Yihan Dong
About
Yihan Dong is an interdisciplinary designer and strategist in technology innovation, branding communication, and user experience. With research and collaboration, her projects blend design strategy, user connection, and engineering to create physical and digital products that look for sustainability and innovation. She is always ready for new proposals and design challenges.
Relevant experience
Fellow @The RSA (The royal society for arts, manufactures and commerce, 2020-Now)
Co-founder @Viwipe @Pleural (Healthcare innovation start-ups, 2022-Now)
Industrial Design Intern @vivo (Smartphones company, 2020)
Awards
Finalist, Healthcare Design, Mayor's Entrepreneur Competition 2023
Finalist, Healthcare Design, Venture Catalyst Challenge
Winner, Sustainable Design, Logitech & RCA Grand Challenge 2022
Winner, UX/UI Design, Westminster City Council & RCA Impact 2022
Winner, Industrial Design, K-Design Award 2022
Commended, Fashion Design, the UK student design award RSA 2019-20
Bronze Prize, UX/UI Design, A Design Award 2019
Education
MA/MSc Innovation Design Engineering - Royal College of Art and Imperial College London
B.A. Industrial and Product Design - Central Saint Martins, UAL
Statement
Knowing yourself is perhaps more important than creative output for designers. We all have different experiences, perspectives, and aesthetics. When catering to the market and user preferences, it is crucial to find out what you are good at and enjoy.
The past two years at IDE have been filled with interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation, and I have gained knowledge of engineering, life science, and interaction. Through constant exploration of new fields and self-exploration, I gradually discovered my passion for healthcare design and feminist research. Seeing myself as a designer is slowly becoming clear to me.
Driven by collaborative ventures with biology-related labs, I unveiled the captivating fusion of life science and industrial design. Inspired, I founded a studio to document and explore the principles of biological design, medical innovation, and cross-disciplinary collaboration. My aim is to venture into unexplored territories, bridging disciplines with boundless creativity and problem-solving.
Please take a look at my projects to get a better sense of who I am and what innovators like me are seeking. I am always ready for new design challenges. Please feel free to contact me. Thanks for your time!
Viwipe
Viwipe, Women-Centric HPV Self-Tests
Viwipe is the world's first non-invasive, low-cost, paper-based cervical pre-screening solution empowering young women to prevent cervical cancer through HPV self-tests. By utilizing menstrual blood and dried blood spot technology, Viwipe offers an accurate and convenient alternative to traditional smear tests, overcoming barriers of embarrassment and fear.
Viwipe, Community-Focus Intervention
Cervical cancer is a significant threat, causing the deaths of 342,000 women annually and ranking as the fourth leading cause of death. Among young women, it is the most prevalent cancer. Unfortunately, nearly half of them postpone or avoid smear tests due to embarrassment and fear.
Viwipe addresses this challenge by offering free, non-invasive self-tests near universities and schools, conveniently located alongside free period products. The branding efforts focus on fostering community engagement and promoting sexual education to encourage participation.
Viwipe, Overlooked Technology Innovation
Menstrual blood contains valuable biological markers that have been overlooked. The traditional dried blood spots (DBS) method has been deemed outdated and lacking innovation. However, Viwipe has innovatively harnessed the potential of menstrual blood and the underestimated DBS technique through collaboration among users, designers, and scientists. The result is the development of accurate self-tests with broader applications in menstrual blood testing.
Viwipe, Communication Design
Viwipe offers a user-centric communication design approach that focuses on the crucial registration and result communication touchpoints in self-test validation. The aim is to ensure a seamless connection between user information and test numbers. The communication strategy is designed to encourage young women with questionable test results to consider smear tests as the next step.
More About Viwipe
Other Projects
