Researc.her — Fang Chen
I met Fang several years ago. With her I did my first ever design project, the client didn’t have much money, so he paid us with a fancy lunch. The website is still alive.
Join me dear reader in this last interview with this really special and sweet person :)
Can you introduce yourself?
Hello! I’m Fang, I’m from China, and I live in Spain. I love both countries so much. I hope I can be a thinker, a truth seeker, and a long life learner in my lifetime.
I’m a business designer who believes in creating values not only for business purposes but also for the well-being of societies and future generations. I’m also an educator of innovation and design aiming to help young people to liberate their minds, create confidence and generate meanings of doing.
What is your background?
I studied Geography Information System in college, then made some further education in Marketing and Innovation & Service Design. I’ve worked in companies of marketing and design agencies dealing with different tasks like market research, user research, business strategy, interaction design, service design, etc.
On the research field, which female professionals inspired you?
Everyone I’ve worked with left me inspirations, because everyone is so different and special, and for me, it’s fascinating and encouraging to know different souls and their different ways of building a relationship with the world, it’s amazing.
One woman I admire in a broader research field is Jane Goodall who is a primatologist and anthropologist aged 84 and is known as the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees. She spent 55 years studying social and family interactions of chimpanzees which to me is admirable, not only for the longtime dedication but also for her passion and real love for these animals.
Today in design field you can see that “empathy” is being emphasized and used as a method, but thinking of it, shouldn’t it be one of the natural qualities that we humans have being what we call ourselves homo sapiens?
In your opinion, what is the value of research?
Well, in my opinion, research contributes a basic information system to the project, which is the shared workplace of data for whoever is involved in the project. A good research helps teams to organize the known information, unknown information and makes people aware of their wrong beliefs or prejudices which I think it’s very important.
Besides, a good research opens the road for a better understanding of the project’s system and raises neutral conversations between its parts, which I think makes positive emotional connections between different parts and that’s essential for any corporation composed by people.
What obstacles do you find in your daily work?
I think apart from the solid aspect which could refer to create better tools and protocols(always needed, for example, a reliable information searching tool that gives you only valuable information), the main challenge for me doing intellect tasks remains on how to improve the efficiency of dealing with a large quantity of information in a short time, like how can I learn faster and better while I’m getting older.
I don’t like the idea of depending mainly on AI tools that some people say ideally that technology “only complements” human’s abilities. I hope I can get smarter and use the rest 90% of my own intelligence since we still have so much to explore inside, why are we so hurry to explore extensions outside?
How do you see the future of research?
I think there is still a lot to cultivate in the education system until research integrates into everyone’s natural approach of doing things because I believe research represents a scientific and responsible process of reasoning.
Open-minded, empathy, empty cup attitude, being capable of self-educated rather than waiting to be fed and especially being motivated of learning new things and feeling involved in the situation of others are easy to talk in the research context but challenging to do, and they are not about research obviously.
Can you give some advice to someone that is starting now?
Be a curious person.
Look into yourself and find out your prejudices.
Be a good listener and write down your thoughts.
Be a truth seeker who always keen on looking for essence.
Be generous when distributing your time and energy.
Be aware of your limits and make good use of your resources.
Be polite and respectful.
Be aware of the need for creating your own knowledge system.
If you think you are not good at something, practice it 100 times.
Be a lover of life and cultivate your own intellect land calmly. :)
Please, recommend three books that you love about research.
Being a researcher in the business world who is constantly dealing with data of different people and different situations in different environments, for me, it’s necessary to have a basic reflexion on a wide range of knowledge like human behavior and human culture. I recommend Edward T. Hall’s Beyond Culture and The Silent Language.
Systematic thinking is needed for we need to understand the functionality of the whole system and the chain effects in it to be able to make responsible conclusions, Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows and Diana Wright, in this case, is recommended.
