Haili Wu
I am a designer who enjoys working trans-disciplinary; interested in combining technology and science with design in a user-centred way to better society. Design can play a significant role in identifying and addressing social, production and consumption problems derived from world development in the present, near and far future. Providing a joyful living experience that enhances the human relationship. I believe design can be an instrument to reflect on the world and explore how it should be, or could be. I believe design is also one of the most potent tools to provoke positive actions by asking the question of ‘what if?’
Through the projects seen here, my design practice seeks to respect multiple voices from different disciplines and explores the intricacies of human behaviour and how we interact with the ‘things’ and world around us.
The Playground: An alternative social experience
The project speculated into the future, where social media addiction among young adults become a critical problem and the government has to establish a new department to face it (The Department of Social Media Usage Control). By setting the scene in the future, we have a better understanding of our lives today and the challenges we might face in the future, which provoke thinking and actions.
I worked closely with users and experts from the related domain, and notice the foundation of the problem is people’s feeling of loneliness and disconnection. An alternative social experience that provides a positive connection and manageable social circle for its users is needed.
The outcome is Playground; a social platform based on the local community to provide a ‘real-time, location-based, playful, positive social connection for users.
Department of Social Media Usage Control ads video future 2026 (Future scenario video)
In the development stage, I use video to prototype my future vision and bring it to life quickly. It is an advertisement for the Department of Social Media Usage Control (an organisation that I imagine exists in the future world I create).
Kiki: Future Remote-Care Experience
In this project, I speculated on how design can shape our society in the future through the relationships between people, products and places positively.
Working closely with cancer research experts, I notice remote healthcare might become a trend for post-cancer living in 2030. However, It largely depends on technology. So how to bring the new form of cancer care to people who have difficulty using tech becomes critical.
The outcome is Kiki, a platform that works as a companion for its users, interacting with and motivating the user through friendly suggestions and conversation. Each guidance incorporates local information and user’s preference with cancer experts’ advice globally, keep the users healthy without bringing the context of ‘cancer’. The collective intelligence generated by Kiki helps to advance global understanding of the experience of those living with cancer as a chronic condition.
Work as group to explore the future
2030: Living Beyond Cancer
Future Experiences (Pt. 1)
Part one of Future Experiences was developed alongside two course mates, and was spent speculating on what it could be like living beyond cancer in 2030 in the context of collective intelligence and big data.
Technological advancements could allow for intelligent health monitoring in the home. Using a set of smart tools – essentially intelligent crockery and cutlery – Dinaci, a healthcare brand of 2030, looks at biological and behavioural trends to build an image of the users normality. Negative trends in this data point towards health problems; in the beyond cancer context this is an image of risk of readmission. The data gathered acts as part of a collective intelligence; informing the users healthcare on a local scale; in a wider context it informs global medical and cancer communities.
Project Links
1 - Summary
