Yuqiao Qin is a Brooklyn-based multimedia and mix-reality designer, notable for leveraging emerging technologies such as VR, XR, and AI to create cross-disciplinary interactive experiences andimmersive narratives for world-leading artists and brands. Her portfolio boasts award-winning projects, including “Kórsafn” for musician Björk, “My Blue Thoughts” for Lauv, the “Circulate” campaign for fashion label Ahluwalia, and the Sol LeWitt app, a tribute to the significant art figure Sol LeWitt. In addition to these, her interactive installation “Together with Another” was featured at the Illuminus Festival in 2018, and the AR short film “Muse” was showcased at the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) in Daegu, Korea. Notably, the project “Ancient Olympia: Common Grounds” for which Qin worked as the main designer is currently part of a three-year exhibit at the Athens Olympic Museum in Greece.
Currently, Qin is on her journey as the Senior Product Designer at Ustwo Studio, a world-leading agency in gaming and digital products, where she assists top tech companies in delineating and designing interaction patterns and visually stunning products with new technology.
Q: Can you give us an insight about your background?
A: Growing up, I often found myself engrossed in graphic books and building with Legos. My parents were software engineers in the early ’90s which were ahead of their time. Their modern and forward-thinking approach to technology exposed me to the world of design from a young age. My first lesson in aesthetics was the transparent shell iMac that my father brought home one day. He could not wait to show me the curves and detailing its design finesse and it sparked me an early passion for design. As time went on, my early interest grew into a deep-seated passion and led me to major in Industrial Design in college. This formative period not only nurtured my critical outlook on the world but also fostered a poetic lens through which I perceived it, seamlessly paving the way for my subsequent journey in the design sector post-graduation.
Q: What made you choose the path of multimedia mix-reality design?
A: I am obsessed with the concept of Synesthesia, a phenomenon where the stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway invokes involuntary experiences in another. This concept manifests as rhetoric in literature and when it comes to design, it’s multimedia. In the world of literature, synesthesia serves to indirectly link human sensations, creating a metaphorical and poetic resonance. In contrast, design leverages emerging technologies to facilitate direct, simultaneous multi-sensory inputs, translating synesthesia into a more tangible experience. This approach unveils a new dimension of interaction design, where emotions and messages are conveyed directly to the audience through immersive environments, personal perspectives, and layered narratives. Mixed reality emerges as the ideal platform for multimedia, offering the environment, technology, and context that allows the multimedia dialogue to happen.
During my initial year at college, while reading “Designing Design” by Kenya Hara, I came across the concept of haptic exhibitions, which utilize tactile sensations to evoke contextual memories in the audience. This insight was a revelation, marking the moment I began to forge the link between synesthesia and multimedia. It also solidified my determination to explore this realm in my future career.
Q: Given that emerging technology features prominently in your work, could you elaborate on your perspective on its role in art and design projects?
A: The relationship between technology and design often echoes the age-old debate in design circles: whether form follows function or precedes it. In my perspective, navigating the world of multimedia design feels like standing at the intersection of technology and design. Venturing too far down one path could result in a loss of balance; however, it’s also vital to explore both avenues sufficiently to understand their respective destinations.
I hold a very positive attitude about technology, recognizing its crucial role in interaction design. In numerous instances, it has served as a catalyst that extends the boundaries of creativity, albeit sometimes it challenges the design by creating related limitations. As designers, our role resembles a dance with these restrictions, adapting and innovating in tandem. In this way, we make technology an indispensable ally in advancing the field.
One of my projects Ancient Olympia: Common Ground exemplifies how profoundly technology can provoke creativity. The project was created to digitally preserve the heritage of Ancient Olympia, born from a collaboration between the Greek ministry and Microsoft. Utilizing AI, this multimedia series digitizes and reconstructs the historic site, inviting visitors to traverse back 5,000 years and immerse themselves in its vibrant cultural narrative like never before. This endeavor not only presents a remarkable experience for contemporary audiences but also serves as a treasured legacy for generations to come. The project happened to happen during COVID- 19, the hardest time for all of us. The reimagining and digital revitalization of Ancient Olympia that allowed individuals to traverse worlds without stepping outside their homes created a huge impact during this special period. The AI reconstruction and mix-reality lens unveiled more than mere exploration, it illuminated every minute detail, from faded murals to fractured architectures, resurrecting them to their aesthetic zenith from millennia ago – a feat inconceivable in times bereft of such technological marvels.
As the main interaction designer on this project, my unique challenge was: when consider AR as part of the on-site experience, how to maintain the authentic moments visitors shared with the ruins of Ancient Olympia – the history, while also enhancing the experience by immersing them in its historical splendor – the civilization? The solution I landed was the introduction of a ‘real scale’ option. Rather than isolating interaction to a “3D handheld” model, visitors could stand amidst the towering majesty of the past, making AR not just an adjunct but a potent tool that enriched rather than distracted, seamlessly weaving the ancient and the modern into a singular, immersive journey.
