The occasional light expression

In November 2006, I had the opportunity to experience first hand the dragon’s presence – potent, powerful, and grand. All this and more, China turned out to be impressive for the quality and breadth of its user experience scene, which is what this post is about.

First, let me start with saying that like many others in the Technology & Design space, I had also let some of the standard clichés about China seep within my head. Henceforth, I expected to meet some interesting people in China, see some interesting design companies, and see some good examples of Chinese design - the operative word being ‘some’. I was told - the Chinese are still grappling with fundamental challenges – how to trade in the ideas marketplace largely ruled by the Anglophone world, how to encourage creative conflict and out of the box thinking in its universities, how to get out of the ‘factory of the world’ trap and move higher in the value chain. How can such a bounded and homogenous and conformist communist nation be original and design and innovate?

One of the things about assumptions is that they have a life of their own, a self reinforcing validity, that if unchallenged, leads to the assumption becoming common wisdom.

The reality is that China has a bustling, vibrant, and mature User Experience scene. The Chinese design universe consists not only of cutting edge design teams in large established multinational companies such as Nokia, Motorola, Microsoft, Google, or Lenovo (Most of these groups are based in Beijing or Shanghai), but also scores of Chinese companies such as Baidu, Alibaba, Taobao that seek to give multinational companies a run for their money, as well as specialist research companies and catalytic government institutions. In other words, China’s design ecosystem has all the necessary ingredients to put its unique signature in the international design scene. Much as Korea did a generation back, much as Japan did two generations back.

So what are Chinese designers like? Once I briefly crossed the language barrier (appropriately through a savvy translator) I found Chinese designers in Beijing to be as discerning, thoughtful, and worldly-wise as their counterparts in America and India. I found a great hunger for knowledge, a tentative curiosity about the outside design world, a general humility (or conformist social behavior?) and a vast number of opinions on how Chinese companies could more effectively compete on design with global companies busy harnessing the Yuan flowing in the Chinese middle class. I also found the design scene to be more organized, spread across the global cities and smaller ones, and Government supported.
In conclusion, I returned from China with more insights and questions than I anticipated. On the one hand, I recall my friend Kenneth’s line “When you say Digital Art in China, students and parents think of training kids on animation software tools for the job market” (much like in India) : ) On the other hand, I recall seeing more designer openings by Google and Microsoft and IBM than I have perhaps seen in Bangalore in recent years….

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 5th, 2006 at 12:44 am and is filed under China, User Experience. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.