Embracing Everyday Battles: Design as Philosophy with Sheng-Hung Lee

A conversation about Life, Longevity, and Human Connection between Sheng-Hung Lee, a designer, engineer, and educator from MIT’s Age Lab with experience at IDEO, and Andrea Hiott, a philosopher working in Heidelberg and the Netherlands. Together they discusses Lee's unique approach to design. He emphasizes design as a human skill rather than a hard or soft skill, focusing on the role of creativity and human connection in problem-solving. Reflecting on his career, including the redesign of the Shanghai Library and projects on longevity, Lee highlights the importance of holistic, life-centered design, community, and fulfillment over achievement. He shares stories about applying design thinking to everyday challenges, such as navigating the complexities of life and orienting towards personal goals in a world driven by efficiency. Lee also touches on designing for longevity, emphasizing holistic approaches and community engagement, while integrating personal anecdotes about cultural challenges and resilience. Join the conversation to explore the profound impact of thoughtful design on life itself, fostering deeper connections and a true sense of love and philosophy in all aspects of living: https://lovephilosophy.substack.com/
#designlife #humancentereddesign #ideo #fulfillment #loveandphilosophy #longevity 

The inspirational cards discussed here are at: https://www.shenghunglee.com/reflection

00:00 Introduction to Human-Centered Design
01:12 Meet Sheng-Hung Lee: Designer, Engineer, Educator
01:54 The Philosophy of Design
02:50 Designing for Fulfillment and Systematic Impact
06:29 The Role of Patterns in Design
13:11 Human-Centered vs. Life-Centered Design
15:25 The Business of Design and Co-Creation
23:50 Personal Journey and Education
31:32 Balancing Achievement and Fulfillment
37:14 Physical Coding with Post-it Notes
37:28 Boundary Objects and Tangible Artifacts
38:18 Embracing Ambiguity in Design
39:22 Navigating Life's Challenges
41:44 Design Mindset in Everyday Problems
43:54 The Importance of Human Connection
52:20 Collaborative Design in the Shanghai Library Project
57:12 Design for Longevity and Holistic Well-being
01:04:07 The Role of Love and Community in Design
01:10:40 Final Thoughts and Reflections

https://www.shenghunglee.com

https://www.shenghunglee.com/designforlongevity

Join the Substack here: https://lovephilosophy.substack.com/

Giving page: https://loveandphilosophy.com/giving-page

Transcript

Sheng-Hung Lee on Love and Philosophy

Sheng-Hung Lee: ​[00:00:00] design is not a hardcore skill or soft skill. It's a human skill

Can you change people's quality of life or just throw tons of ideas on them?

you just have to immerse yourself in all of these challenges. That's the only way to do it. 

So for me, it's not studying, I'm recharging

 Every day is like a war to me. You know, just like, oh, you have credit card fraud. You forgot to pay your student dorm rent. Oh, you need, you have health problems. So for me, these are all ambiguity. And how do we embrace that?

the funny thing is that you can actually learn a lot of things from the people you cannot resonate with.

I actually feel like I love everyone. everyone loves like sense of achievement, but I think it's more important to develop a sense of fulfillment. You have to feel fulfilled.

things go wrong. It's okay to go wrong and it should be go [00:01:00] wrong sometimes. I still want to swim into this and to understand how can I survive and, you know, like, uh, propel, not just stay there or panic. No, you still have to keep moving

Andrea Hiott: Hey everybody, just a quick introduction to Sheng-Hung Lee. He's a designer, he's an engineer, he's an educator. As you'll hear, he has inspirations from many domains. He's coming from electrical engineering first, and then also industrial design. He's worked for some of the best design consultancy firms in the world, like IDEO. And he's now at MIT in the Age Lab working on ideas of longevity, which we talk about and he's bringing an interesting approach to problem solving. I found him through some quotes he has that are inspiring, talking about systematic impacts in a meaningful way across a lot of different disciplines, . Here we talk about what design is, like de sign, decoding [00:02:00] signals. He talks about that, which I find fascinating. But even more fascinating is we get into this discussion about life itself and what presence and awareness brings to design, but also to the design, so to speak, of our life. And Shengheng has this great story about something he had to deal with, some theft or something, and having to go to the bank to sort this out and wanting to figure it out and How he brought these principles that we're going to talk about relative to design beyond dichotomy.

Let's just say, how he brought that to into his everyday life and and we talk about this on a lot of different levels. These kinds of design elements of our life are very important and not something we always think about when we're planning what we want and what the future should look like.