The journey to the project’s final launch was far from straightforward. Designing for an augmented on-site experience, especially when we couldn’t be on-site at all due to the global pandemic, posed a significant challenge. I found myself having to simulate all potential visitor experiences that might arise during their future trips. Queries like, does the color palette harmonize with Greece’s sky and land? Is the UI sufficiently bright to ensure easy interaction under the brilliant Grecian sunshine? What contingencies are in place if a visitor lacks an internet connection? Can we optimize the experience to be low on battery consumption? Given the substantial walking distance between moments, what encounters will transpire during these walks? As the interaction designer for this project, it was my responsibility to sort out all these questions to ensure an immersive and meaningful experience for visitors. Navigating through various scenarios required meticulous simulation, consistent adjustment, and rigorous testing to ensure we crafted the most authentic and immersive simulation possible. Ultimately, I determined the optimal contrast color for the UI system to harmoniously integrate with natural lighting, ensuring visibility and aesthetic congruity amidst Greece’s vibrant landscapes. Furthermore, to elevate the experience while moving from one moment to another, I incorporated ambient 3D sounds, which were specially composed for this project by a coworker. This added auditory dimension served to enhance the sensory engagement of the experience, seamlessly weaving the visual and auditory into a rich tapestry of exploration and discovery.
Q: Share some of the projects that left the most impression that you’ve participated in.
A: There are two projects that I was very proud of, one is the Circulate for Ahluwalia, and the other is the X-Ambassador Boom App. Circulate is a project that perfectly melds my interest in fashion with a deep concern for environmental sustainability and allows me to participate in the upcycling future of fashion. The project is a novel conduit between the consumer and the brand Circulate serves as a bridge between the public and the brand, encouraging individuals to donate their gently used clothes and recreate them into the brand’s ready-to-wear garments, breathing new life into previously worn pieces. Earning the Fast Company’s 2022 World Changing Ideas Awards, this project not only illuminated a direction for other brands to follow but also took an important step for shaping fashion into a more sustainable entity.
The project for X-Ambassador is also a sweet memory. The keyboard of the rocker band X-Ambassador is blind and cannot enjoy traditional music videos the way sighted people do. For this project, we created two music narratives inside one custom app and used binaural recording and sound effects layered over and under the stems of the original song. When experiencing, the narrative responds to mobile devices’ internal gyroscopes and creates a contextual immersive music experience. The project won the Clio Award, it’s a music video without video and an entirely new way to think about sonic storytelling.
Another project that resonates deeply with me is the development of the X-Ambassador Boom App. An interactive experience specifically crafted for the low-vision community, flipping the script on conventional design priorities. Traditionally, designers often pour their energy into creating visually appealing designs, aiming for a visually satisfying user experience. This approach, unfortunately, relegates accessibility features to a secondary position. However, the Boom App broke away from this trend, placing the needs of the low-vision community at the forefront while considering the visually abled users secondarily. Suddenly, the norms of design were altered. The emphasis shifted from visual elements like grid systems and visual interaction patterns, experience flows to elements often overlooked, like non-visual cues and finger movements. The project was a turning point for me, it ushered in a paradigm shift in my design thinking, illustrating that accessible design is not just to meet the special needs of a specific group, but a lens through which the world can be viewed from a different perspective, thereby gaining new cognitions and experiences. Honored with a Clio Award, this project redefined the boundaries of sonic storytelling, showcasing an unexplored avenue where music videos can be experienced without visual elements, paving the way for more inclusive entertainment experiences.
I also want to talk about Together with Another, which is a pure art exploration born from my own passion and was Presented at the Illuminus Festival, 2018. It is a projection-based installation that situates participants on divergent sides of a see-through canvas. As participants move on both sides, their silhouettes—projected onto the canvas in real-time—begin to overlap, and, in the process, incrementally erase each other. The project is a social canvas that uses a new form of interaction to open a discussion about the poetic human relationship of meeting and passing through. This installation stands as a testament to innovation in the art space, introducing an unprecedented form of interaction that marries technology with the innate human experience, ultimately reshaping the way we perceive and engage with relationships. It epitomizes the transformative potential of blending physical and virtual realms, marking a significant stride in the ongoing journey to redefine the boundaries of artistic expression and human connection.
Q: Could you elaborate on your design principles and how your work influences the industry?
A: My approach to design is grounded in empathy and a deep understanding of the human experience. I consciously avoid referring to individuals as “users” in my design process, as I believe treating individuals as “users” will unintentionally build a high wall between designers and the target groups, which makes designers think from a “selfless” perspective, similar to how scientists observing subjects from a removed standpoint.
Instead, I prefer to perceive the individuals I am designing for as fellow humans. When thinking this way, I start to care about how they feel, what they care about, and what makes them better themselves. It is a design process that allows me as a designer to immerse myself into the group that I design for and try to understand the shared experiences in human nature. This approach enables me to care about all the details, the subtle communication a design behavior or a visual component can reach.
For instance, early this year at Ustwo Studios, I spearheaded a redesign for Greenportfolio, a fintech startup geared towards assisting individuals in making sustainable investment choices. If we approach this project through a conventional “user” lens, the project might have resulted in a standard financial platform overflowing with figures and statistics. However, when I put on my “human” mindset, I clearly recognized that people are more interested in understanding what these numbers signify in their lives rather than just seeing the figures displayed in a clear and organized design. Drawing on this insight, I transformed the product into a gamified dynamic ecological island, encouraging individuals to intuitively “feel” the data, and fostering a deeper and more enriching interaction with the platform. This innovative approach promotes a more immersive and meaningful engagement, where people can relate to the information presented and understand its impact on their lives, steering them towards more informed and sustainable choices.
In my ongoing journey, I strive to bring this transformative vision to the industry, advocating for a more nuanced and emotional perspective on traditional design challenges, and aiming to introduce more impactful and transformative designs to the world. This journey has been acknowledged through a series
of accolades and invitations to prestigious exhibitions, further fueling my drive and passion to forge ahead.
