Interviews with Tianyi Qi

The main focus of my design is to solve the pain point, or, the dilemma to be more accurate, in the English learning process. The cause of the problem is that English learners had to choose between checking out unfamiliar words or ignoring those words to achieve a nice reading flow. To solve this problem, I designed an experience where users can quickly check out the words while reading, so they won't break the flow. And those words they checked out will be stored in the vocabulary book. They can review and learn the words later, in their dedicated vocabulary learning time.

The "Reading" and "Vocabulary-building" part of the design is pretty polished. I have run multiple user testing sessions to collect feedback and iterate on the design details. However, the "Community" tab of the design is still at an early stage, with a lot of potential to be a strong add-on to the current experience. In my vision for this product, users will form a language learning community where they share learning tips and articles. Another area of improvement is to support other languages beyond just English.

It took me 3 months from the beginning to the end. I had a full-time job while I was working on the project so I could only use my spare time. I started with desk research and interviews with other English learners, which helped me understand the prevalence of the problem. I did a few rounds of brainstorming to come up with ideas to solve the problem and selected the one that I felt most strongly to develop into lo-fi wireframes. I tested wireframes with potential users to get feedback and iterate the design. I designed the visual style of the app at the very end of the project.

I designed this concept to pursue inspiration. I myself am an English learner and have been bothered by this problem for a really long time, and so do my peer English learners. I have used many English learning apps, however, most of them are specific to one area of English learning, for example, vocabulary building. As a person experiencing the language learning process, I have a view on top of these seemingly separate skills - the problems English learners are facing always exist at the intersection of multiple skills, thus the solution to these problems should be holistic. This project is my attempt to find an answer to this complex design challenge.

Beginner to intermediate English learners who want to build vocabulary. In the future, I do want to include more language options in the app.

My design sits at the intersection of two distinguished types of applications - English learning tools and browsers. Most English learning apps on the market are targeting specific English skills. My design aims to help users get better at reading and in the meantime, they can collect unfamiliar words from the article and learn them later. It is a more holistic approach to learning English, instead of building each skill separately. Browser is another tool English learners use to do reading. A lot of browsers today have integrated translation functions that can help the user find out the meaning of words immediately. However, users can't save those new words and go back to review later, which is not helpful to enhance their memory.

I am not very happy with the name of the design as many people thought it was a misspelling for "remember". But I kind of like the meaning of the name, it shows what the solution is really about - a combined, holistic experience of reading and remembering new words.

An important lesson I learned from this project is to not limit myself to existing product categories. As I mentioned earlier, my product fits in between an English learning tool and a browser. I had problems coming up with good ideas at the beginning stage of the design process because I was too focused on designing a vocabulary-building tool. I had the final idea when I was trying to combine two different ideas together, and to my surprise, it worked well! From that on, I started to focus on the specific problems users face in their life in the ideation stage, instead of designing the type of products. I know that if I follow the design process, I will eventually find the best solution, no matter what category it fits in.

This is kind of a unique design project because I am also a potential user of the product, as I was bothered by the English learning problem. This experience made me think a lot about my identity and how it relates to my job as a designer. Working in the United State as an international person whose first language is not English sometimes made me feel I am in a disadvantaged place compared to other people. However, I am able to identify problems like what Raemember is solving only because I belong to the English learner community. This connection also helped me easily find people to participate in the research and user testing sessions. Now I totally changed my perspective on my identity - it's actually an unexpected advantage for me and helps a lot with my design practice.

My main focus has been identifying user pain points and using design to solve these problems. I talked to a lot of target users, listening to how they currently find restaurants and what they are frustrated about. For example, one insight I learned was that they trust recommendations from their friends, but they can't always get these recommendations when they need them, like, on the street. As a solution to the problem, I designed the map function to let users find restaurants anytime, anywhere. Ultimately, my goal was to design an application that really solves user problems.

I am planning to keep exploring the socialization aspect of the app. The app is aimed to achieve two goals: helping users find good restaurants and building more connections with other people. The former has been addressed pretty well by the current design, but the latter still needs more effort. In my future plans, the app will allow users to explore more people to connect based on their tastes, as well as reward new connections they make.

4 months, from planning to finishing the design work. Although I first got the inspiration 2 years ago before I started the design. I first had the idea when I first came to the US but wasn't able to make it real until I had some free time. I never forgot this hunch over that 2 years.

For this particular design, given it's my own side hustle, I pursued my inspiration. When I first came to New York City from China, I was very excited about the diverse food scene here but very ignorant about ethnic food. I didn't know how to order ethnic food, and found apps like Google or Yelp were not that helpful - the popular food on those apps didn't look authentic, they were more like "what Americans like", instead of "what people from that culture would order". I ended up asking my friends from different cultures for food recommendations, it not only helped me find amazing food but made me closer to my friends. This experience inspired me to design an app that allows everyone to have this amazing experience. Ultimately, I wish users can get to know more friends from other cultures because of using this app.

Good question. I believe the answer is rooted in the design philosophy I started to be aware of very recently. I want to use technology to help people build meaningful connections, and design is my approach to achieving this goal. The pandemic has enhanced my desire of pursuing more work like this, as we were more separated from each other. This experience forced us to redefine what connections we need, and how to build those connections.

I identified 3 types of target users for my design, they are "foodies", "friends of foodies", and "ethnic food experts". "Foodies" will be the major content generator for the app, as they like exploring restaurants and documenting restaurants they like. "Friends of foodies" like exploring restaurants but they are not that good at it. So they will ask their foodie friends for suggestions. "Ethic food experts" are people like me, they are very knowledgeable about food from their culture, and can provide good suggestions, however, they might not know much about food from some other cultures. They will be both content generators and consumers of the app.