He shares his insights about the way that design is shifting. This whole idea of human centered design and life centered design, and [00:03:00] these perspectives that are opening up in the design world. And we talk about one of his projects that he did, which was to redesign the Shanghai Library. Kind of a big project, he's done a lot of big projects and how that was a matter of thinking differently about the paths that each person was walking each day before they came into that space, which of course, that's very interesting to me with this idea of navigability and way making. And instead of thinking of design as somehow separate from that, of course, it's all part of it, right? Everything's designed or being designed from some level. And at the same time there's a way in which nothing is designed. So that's this kind of paradox that we discussed a little bit and try to hold. How it really relates to societal issues and things that actually matter to us, from getting older to climate change, to even the way virtual experiences or our online experience might be being designed by algorithms. We don't really talk about that here, but it is [00:04:00] something that I thought of after our conversation relative to these subjects.

What's beautiful about this conversation is there's a real emphasis on love and human connection and design as being a way to connect us and help us feel more of that. So that's one of my favorite kinds of conversations when we get to a place like that. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you're doing well wherever you're making your way. If you want to support love and philosophy, there's a lot of ways. Join the Substack or, um, whatever. Do anything that feels good to you to help us. There's all kinds of opportunities and it really helps. Thanks for being here. I'm, really glad that you are

So I guess we can begin formally now.

So, hi, Sheng-Hung Lee, thank you so much for being here. It's really lovely to have you on Love and Philosophy. 

Sheng-Hung Lee: Thanks for inviting me. Very exciting. 

Andrea Hiott: You always have such cool glasses, by the way. 

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yeah, I have 20 pairs. 20?! Yeah, 20 pairs. Are 

Andrea Hiott: they, [00:05:00] are they prescription? I didn't mean to start like this, but actually I love your glasses.

It's really like a, a cool design element that makes you very noticeable, right? Yeah, 

Sheng-Hung Lee: it's like, uh, every time I travel, I, I gather different pairs of glasses and I mainly gather frames as prescripted and depends on the mood, you know, if I really like a hard working day, I'll be all black. If it's for fun, for show, colorful, sometimes matches my shoes.

Andrea Hiott: Oh, how, I'm so glad I asked you about that. That's really cool. So you kind of wake up and think which pair of glasses am I feeling like wearing today sometimes? 

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Otherwise, like if it's really like no presentation, no meeting and just wear black or transparent. Yeah, 

Andrea Hiott: okay, very cool. I like the idea of it. So you're like famous designer, you worked for all these famous design places that maybe nobody's gonna really have heard of. And maybe people have heard of, I don't really know, because this [00:06:00] audience is so broad. So I thought to start, we'll get into you and your life, but design. It's such an important word.

We all encounter it all the time. Not the word, but design itself, the action, the process, whether it's been completed or being done to us even. But I don't think any of us really think about that word in daily life, unless we're designers like you. But how would you think about it? introduce this word to us, design, maybe just from your perspective, what does it mean to you?

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yeah, I mean, I, design is like, yeah, it's pretty broad, but I, for me, one way to look at it, we can decompose the word, right? Like design can think about decoding signal decoding signal means like we have, we receive so many different types of signals every day. And how do we decode this like, um, signal?

Also the, how do we curate this signal? So that's 

Andrea Hiott: literally like de-sign, 

Sheng-Hung Lee: yeah, design decoding signal. Yeah. [00:07:00] It's like the, that's kind of where I look at it because I know people, I mean, it's a cliche. People say everyone's designer, which is true, but also um, designer, like the thing more important than design is creativity, right?

Like you do have that mindset and be open minded, change. And these are things I feel like we experience every day, especially now after COVID, post COVID, everything changed dramatically, faster and faster. Now AI, everything that, oh, how do you keep up with? And I feel design is like, really ties to the coding signal.

Also like, how do you learn how to learn? Yeah, both are important to me. 

Andrea Hiott: Is that how you got into it? When you were a little boy in Taiwan, were you imagining that you're going to one day be a designer?

Sheng-Hung Lee: My major is actually like industrial design and electrical engineer. And I, , I really excited and interested in architecture. I actually didn't know industrial design until I entered the college. And I feel like I always loved [00:08:00] drawing, so. Ring tangibility and visualizing the idea is always my, my superpower. And I feel that really helps me to understand different types of signals to identify the patterns.

And that'd be super interesting just to, Oh, think about how, what happened like to people and why people upset or why people are super exciting. And these are so invisible. So like, uh, subtle, but somehow I also feel that's part of the design design process. 

Andrea Hiott: I love that. I'm kind of obsessed with this idea of pattern and the pattern that connects, so to speak, and noticing patterns and regularities. Was that something you were already doing in some way or other? 

Sheng-Hung Lee: I feel like, yeah, I feel, I don't know, I really, I'm really perceptive. I feel like I, I just, when I see something, I can intuitively think about some solution. So ideas. And then what I got trained at school or in design consultancy, it's [00:09:00] more about observation skill design process.

