Designing how
people connect
with AI

AIMO is a modular DIY kit that lets you design your own AI life. It began with an unfinished conversation between me and a cat named Oreo — an experience that led me to ask: could there be a more natural way for humans and other species to communicate emotionally? AIMO is my answer. It isn't a pre-made companion, but an open invitation: you decide its shape, personality, voice, and how it responds to the world. Before your hands leave the assembly, a sense of belonging has already taken root.

Reflection AIMO pushed me into territory I hadn't touched in 10 years of design — the ethics of emotional attachment to something that isn't alive. I approached it from the system level: what should an AI companion be allowed to do, and what should it never do? For children's mode, I defined a sandwich safety structure — human values at the top layer, AI behavioral constraints in the middle, parental co-authorship at the base. Not a feature. An answer to the question: when children interact with AI, how do we better take responsibility for what happens next?

Unlovable began with a simple observation: most breakup advice tells you to move on, but nobody helps you sit with the grief first. It is an AI companion designed for the raw, disorienting weeks after a relationship ends — one that listens without fixing, reflects without judging, and stays present through the ugly parts.

Key decision One of the most important design decisions was ethical. We collaborated with a psychologist to define what this AI is allowed to do and, more critically, what it must never do: no diagnosis, no mimicking therapy, no empty promises. Every language rule and every escalation path — the moment the AI steps back and says 'you need a human' — was a deliberate design choice, not a limitation.

Samsung CAF is a smart badminton shoe designed for Chinese players — a sport that millions play casually but few have purpose-built gear for. My role was to translate foot-level sensor data — step frequency, footwork patterns, jump and landing impact — into feedback that an athlete could feel mid-rally, not read after the game. The challenge: the wearer never looks at the shoe. Every signal had to reach them through rhythm, vibration, and the companion app on their wrist or phone.

Looking back Samsung was my first experience working inside a large multinational — collaborating across research, industrial design, structural engineering, and development all at once. The biggest growth wasn't in the design itself, but in learning how to move between disciplines: understanding enough of each world to communicate clearly, and trusting others to do what they do best. That's what made the work feel like a team effort.

I-TATTOO is China's first full-spectrum tattoo company — bringing together studios, schools, bars, workshops, and art galleries under one brand. Invited by the founder from day one, I led the creation of the brand VI system and visual norms, and directed the holistic design of every offline experience space and online platform. From Shanghai to Chengdu, the brand grew into the most recognized tattoo enterprise in China — with flagship collaborations with VANS, Adidas, and ABInBev.

Reflection I-TATTOO pulled me out of the single-product mindset I'd built in tech. Suddenly I wasn't designing one interaction — I was designing a brand, a space, an app, and a culture at the same time. UX thinking scaled up: the principles didn't change, but the canvas did. Managing a team pushed that further — you stop thinking about decisions and start thinking about systems. The biggest lesson: in a startup, what decides survival isn't a design choice, it's a strategic one. The moment I started thinking like a business, the design team stopped being asked to execute — and started being asked what to build.

BASAO is a Hong Kong tea brand rooted in the beauty of nature — reinterpreting traditional tea culture for the way we live today. With two tea bars in Hong Kong and product lines spanning teabags, loose leaf, and utensils, the brand was ready to bring its philosophy to the mainland. I was invited to collaborate with renowned Danish design studio Norm-Archi to lead the experience planning and spatial design of BASAO's first tea and retail space in Xiamen — translating a quiet, nature-driven brand into a physical world.

Reflection BASAO taught me that service design lives at the intersection of experience and economics. I mapped commercial touchpoints — conversion moments, upsell opportunities — directly into the customer journey and spatial flow. Good design isn't just about making users feel something. It has to make the business viable. When both are true at the same time, that's when design earns its seat.

A collaboration with installation studio Super Nature and a costume designer for Toshiba's tablet launch in Shanghai. The brief was to bring a tablet into the street; we built a body to carry it. My role was prototyping the wearable garment itself — working out how to route circuits through soft fabric, following the body's structure and movement, while keeping everything stable under real performance conditions.

Looking back An early experiment in computing that lives on the body — a question I'm still asking, now with AI. In 2013, the challenge was physical: how do you make technology wearable without breaking the body's natural movement? In 2025, the challenge is relational: how do you make AI feel like it belongs, without overriding what makes us human.