MDes Design Innovation & Interaction Design School of Innovation & Technology
Zixi Zhang
An interaction designer with a unique blend of media design expertise and a strong focus on user-centred design and innovation, driven by a deep curiosity for the intersection of media, technology, and culture. With a constant pulse on emerging trends and inspirations, my approach is rooted in a passion for crafting seamless and engaging experiences, where creativity meets practicality.
Breaking the News: Future for Findhorn and More
Breaking the News project is a personal design research project focused on deconstructing global news stories to understand their impact and complexity on the local Forres. The program encourages participants to explore the connections between large global events and their real-world impact on daily life and communities. The aim is to identify design opportunities to address these challenges through a deep understanding of the social, cultural, political and environmental systems underlying these issues.
Participants are tasked with critically evaluating a selected global news story, analyzing the systems and stakeholders involved, and developing an evidence-based design research question. The project involves discovery, stakeholder mapping, and integrated approaches to develop insights that can inform innovative design solutions. The final submission is a design research proposal that Outlines the insights gathered, potential design opportunities, and a speculative plan for creative exploration.
Evo Youth
Team Members: Ji Guo, Jiayue Gu, Kangmin Wang, Shanfeng Yao, Zixi Zhang
EvoYouth focuses on designing a service system to educate and rehabilitate young offenders, particularly those involved in theft. The initiative aims to transform the criminal skills of these youths into positive contributions to society by integrating education, skill-building, and social engagement into their rehabilitation process.
The project involves a structured program where young offenders in prison go through various stages of training, such as creating anti-theft manuals, designing products, and even participating in mock and real-life crime-solving scenarios. The process is designed to help these individuals realize that their creativity and skills can be used for good, ultimately benefiting society while offering them a pathway toward reintegration.
Through a combination of education, motivation (via rewards and evaluations), and stakeholder collaboration (involving prison officers, teachers, and community members), the project seeks to reduce recidivism and positively impact community safety. The service blueprint and user testing highlight how this approach could balance the needs of rehabilitation with security concerns while fostering a sense of responsibility among the young offenders. The overall goal is to reframe their capabilities from criminal activities to valuable societal contributions.
Heathers: Stories of Place
Team Members: Ji Guo, Jiayue Gu, Kangmin Wang, Shanfeng Yao, Zixi Zhang
This project focuses on exploring cultural and contextual narratives in the town of Forres. The goal is to help participants connect with the place and the more-than-human environment around them. Through a combination of fieldwork, research, and creative methods, participants will investigate the essence of the location by engaging with its stories and stakeholders.
The stakeholders in our team were heathers, flowers commonly found in Scottish woodlands. We learned from interviews about their special feelings in their surroundings, their fear of being picked by humans, and their special experience of being covered in snow in winter. We finally decided to design a wearable artefact, through the tactile and visual feeling of different materials, textures and so on, to let people get the experience of heathers life.
By the end of the week, we presented our findings with the prototype artefact in a 1-minute video. This project blends creative practice, collaborative engagement, and critical analysis to bring out the unique stories embedded within the local environment.
Odyssey
Research Source from: Forres Heritage Trust
Project Odyssey: A Journey Through Cultural Heritage Innovation
Odyssey is an innovative cultural heritage design initiative centered on enriching the visitor experience at Nelson’s Tower in Forres, Scotland. The project aims to transform the traditional tour format into an immersive, interactive journey that bridges history, technology, and personal engagement. By leveraging cutting-edge tools like augmented reality (AR), personalised tour journals, and a tailored trip app, Odyssey reimagines how visitors connect with historical sites.
Enhancing Visitor Experience with Creative and Interactive Design
The core of Odyssey is the creation of a unique personal tour journal handbook. Unlike typical guidebooks, this handbook combines storytelling, interactive design elements, and digital integration to offer visitors a creative and deeply personalized way to document their experience. It doesn’t just guide them through the site but encourages them to engage with it creatively, capturing moments and insights in a way that feels like an adventure rather than a routine visit.
Immersive Trip App with AR Collections
The project’s app is designed to offer an immersive experience that extends beyond what is visible. Through AR, visitors can interact with exclusive digital collections, uncover hidden narratives, and explore content that brings the historical significance of Nelson’s Tower to life in an engaging, modern context. This app transforms traditional static exhibits into dynamic, multimedia experiences, making history more accessible and engaging for a diverse audience.
A Vision Beyond Forres: Scaling the Experience Globally
While Nelson’s Tower is the starting point, Odyssey’s broader vision is to apply this user experience design model across Forres, then expand it throughout Scotland, and potentially worldwide. By creating a framework that combines cultural heritage with digital innovation, the project seeks to revolutionize how people interact with historical sites globally, making these experiences more accessible, inclusive, and resonant.
River Guardians
Team Members: Nishabh Polke, Kangmin Wang, Chenlu Yang, Yeyou Wang, Zixi Zhang
Collaborators: Rebecca Lewis(Buglife)
The River Guardians project worked closely with the Buglife organization with Lossiemouth high school students as its core stakeholders, focuses on protecting and enhancing the health of river ecosystems. The project aims to introduce river health monitoring to students through interactive guideline handbooks and an immersive app. Students test and upload data with instructions from handbooks and app to get interdisciplinary knowledge and feedbacks from experts.
The project emphasises hands-on conservation work, such as restoring habitats, removing invasive species, and conducting citizen science activities like monitoring water quality and biodiversity. Additionally, it seeks to raise awareness and educate people about the importance of preserving river ecosystems and the diverse species that depend on them, including vital insects like mayflies, dragonflies, and other freshwater invertebrates.