And that really helped me to feel like, Oh, how do you, can you, are you a people person? Right. And I feel like that, that really helps me a lot. Like, you know, expand my, my design capability because I feel design is not a hardcore skill or soft skill. It's a human skill is like, especially now, like we're not like us not only celebrate hero designers.

We also think about this complicated challenges, right? How do you like climate change aging, which I'm focused on now recently. And also all this design challenges is complicated. It's systematic. So design or as a designer is like, We tackle and solve the challenges collectively. Teamwork is important and design is no longer like a fancy term.

It's a verb. It's a thing that people want to do, collaborate as a team. It's a teamwork. It's not just about, oh, celebrate hero designers or leave their signature on the work. Yeah, [00:10:00] it's less about that. It's more about create a condition. 

Andrea Hiott: This is really fascinating because if we think about design as patterns and if we think about it creatively and we think about it, like as important to these challenges that you just brought up, which is basically something that's affecting us on a really deep level, All of us in different ways, , wherever we are in the world, if we think about design is important to that, does it mean that the way we're structuring the products and the environments and everything we're interacting with is somehow contributing to the way that we think about.

The world itself, would you say? 

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yeah, I feel like, I don't know, sometimes, I mean, people always looking for, , optimization, right? We're looking for efficiency, convenience, right? And then like, Oh, I'm so glad we have like an autonomous vehicle. So we don't need to drive anymore. We just sit in the car and enjoy the scenery.

But the thing about like designs, like [00:11:00] some people enjoy the driving experiences. Some people want to create, find their own path. Or another example I'm thinking about is you know, like a Starbucks, they have like a coffee master. People have an apron and show you how to do coffee. And for me, when I bring brought the client to do like inspiration trip to see that services, right?

The client's, Oh, I want to copy that to my company to, to create the new services. And the, The behind the scene of that is like, yeah, we want to have this like human touch services, but the difficulty part is like, how do you create incentives, right? How do you make this like coffee master feel exciting to share their knowledge to their client, to customer every day?

Because they're not like us. We, we walk in as customer and enjoy the services and walk out. No, they provide the services every day. Can you design the right organization structure or incentive structure to, to promote people? So they want to become like real master, like different colors, [00:12:00] the print or the, the paints on their badge.

You know, things like that is like. It also needs to be designed, the whole experience is. It's not about, oh, we look for, uh, efficiency, convenience. I think that is really important, but that's more like a fundamental level. You know, same as uh, we talk, people talk a lot of this, like people, most people overuse like a generative AI tools now, like, yeah, you can give me like thousands of ideas, but I want to know, can you help me to curate my taste, my lifestyle?

Is it less about design solutions, more about do you really understand what people need? Can you change people's quality of life or just throw tons of ideas on them? 

Andrea Hiott: So for you, it's really about the experience of the people involved in it, not just the consumer, but even the person who's working. The person who's creating it, so you're not making these usual divisions that I often hear [00:13:00] between it's all about the customer, for example, or, um, you're thinking of it more holistically.

Almost. It sounds like, is that normal in design or is that a new approach, a different approach? 

Sheng-Hung Lee: No, I mean, you're totally right. Like, we talk a lot about like a human centered design, right? With a human, we easily default, think about users. But now, nowadays, everything is, we can view as a system, right? So we think about a system, and we have backup house.

front desk. So who are the service provider? And these are also human, right? The people provide the services, like you can't like, you can't overwork. You have to think about the ethical issue. Think about the culture, especially now aging society. How do you, how do we raise ageism? Right. And we celebrate multi generational culture and that implement to design process is like, I think human-centered design is pretty important, but now people reflect to think about what do you mean by humanity center design humanity from humans that [00:14:00] we think about broader, like, Policy organization, structure, culture, right? And now people promote like life, uh, life center design or even talk about longevity. So it's less about, yeah, human, but we also think about other aspects because now we're really like a whole interconnected.

For all different things, not, not just about human or human center, otherwise too ego driven, not empathy driven process. 

Andrea Hiott: I think that's true. And most people would say, yeah, of course that's true. There's all these nested levels and it's all very important now to the challenges you raise like climate change or, our mental health or the way we treat each other, and all of this. But it seems like from an outsider view, it seems like the, like you come to some agency, design agency, and they are supposed to serve your, you're going to have a project and they need to solve the problems for you.

And that usually ends up being about how can this product sell the most, or be the most popular, or there's something like that, right? That doesn't seem to fit with what you were just [00:15:00] saying. Even though I think we're transitioning into a new world relative to all that, but I don't understand how design is doing it.

