy. Most were trained to meet assignment requirements quickly, without exploring deeper questions. Guiding them to slow down, to ask “why” and “who” before “how,” took time and patience.
Many participants planned to study abroad, and they saw the workshop as a way to build a more open, research-driven portfolio. Others were already worried about the job market, which in China is highly competitive, and preferred to focus on more commercially viable design work. This mix reflected the complex reality of bringing inclusive design into Chinese education: it’s as much about shifting mindsets as it is about teaching methods.