Mechanism of trust and the focus on socialization. When a person uses other products, like Google and Yelp, they evaluate the quality of a restaurant base on the number of reviews and the overall score. A restaurant needs a lot of good reviews to establish its reputation. People might not go to a new restaurant merely because it doesn't have enough reviews. However, recommendations from friends are a more qualitative way of building trust. One piece of recommendation is good enough for someone to trust and potentially visit a restaurant. Another differentiator for my design is the focus on socialization. The goal of using Foodie is not only to find good food, bu connecting with friends. And the more connections you build, the more food recommendations you get. They are mutually benefiting each other.

I named my design "Foodie" as I think it's an app designed for real foodies. I wanted my target users to be attracted by the name immediately.

I conducted user research and competitive analysis and used the data from this research to inform my design decisions. In the user research sessions, I mainly asked questions about their current user behaviors on restaurant hunting and their opinions about receiving and providing recommendations.

I wanted to share my design with a broader audience, and hopefully, it can inspire other designers in their work. As a designer, I understand how important it is to always get exposed to fresh inspirations. I have benefited a lot from other designers' amazing work and it's time for me to give back to the community.

Design is "problem-solving" for me. Many people consider design as merely making products beautiful, however, that's only part of the outcomes of design practice. As a product designer, I started my process by understanding the problem space, followed by exploring innovative solutions and transferring concepts into digital products that are not only aesthetic but functional and easy to use. The most important part is the connection between all the stages, especially how the final solutions tackle the problems we are aiming to solve.

I enjoy projects that involve complex systems or challenging problems. For example, I worked on a security-related project in my current job, it was very complex and technical. Our team was challenged to understand the domain well enough in a few weeks to come up with a solution. We made it! We were able to let the client understand the problem from a design perspective and even engaged them in the ideation process.

I feel the most creative when I am chatting with other designers. It is extremely helpful when I get stuck in the design process - I get inspired and am able to think of other solutions that I wasn't aware of.

In retrospect, I have focused more on the problem exploration stage of the design process. I am not a professional researcher, but I do enjoy talking to users or doing literature reviews to get an understanding of the problem. And I believe only when the problem is well defined, can a solution be successful.

Anxious? Only a little bit. I am worried that I can't come up with the "best" solution. But I do get very excited when a good idea hit me, which is my favorite moment during design.

As a product designer, I am aware of the importance of teamwork, so when I saw my designs were realized by my amazing teammates, I always thought "Wow, I am so lucky to work with them!"

Even though I have emphasized the importance of defining the right problem, when it comes to judging a design, I consider the look and feel of a design first. Aesthetics is as important as the quality of the solution and is way easier to tell. If a design even doesn't look good, it is very unlikely to be liked and used by users. So what's the point of solving the problem right if no one uses it?

I worked with organizations in the public sector and the humanitarian industry. I was surprised by the fact that the demands of design in those areas were huge - many organizations were trying to do more design projects but they didn't have the resources. I was also impressed by how much impact design can have when it is applied to social impact areas, which made me feel very rewarding. I would like to do more of this kind of work in the future. And I would encourage other designers to do the same - especially since many organizations have low-demand volunteering opportunities.

Everywhere in my life! From an app that I started using recently to a childhood memory. I think this is the fun part of product design - it is truly a field that encourages wild innovations, and there were many examples of crazy ideas being a huge market hit. So the ability to connect unexpected dots and allow innovative solutions to emerging is important, and it starts by not limiting the sources of inspiration you bring to the work.

I am currently living in New York City but I grew up in China and spent most of my life there. I appreciated my privilege of living in two countries of very different cultures, it made me see the complexity of society, culture, and people. This experience for sure helped me be more empathetic, which is an extremely important skill for a designer.

I always start with building trust and relationships. I want to know everyone I will be working with and let them know about me. I value collaboration and trust is the foundation of great teamwork. My second step is understanding their design needs - what they want the design to accomplish at the end and along the process. Sometimes, especially if a company that doesn't know much about the design process, will not fully understand what they need from design. In that case, I will have to come up with my suggestions on design outcomes and discuss them with them, hoping to get buy-in. Once the design process officially starts, I always work closely with the team, to conduct design activities together, like research, brainstorming, and quick sketching. I want to leverage everyone's skills in the team, to make the design outcomes truly belong to the client.

Find what type of designer you want to be! I have met a lot of different types of designers in my career - some are nerdy in craft skills, some love doing strategic work, etc. Design is a very complex and multidisciplinary subject, it's very normal for a designer to be good at, or more into specific skills. There is no right and wrong answer on what you should be good at, but it all depends on which direction you want to go. And once you figure that out, it's time to plan your career. Or the other way around, try different types of jobs and see what you like the most.

I really value my experience working at NYC Opportunity, which is a part of the Mayor's Office. I worked there as a product design fellow for 10 months and it was the experience I built up skills as a product designer. I learned so many things from that experience, including craft skills, software, the product development process, and communication. Without that experience, I would not have landed a job in my current company.

I really enjoy working with nonprofits or community organizations. In most cases, they are so lack design support and my work will have a huge impact on them. I also in general like working with organizations that are working on social good-related projects.

I am working at a design consultancy, my current client is a big tech company. I am helping them with their internal incubator project, helping teams to navigate the design process and create final design deliverables. In the future, I am planning to do more volunteer work with nonprofits or community organizations in my spare time.