Like, because maybe I'm wrong, but I just think of this old school kind of way of a client goes in, the designer has to kind of make the product the most popular or sellable, or, is that wrong? Has that changed a lot? Or how do you, how does that fit to what you were saying before? 

Sheng-Hung Lee: No, this is a wonderful question.

I have to say, I'm very lucky because My first two job is like design, I'm sorry, work with, design continuum and also ideal, and then you're totally right because most, I mean, business and like a fundamentally agency need to make money, right? We need to survive and need to be sustainable. And also another way.

My personal experiences at IDEO is like, we have the client came to us, and then the business of the agency, at least some office is not good. They want to design, uh, [00:16:00] the client came to us, they say, oh, I want to design the robot that can accompany kids at home to replace parents. They're very rich. They bring money.

We have budget. You guys are expensive. We have budget. And then we can do like six month project even longer. And then we're as a team, the team leader is my mentor, and we don't want to do it. We don't because the reason we don't do it, not because They are great brand there. We communicate frequently. We have the workshop together.

We know what their needs and requests, but the funny things is like, we don't think the robot can replace parent. And we don't think that's the right thing to do. We can design something very beautifully, very attracting and business successful product on the market. But the things like, It's just not right.

So I was very shocked at the moment, to be honest, because I'm just a junior designer in the team. And I realized, oh, wow, this is [00:17:00] another higher level thinking about like social impact, right? Like why the, the kids need to be accompanied by the robot. And not just parents. So it's totally like, it's really like disrupt my, my, my learning about business and design consultancy.

And I think that's really beautiful. Very huge impact on me. Yeah. And another thing I feel like, we talk about design and business. I think they both are super critical, like interconnected because you need both. 

Andrea Hiott: You need both what design and what's the other 

Sheng-Hung Lee: design business you need? Yeah, because say now I'm working very lucky working with MIT H lab.

We talked about design for retirement. We have the great ideas about how we designed people's retirement plan or financial planning or longevity planning. If we don't have this like a sponsor or like a client, how do we scale? Right? We all just close the door. [00:18:00] Very happy. You're writing on the post it notes, very sexy sketches, rendering well, and then put in the library in the publication.

Nothing we cannot scale. So I feel like Both are really critical. I totally agree with you. I feel like, um, company agency, they need to make money, but we have to make sure that the money can be invested in the right direction. Yeah. And then, sorry, another thing I want to say, the way we collaborate with the client is also change shifted.

So in the past, basically most people think about, including myself, you give me money, I provide output. There's an input, it's a currency, it's a money, it's a trust, output is a product, services or experiences. But somehow because of the complexity of the challenges and also everything moving so fast, now it's more like a co creation process.

So [00:19:00] we used to like work with, uh, one. Very famous kitchen hood brand in Asia. And then they came to work with us for like more than 10 years. Okay. Give me like the, the sexist, the coolest, like kitchen hood. I'm going to launch this year. Give me more, like a form and shape. And somehow at the point we say, no, we didn't do that.

We want to change the whole like collaboration model. Let's like do co creation together, inspiration together. And then you guys bring these ideas. back to their team, talk with engineer. And they come back to us again, let's do the second round co creation. So it's more like co evolving. It's not like a one time deliverable.

It's like multiple times check in to make sure our ideas, our insight can be implemented through their technology. Not just like create like beautiful shape and form. And then somehow, oh, we can't do it. So we just make a beautiful rendering and stay at that state. No, no, we want to make [00:20:00] it real. So we need that co creation process.

Yeah, so that's the second part. I want to just want to add it. 

Andrea Hiott: That's really fascinating to me because it It kind of upends or changes the way we think of these typical roles of client and provider I mean, I don't think those roles were ever really Very human in a way because it does seem that like what we really want to do is create together but um I guess traditionally there would be certain conflicts about that.

So you've worked for these very successful big companies. I want to actually hear how you got into that world and some of the projects you did, but before, I guess when you were already. IDEO or one of these big places where everyone wants to work with you, like your boss, then you can say, Oh, well, actually, I don't agree with the idea that your child should be with an AI.

And so therefore I can't create this for you. But is that also true at sort of, you know, Not lower, that's not the right word, but other kinds of design [00:21:00] firms or people who are just starting out or, you know, that, that don't have a reputation. Are they able to do that? Or are they still having to just take on the project?

Um, I guess what I'm trying to get at is, is this like what design is now? And I just didn't know, is it co creation or is this like very much for the stars of the business, because design, like anything else, there's people who are sought after, you know, that the client wants to work with, and that's a completely different relationship than the one I was describing before.

Sheng-Hung Lee: No, this is, this is a great, great question. And also ideas, because I have to say IDEO or design consultant, uh, design continuum, they have their own reputation in the, in the market, on the market. And then at the history. So somehow even our BD process is all, we felt like a design process. We have to know if the client's the right person to see our value and can really amplify the impact.

