Liying Peng’s journey into User Experience andInteraction Design began with her interest in the intersection of aesthetics and human behavior. Initially focused on visual communication design, she learned that effective design transcends visuals; it involves understanding user interactions with products and addressing real-world challenges. This realization prompted her transition to UX design, where she could combine her design skills with a human-centered approach.
Liying’s educational path, particularly during her graduate studies, allowed her to explore user research methodologies, prototype testing, and human-centered design principles. This academic foundation equipped her with essential skills to empathize with users, identify their pain points, and create designs that are visually appealing and meaningful.
Through comprehensive coursework and practical projects, Liying learned to blend design, psychology, and technology to craft impactful solutions. This synergy solidified her commitment to UX design and shaped her career as a designer focused on enhancing user experiences.
Liying’s creative process begins with a thorough understanding of user needs and business objectives. It starts with extensive research, including user interviews, observations, and data analysis to create detailed profiles of user requirements. This phase is crucial for developing empathy and insights that guide her design direction.
Once she understands the user landscape, Liying defines the core problem statement and brainstorms potential solutions. This exploratory phase includes sketching ideas, creating storyboards, and mapping user flows, all aligned with the business’s strategic goals. The aim is to generate various ideas and refine them based on their effectiveness in meeting user needs and business requirements.
With a clear direction, Liying progresses to creating wireframes and prototypes, focusing on intuitive design structures and user flows. Collaboration is vital; she works closely with cross-functional teams, including product managers and engineers, to ensure that the designs are user-friendly and technically feasible.
After developing initial prototypes, Liying conducts usability testing to gather feedback on user interactions. This iterative process helps identify friction points and facilitates refinements to enhance the overall experience. Throughout her creative journey, Liying strives to balance user needs with business goals, ensuring that the final design is both effective and strategically aligned.
One of Liying’s most rewarding experiences was her work on the PeaceMeal project, which received multiple prestigious awards, including the American Graphic Design Award in the Design for Good category in 2023, American Graphic Design Design in Health + Wellness in 2024 and the Muse International Design Award. The project aimed to address the complex relationship individuals have with food and wellness, promoting mindful eating and a compassionate approach to self-care.
Throughout the PeaceMeal project, Liying immersed herself in understanding users’ struggles and motivations regarding healthy habits. This involved comprehensive user research, where she combined empathy with strategic design to produce a product that was visually appealing and effectively supportive of users’ needs. The recognition PeaceMeal received affirmed that thoughtful design can significantly impact people’s well-being.
When faced with competing priorities, Liying advocates for a user-centered approach by leveraging data-driven insights and usability testing results. She demonstrates that prioritizing user needs can lead to successful business outcomes, fostering collaboration between design, product management, and development teams to achieve a balance that drives both user satisfaction and business growth.
Currently PeaceMeal is a conceptual design. Throughout its initial stages, Liying faced challenges in aligning her design vision with the technical constraints presented by the engineering team. Discrepancies emerged between the desired user experience and the practicality of implementing specific features. To tackle this issue, she organized collaborative workshops that brought together both design and engineering teams, fostering open communication and brainstorming potential solutions.
This cooperative approach allowed them to identify technical limitations and refine ideas, ensuring that the final design aligned with both user needs and technical feasibility. As a result, the design was successfully adapted to create a functional and user-friendly product.
Research plays a critical role in Liying’s design process. When she began working on PeaceMeal, her initial concept targeted individuals who were underweight. However, rigorous research allowed her to narrow her focus to a specific user group: individuals struggling with their relationship with food due to emotional factors rather than medical conditions.
Her research process started with qualitative interviews that revealed users’ daily struggles with eating habits. These conversations uncovered emotional patterns related to guilt, stress, and frustration—issues often overlooked by existing wellness tools. Liying also conducted secondary research, reviewing behavioral studies and analyzing similar applications to identify market gaps.
Using these insights, she developed wireframes and prototypes iteratively, gathering feedback at each stage to align the app’s features with user needs. Usability testing provided further validation of key design decisions, while surveys offered additional perspectives on user interactions. This continuous cycle of research and testing was instrumental in creating a product that effectively addressed the deeper emotional needs associated with food and wellness.
The outcome was PeaceMeal, a thoughtfully designed app that empowers users to foster a healthier relationship with food and establish sustainable habits over time.
Rapid prototyping proved essential in Liying’s development of PeaceMeal, allowing her to quickly explore and iterate on design ideas. Her process began with low-fidelity sketches and wireframes, enabling her to focus on functionality and user flow without getting bogged down in visual details initially.
Transitioning to interactive prototypes using tools like Figma allowed her to simulate user interactions and test key features quickly. This iterative process was crucial; with each iteration, she gathered feedback from potential users to ensure the interface was intuitive and aligned with their needs. Frequent usability testing during the early prototyping stages was vital for catching potential friction points early on.
One effective method employed by Liying was the implementation of design sprints, focusing on building and testing prototypes within a condensed timeframe. This structured approach encouraged rapid decision-making and experimentation, allowing her to refine specific features early on.
By continuously incorporating user feedback throughout the prototyping process, Liying ensured that PeaceMeal evolved with users’ needs in mind. This hands-on approach allowed her to move quickly without sacrificing quality, resulting in a product that is both intuitive and meaningful.
