A perfect day with Don Norman exploring Shanghai

As a Designer who would you chose to spend an entire day with?

Designers are usually so focused on the future and could easily forgot to refer to the past. Last Friday, we are honoured to have the opportunity to spend a day in Shanghai with the expert of human-cantered design and the founder of our design industry, Donald Norman. Together we created a day of exploration in this amazing city Shanghai.

Our goal is to explore the contrast of daily life in Shanghai, and uncover the artifacts and examples of how the design is influencing or not influencing the everyday life in the city.

We decided to explore one of the historical neighbourhoods located in the centre of Jin’an district. Many communities and housing were built here in the past century. The city landscape transformed dramatically since the 90’s but some of these communities survived and has already become the representative of the local culture.

When the current housing facility failed to meet the actual needs of the resident, a series of redesign started to emerge. “Except the hanging, most of the modification seems straightforward and natural, the cloth one is interesting, which you also arrive what they are exactly going to do in the winter.” Donald Norman said.

Don was particularly interested in the new service provided by a start-up company, who provide same day delivery service of fresh fruits. We are also surprised to learn that Don was actually a tea lover and is quite familiar with the traditional Chinese tea ceremony and various types of Chinese tea. The owner of an artist studio invited us for a brief tea break and presented his techniques of ceramic carving.

And we closed the day of exploration by making the Chinese dumplings together in the CBi office. Judging by his pose, Don has become quite good with his dumpling making skills.