So this is like, that's why they have the green foundation and the history in the past. So they, they can have that kind of like, [00:22:00] uh, advantage to, to do, to say something like that. I do believe that for normal company or like the company last, like, have history or that foundation business is also important criteria for them.

So, yeah, let's still do it. And then I can do it with a relative, like a cheaper price, but give you like a more competitive, like design or, you know, solution. And it's always a trade off because I, I feel like what I learned from IDEO or another different design consultants is like the culture is with your design solution.

So when you deliver the deliverable, it's not just a one time experiences. It's like, you bridge, you partner with your client. So, so that's, I feel that's really beautiful because you know each other and the connection won't be cut off after the project ended. Actually, when a project launched, That's the challenges started.

That's the real challenges. Can you really see the, the [00:23:00] performance, the, the final, the, the, is it like really work? Is it valid? Is it, you know, is it feasible? so these are thing I, I feel is different than can we see like a long term goal or versus like a short term, just get a business interest.

Andrea Hiott: That's really well said. And as you're talking, I'm thinking of, for example, You know, some really big advertising or branding or, you know, altogether projects in the past. And I'm not sure it really fits very well with design. Maybe it's more like advertising, but you know, something like, uh, the Beetle, the Volkswagen Beetle and that whole campaign 

or I watched this movie recently with Nike and, and Jordan. I'm just thinking of all these different examples of, of design or brand or, um, things that have really kind of influenced us in the way we were talking about in the beginning of like changing patterns.

 Let's talk about you, how did you end up in these places that were already so yeah, I guess well known or was that your initial, [00:24:00] it sounds like you just graduated from school and ended up in this environment where you were able to do this co creation. First of all, is that true? And then maybe we could talk about how in your own experience in a project this actually plays out.

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yeah. I mean, if you look at like people's CV, right? Like, Oh, these are beautiful name company, a great school. And, but actually every like, uh, things on the CV is really like hardworking because I don't think I'm a smart person. I'm just like, work really hard, super hard. And I really enjoyed this and the things I took a double major in industrial design and electric engineering for like seven years.

My parents thought I have some. Intellectual problems. Are you have some mental issue or health issue? Why you cannot just graduate like seven years, you can get another medical degree. And as I know, I just really want to study very solid. I want to know the fundamental thing and I'm not graduate for [00:25:00] certificate.

I'm graduate for real knowledge. I want to explore. So after that, I, before I graduate a year ahead, I actually. Already start searching the jobs. So it's like a year long preparation. And I'm really lucky because I, I don't know, I really care about people and culture. So the thing I feel I click with the people, I just want to work with them or surrounded by them.

And then found the great leaders in Continuum and also in IDEO. So join them. Same as my MIT journey. It's like I apply like so many different labs and I found my mentor, which is now the director of the H lab. It's Joe Coughlin. So he really helped me a lot. I really connect with him, his vision, his idea.

And then we start to work some exciting project together. And I feel like really, like you say, like fighting pattern. And I would say like, well, like a finding a pattern, and also Find the people you can resonate with and that pattern can resonate and that can amplify more impact. Cause [00:26:00] otherwise it would be like, if I really like want to work for, to get more money, or I can choose like bigger corporate, right?

Because both of design consultants have pretty small scale compared with other bigger company. But I really think people in culture really shape me. Yeah. Still shaping me. So I feel that's really important to me. 

Andrea Hiott: That is such a beautiful way to say it, because I really think that's true that we also have these kinds of patterns that we resonate with as we move through our life.

And we do sort of set our own trajectory in a way, depending on how much we trust ourselves to resonate with that. So for example, like when your parents were giving you a lot of pressure, I guess, were you still in Taiwan then? Or, I mean, A lot of people, a lot of us kind of cave to that and, and we do whatever the people around us are telling us we should do, or they want from us because it's so much pressure, I mean, to take seven years and do the double degree.

And it sounds like you were actually almost like a perfectionist or like you, you needed to get in the rhythm, right? [00:27:00] You needed to find. That rhythm that you were just discussing, but how did you have the poise and the confidence and the kind of stubbornness or whatever to do that, even though it was not the thing that most people around you were probably saying you should do?

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yeah, this is a great, this is such a real, I mean, Great question because it's not just my parents, my friends, my advisor. Some people just don't understand, like, why you spend so much time on this, and then it's so weird and rare. Like, what the fuck? What are you? It's weird. And then I have friend, my classmate, she graduated within four years, got two degrees, you can do it very efficient.

Like I say, you design for efficient design for convenience versus design for people. And I always feel like I pretty know what I want and what I need. And I know like. Beautiful things takes time. You need to be [00:28:00] patient. And if everything goes too fast or too successful, that's not the real challenges.

