Hi, my name is Andi.
I am a researcher advocating for inclusive design, for both humans and the world.

 
 
 

Design strategist and researcher, passionate about complex systems and innovation around technologies

 

I am an innovative thinker with a mixed background of design and art history. Specialized in research, human-centered design and facilitation, I have done work in logistics, automobile, healthcare, industry research and art curation in my professional journey.

I believe successful design outcomes require a collaborative combination of human-centered research and systems thinking. I advocate for sustainable, accessible and inclusive design for humans and the world.

When I am not designing or doing research, I listen to Jazz ECM in heavy rotation, take photos and videos of life moments, and train my Shiba Inu puppy, Yezi. You can learn more about my story here.

Modes of thinking: human-centered / decentralized

 
 
 
 

Recent updates

Currently, I work at Amazon’s Last Mile Delivery team, leading the UX Research for Delivery Stations and Central Ops experience and technologies that ship billions of packages worldwide each year. Please contact zhouandi0318[at]gmail.com for my latest UX Research work.

Prior to joining Amazon, I worked at D-Ford, an innovation center of Ford Motor Company specialized in human-centered design. The work I did typically lied in internal design consultation and leading design thinking enablement practices within various teams and groups across the larger organization. Here are some examples of my work at Ford:

 

Modernizing Ford Manufacturing

Foundational user research on employee experience at the plant floors for modernizing Ford manufacturing, solutions implemented at Ford’s Rouge Electric Vehicle Center, the manufacturing home of the F-150 Lightning.

Scaling Design Thinking at Ford

Setting the environment and building the mechanism to allow human-centered design to thrive in the organization.

Smart World Infrastructure

Future scenario planning for the infrastructure strategy and finding the human narratives to strategize around disconnected business interests.

 
 

Journey to Design/ Research

I graduated from IIT Institute of Design in May 2019, with a Master of Design degree in Human Computer Interaction. In addition, I hold a BA degree in Art & Design History from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing, China. Before I started design, I had experience in art curation and industry research.

As a designer-turned researcher, I define myself by my ways of approaching work, the thinking and the reasoning, not solely by what I have done or job titles I have held. I believe crafts can be trained and up-skilled, and my ability of forming point-of-view’s is what differentiates and transactional across fields. The world is complex, thus the problems are often systemic. To challenge the norm of mechanistic thinking and the technology-driven narratives, I view design as a “futuring” method and an innovation agent, a mean to a well-being future for all.

 

Photography: Chicago River Infrastructures (2016)