User feedback was pivotal in reshaping PeaceMeal’s core mechanics. Initially, Liying envisioned a point-based system to motivate users by encouraging them to accumulate points for consistent progress. Early testing revealed that while points provided short-term motivation, users often felt overwhelmed or disengaged over time. They expressed a desire for a more enjoyable and rewarding experience.
This critical feedback prompted Liying to rethink the interaction model and pivot towards a more immersive gamified experience. Instead of relying solely on points, she introduced elements such as small challenges, unlockable achievements, and visually engaging progress tracking. These changes aimed to create an experience users would want to revisit—not out of obligation, but because it felt enjoyable and rewarding.
The redesign resulted in a product that better addressed users’ emotional and practical needs. The shift from a rigid points system to a dynamic gamified experience significantly increased user engagement and satisfaction, contributing to PeaceMeal’s success.
As we move beyond the insights gained from PeaceMeal, Liying identifies key trends that will shape the future of UX design, particularly in smart home technologies. At the forefront are themes of personalization, interoperability, and sustainability. With the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI), smart home devices are expected to increasingly adopt anticipatory design principles, allowing them to predict user behavior and streamline interactions. This proactive design strategy will enhance user convenience by optimizing energy consumption and automatically adjusting environmental settings without requiring any manual input.
Interoperability will be crucial, with frameworks like Matter enabling seamless communication between devices from different brands. This will allow users to manage their smart homes through a unified platform, simplifying interactions and enhancing the overall user experience.
Sustainability is becoming a central focus in UX design as well. Designers prioritize eco-conscious solutions, such as energy-saving modes and renewable energy integrations, reflecting a growing demand for environmentally responsible technology.
In summary, the next generation of smart home UX will emphasize intelligence, ease of use, and environmental awareness, aligning closely with users’ evolving needs and values while driving innovation and adoption.
Accessibility and inclusivity are fundamental to Liying’s design philosophy. She embeds these principles at every stage of the design process, adopting universal design strategies to create products and interfaces usable by a diverse range of individuals.
To achieve this, Liying adheres to guidelines like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and aims to exceed mere compliance. She emphasizes multisensory feedback in her designs, combining visual cues with auditory and haptic signals to ensure users can effectively interact with products, regardless of impairments.
Flexibility is another key aspect of her approach; Liying prioritizes customizable user interfaces, allowing users to tailor their experiences. Features like dark mode, adjustable text sizes, and simplified layouts contribute to a more inclusive experience.
User involvement is critical in this process. Liying conducts testing with diverse participants to uncover pain points across different demographics and abilities. Gathering insights early on allows her to address barriers and fine-tune the experience to ensure it is intuitive and engaging for all.
Liying incorporates inclusive language and culturally appropriate design elements to resonate with a global audience. Accessibility is not just an add-on; it reflects her commitment to creating solutions that serve all users effectively.
For aspiring UX designers, Liying offers valuable advice: focus on understanding users deeply. Digging into user needs, behaviors, and motivations is crucial; impactful design seeks to solve real problems. This journey requires continuous curiosity and empathy, along with the ability to adapt design thinking across industries.
Building a diverse skill set is equally important. Mastering design tools is essential, but developing proficiency in communication, project management, and cross-functional collaboration enables designers to thrive in complex environments. Understanding how one’s work aligns with business goals will set designers apart from the competition.
Networking with other professionals, attending workshops, and engaging in community discussions can provide invaluable insights and inspiration. The UX landscape is ever evolving, so staying connected helps aspiring designers remain informed about the latest trends and best practices.
In measuring design project success, Liying employs a holistic approach encompassing both quantitative metrics and qualitative insights. She aligns project goals with key performance indicators (KPIs). For physical products, she focuses on sales performance and customer ratings, while for app-based projects like PeaceMeal, she tracks KPIs such as user engagement and conversion rates to evaluate the product’s impact.
Liying monitors user reviews across platforms to gauge sentiment and identify improvement areas. These insights help her detect emerging patterns early in the product lifecycle.
Monitoring accessibility and usability over time is equally important. As user needs evolve, Liying ensures designs remain inclusive and adaptable. Regular user testing helps her identify changing expectations, allowing the design to evolve to meet new challenges.
Collaboration with cross-functional teams is essential. Liying works closely with product managers, developers, and customer support teams to gain a comprehensive view of product performance and ensure prompt responses to emerging issues.
Ultimately, Liying measures success by how well the design balances business goals with user satisfaction, believing that a successful project creates value, delights users, and fosters long-term engagement. By combining data with empathy-driven insights, she ensures that products evolve alongside their users, driving immediate impact while maintaining sustained growth.
Liying’s journey in UX and interaction design, particularly through her work on the PeaceMeal project, her dedication to creating user-centered solutions that improve lives. With a focus on research, collaboration, and inclusivity, she continues to push the boundaries of design, making a significant impact in the field.
For more details and information, please visit https://www.liyingpeng.com/. Reach out to Liying Peng for professional partnerships at Liying Peng | LinkedIn.
Fame Media
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Writer Sherry Lee,
Hollywood Legends Editor in Chief