Yeah. You have to be, have some difficulty. It's very painful. It's so hard. Like think as engineer, you have to do the P set, problem set. You have to like sleep early, wake up early, testing, studying electronics, electromagnetics, or advanced math, calculus, physics. Versus designer, oh, night owl, smoking, bar, I need some inspiration.

So I almost like, uh, live in two worlds altogether. So it's really, it's really hybrid world, but I realized that really helped me to design things from outside in to inside out, like a mouse. When I, when we have like a physical, physical mouse, I really inspired by this product because I'm not just designing the shape of the mouse.

I want to design the electronic circuit board. [00:29:00] I want to design how it works inside. So I can change the shape, more flexible, more, more possible way. Right. Right. So that's why. Really inspiring to think, Oh, I need to understand this basic electronics or basic like mechanical stuff to help me to design the whole structure of the product.

At least I can communicate with engineer. Yeah. So, so that, but that is not like a, there's no shortcut. I don't think there's a shortcut, including my, now I'm doing my PhD is like, you just have to immerse yourself in all of these challenges. That's the only way to do it. Just put your some of the data, you get like, oh, dive, dive into it.

And then you can say, to see the whole picture. 

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense with, yeah, your work and kind of just what I know of you that it seems like there's a wider picture, right? That you're, I talk about holding the paradox, you know, as a philosopher or kind of beyond dichotomy, meaning you embrace the dichotomy, [00:30:00] sort of the power of polarity, but opening the space so that it's not oppositional.

It's polarity, but it's not oppositional. So I feel that in you and in your work a bit, you know, and, and, um, It's not easy to do. Like, actually, you have these kind of lovely little sayings on your website, um, that you, you, you make these little beautiful cards sometimes on, on social media and stuff. And a lot of them, 

Sheng-Hung Lee: yeah, 

Andrea Hiott: But a lot of those are very, you're kind of holding both sides of things, right?

Um, there's this wholeness or contextuality, yeah, and I guess, um, that's not an easy thing to kind of learn, but it sounds like you. You learned it from the start because even with what you're doing right now, your PhD, you didn't have to do that. I mean, you already were working in big firms. You had a big project, which I'd like to hear about, like designing a library, I think, in Shanghai.

And there were many things we could go into a few, but [00:31:00] why would you, I mean, this is another one of those moments, right? Where most people would look at you and say, Oh, why are you going to go back and do your PhD after you've already been in the successful world and then you have to put yourself in this place again of vulnerability, learning, going through all this effort, time, you know, everyone wants everything right now.

And this takes time. Like you said, you just have to do it. So I don't know. I mean, I'm just throwing a lot at you, but is it a similar, is there something in that process of discomfort maybe that's powerful for you? 

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yeah, I mean, I think most people, including myself, we really want to like, uh, looking for a sense of achievement.

Like people recognize your work like social norm. Oh great salary. You should be a lawyer doctor You know people have some like a stereotype on you and this is very normal like in especially in asia like stronger Oh, you have great great. You should find a stable job when it's the time to get married having kids [00:32:00] beautiful life That's the high standard golden rules, right?

But for me, like, I actually feel like I love everyone. everyone loves like sense of achievement, but I think it's more important to develop a sense of fulfillment. You have to feel fulfilled. And what I mean by that is very simple skill. Like, um, every time I finished reading one book, I feel refreshing. And I really love that moment.

Finish the book and take notes. Oh, wow. This is the last pages. And then you sign your name with the stamp and put the date and year. This is wonderful, and this is fulfillment. 

Andrea Hiott: Is that what you do after you read a book? 

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yeah, that's why that's a wonderful practice. Every book I have, I guess, let me see, I think I did the same.

Yeah, people have it just like, 

Andrea Hiott: oh, I love that. Oh, that's such a good idea. Gosh, I wish I'd been doing that my whole life with all my books. Although I often read them more than once, but still, that would be cool, too, to have, like, double stamps. 

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yes, that. This one [00:33:00] is about exploring the research. Yeah. It's like, I think I, yeah, it's like every, oh yeah, 

Andrea Hiott: that one's on your website I think.

Or yeah, maybe you posted on LinkedIn or something. Oh yeah. 

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yeah. I just feel like that really helps me to, to realize, oh, when I read this and how, when I going to revisit this and that is like sense of fulfillment and then for me, like, oh, why are you back to study PhD? And really, to be honest, for me, like.

When I'm back to academia, I really just want to learn the language for academia. So for me, it's not studying, I'm recharging and I, Oh, I understand how you guys publish in paper and how can we connect back, Oh, I know the language of academia, how you use like statistic and describe the data with a subject.

