Ginger Lau

MEng 2023 | Mechanical Engineering - Product Design

Part 1

Hi! I'm a first year masters student from NYC. I study Mechanical Engineering with concentration in product design. I graduated from The Cooper Union in 2023 with a Bachelors in ME. I've worked on interdisciplinary projects ranging from building to drone design. Feel free to stay up to date with me on my newest projects with my personal website (it was built on wix so apologies for the dryness). I'm always looking to do something new and fun! I usually spend weekends walking with my dog Tubbies and eating at new restaurants.

Here is a list of some food places I've tried around Berkeley!

• Yogurt Park
• La Note
• Chez Panisse

I'm super inspired by industrial, UX/UI, and product designers who have super cool personal websites. Hopefully, by the end of this class, I'll be able to build a cool website like these:

• Mason Wong's Portfolio
• Ikea
• Any of these on Behance

Part 2: Reading Response

Read this article and answer the following questions:

• What is something you learned from this article? (2-3 sentences)
• I learned about how designers have to be intentional. For instance, the article mentions that good design is more than just what is intuitive. They give the example of the Airbnb app. The app choses to write 'Try London' rather than just, 'Search here'
• What was your favorite part of this article? (2-3 sentences)
• My favorite part of the aricle is the clear animations. The GIFs showing each elements of the apps page really highlighted things I've never noted before.
• Copy and paste a quote you found compelling, interesting, or cool.
• When the article introduced the concept of being a better designer, it recommended reads to study exisiting apps to build a sense of what designers do

"You develop your design eye by thinking as if you were the designer of a product. Open an app you use often and resist the urge to start scrolling through content. Instead, I want you to actively focus on the screen in front of you. "

The author summarizes four features to take note of when observing exisitng apps:

• Hierarchy
• Content
• Intent
• Audience
• On a scale from 1 to 10, how much did you enjoy reading this article? If you scored below a five, please briefly explain why.
• I'd rate this article 10/10 because it was easy to ready. The author was able to keep me engaged with the informative gifs and the bulletpointed call outs so I know exactly what the take away is