And then I going to apply that. To my work, to the industry work. So I'm more like a bridge and I feel that's really beautiful. Otherwise we'll be like, close the door. This is the CHI publication. How many citation I [00:34:00] have. That's beautiful. Or I'm going to draw beautiful, sexy sketches, rendering, prototyping, and there's a gap and there should be like, cause for me, design is a supply science, it's application science, and you need to have both.

And then I love my, my advisor in college, they told us designers need to read a lot. Because you need to know what happened and how do you connect it with your design skill? And I feel I'm, I'm working on that. I kind of recharging learning statistic. How do you write the abstract clarity and how do you communicate with people from different background in industry?

And you can, we get our hands dirty to really make it real from ideas to implementation. 

Andrea Hiott: I see. That's very smart of you in a way, again, you're sort of taking a few steps back to get a very. Big picture of this world that is academia or that is designed from another [00:35:00] perspective. And you're almost like an observer of, of it all.

And it's actually very smart because I know you probably like, they want you there because you can teach and they give you money and in a way it's like, you know, a job, uh, but you also have this time. To reflect and although PhD can be very stressful because you have so much to learn and reflect on, but yeah, I can, I can see that and I wonder about those books.

Are they, you know, because I'm very interested in the books that you read. We've talked about some of them and, um, Have those been sort of markers in your life? I mean, you put the date and everything. Are they, do you, not only the book itself, but do you see yourself as kind of, is fulfillment also knowledge?

Like learning and developing and connecting in new ways? Is that connected to why you like this reading and so on? 

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yeah, I, I mean, the, I think the most important things I, after reading the book, it's more about synthesizing, right? Like we, [00:36:00] we, we internalize the knowledge. And then for me, one of the way to internalize it is through like creation, through drawing, through design or through writing.

And then now, Because I mean, PhD life is so busy. So one of the easiest ways I writing can synthesize my thoughts. And I think that's really important because when I, when I wrote, when I'm reading, I always mark highlight the key sentences or quote to make sure I can feel, understand the context. And then that I will distill writing like a short paragraph to make sure, Oh, this is the thing I read.

What connect to design. I'll always connect to design, even like We talk about longevity planning, uh, financial planning. I reframe as design for longevity. So there's still a design element in it. It's not about, oh, because I'm not the expert in, uh, finance or psychology. I'm the expert in design. So I want to find the, the connection.

And I feel that can really apply [00:37:00] to almost different types of books. I can always reflect to think about, Oh, what does that mean to design right now? I'm apply like a grounded theory, constructed grounded theory. It's from a psychologist or a sociologist. And that's, Oh, how does designer do? We use the post it notes and that's the coding, you know, physical coding.

And we just didn't know. We already use the grounding theory in our lives. How do you cluster it? How do you constant compare? And we use that all the time. We call it synthesizing, downloading and ideal, but there is a beautiful connection and now other people say, Oh, let's talk about like, uh, boundary objects.

You know, boundary objects like you connect people from different backgrounds and then use the physical object or non physical object to talk about something. For example, like, you put the map. Oh, I look at the map, I look for the restaurant, and you look for, uh, say, uh, uh, where it's like a front desk, information center.

And we use the map to [00:38:00] open up the conversation. You know, in academia, people say boundary object and in design world, we say tangible artifacts. And there is a connection. And I feel that's really beautiful, like to connect this together. And somehow that, that's what I really excited to do it right now.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, that's gosh, there's so much in there and it makes me think about the patterns again, right? And the rhythm and finding, finding the almost gestalt or something, but not, gestalt always sounds so static. And this is like a living process. So I guess as you, I, I imagine, you read something and you're almost learning a new patterning or rhythm, you're bringing everything you already knew to it.

So for you, it's going to affect you different than another reader, but then that's kind of wonderful because then you can, take that into what you're, whatever you're doing, your creation, your writing, or so on. So it feels like there's a continuity there, a flow, you know, which is almost another way of saying [00:39:00] fulfillment in the way that you were saying, isn't it?

Sheng-Hung Lee: No, I think this is great. I love, I recall like our previous conversation talk about like a pattern and flow. I really love that because that really made me think about I'm actually now learning and very good at embracing ambiguity. And that's kind of multiple different flows. Crazy, big one, huge, you know, like, uh, people are crazy problem.

You need problem solving. Life is difficult. I'm an international student. It's so many challenges. Every day is like a war to me. You know, just like, oh, you have credit card fraud. Oh, you forgot to pay your student dorm rent. Oh, you need, you have health problems. So for me, these are all ambiguity. And how do we embrace that?

You know, and then for me, because I work at a design consultancy or some industry experiences, we're kind of big, crazy project, like library [00:40:00] design. I get used to it like ambiguity part. And for me, these are all part of the pattern. And I have to like know, okay, this is okay to have no answer, but I still want to swim into this and to understand how can I survive and, you know, like, uh, propel, not just stay there or panic.

No, no, you still have to keep moving. And I feel exciting for that because That's how challenges comes from every day, every single day, even though I don't, even because English is not my, my first language. So for me, it's another layer of difficulties. 

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, no, I think it's good you bringing that up because there's something people, a lot of, we don't always think about all these different layers of stress and tension that you can't dissociate from that rhythm and that pattern.

And that creation process, right? They are all part of us. We kind of think Oh, we just go where our designer had or our PhD student hat, but actually there's this, all these layers that [00:41:00] everyone's dealing with different ones, you know, like you have all these ongoing things, um, that you're kind of trying to deal with too.

And it reminds me of something I think you wrote in one of those little snippets. There's little, what do you call them? Like they're almost like little, 

Sheng-Hung Lee: like a self reflection. 

Andrea Hiott: Yeah. They're just like little beautiful quotes, but you say them, but one, I think is like uh, something about what isn't design.

Sheng-Hung Lee: Oh yeah. 

Andrea Hiott: Yeah. And then there's also like learning how to unlearn and there's all these, I'll have to look at, try to find it in a, in a minute, but a lot of it is about self expression, personal action and this, this kind of, this kind of flow. But how does that, um, How do you find the poise for that? Do you, do you, is, is design really life is like when you, when you, when you get these, alerts, like someone's been, you just told me earlier that someone's, you have this credit card fraud thing.

Someone's like using your credit card for great little stuff. I mean, do you, [00:42:00] do you bring your design mindset to these kind of challenges or when, when people don't realize that you're, you're speaking English as a second language and they assume, you know, there's all these things that happen, right?

When you're a foreigner. I'm a foreigner here that people just assume things that aren't your references. Um, do you think of the, do you bring this design mindset to those kinds of things? 

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yeah, exactly. This is what exactly happened yesterday. I was like, oh, it feels so uncomfortable. How can I resolve this?

I tried to get a phone call and use their app. It's horrible. Like, uh, you wait for so long and it's, uh, AI, you know, it's a, it's a chatbot. So they don't, it didn't feel reassured. So I booked a real time. So you 

Andrea Hiott: mean like that moment where you realize you've been violated and then you really need to resolve it, but you can't get in touch with anyone.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like 

Sheng-Hung Lee: waiting on the phone for like 20 minutes. They all listen to the same music. At least they can change different types of music. It's better, right? Like the same music feels [00:43:00] sleepy. And then I like finally talk and I realized it's not a real person. It's a chatbot. And it's really hard.

Like, The only solution they provide or suggest that, oh, just like cancel your car. I mean, that's easy, but I want to figure out what happened. Why my, my account got penetrated, you know, got my privacy leaking. So I want to know more about just like cancel my car. It's so easy. And I booked the, I make a, uh, appointment with a bank closer to me.

at MIT and their location is so popular. And then the, the, the, uh, manager came to me, Oh, how can I help you? And I said, Oh, my credit card got a fraud. Can you help me to resolve this? They're too busy. They have no capacity to listen to what I want to say. And they said, Oh, just use the app to cancel the car.

And I'm so angry. Like, okay, I'm going to change different location. And then I found a new location, which is people are so friendly. Listen to me, we sit down in the [00:44:00] room. He closed the door. He's a new person. And I told my niece, he helped me to check. In the end, we still make a phone call, but make a phone call together.

It's the same result. It just like call them, call the headquarters, cancel. But he helped me to make a phone call. We wait together. We sit together, you know, and that changed the whole experiences. And that's design. That's that. I told them, oh my god, I feel so safe. I feel so supported and empowered. Rather than just do it by myself.

So these are like a tiny detail, but as a user, as the customer, people feel dramatically different. It's the same result. You know, I still got my car canceled, replaced, but the feelings is so different. How do you design that? Yeah. Is it like, we're really aiming for like transactional kind of feedback? Oh, Pencil this on the phone.

No, you need to people explain to you what happened and then they will follow up with you and I really think about this [00:45:00] whole night yesterday. This is a beautiful case study. 

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, well, I mean, you laugh and but it really is. And I think we almost have to laugh because we don't think of things in this way.

Um, it's almost hard to talk about with language, even that what, what is really happening there. You know, even when I was bringing up some of those products, like they're too commercial, but I mean, there's real reason that we connect with something like Apple or something like 

Sheng-Hung Lee: Michael 

Andrea Hiott: Jordan or whatever.

And it has to do with sharing some kind of connection or emotional feeling or community. And like that story you just told is so beautiful for two reasons. I mean, one, because. It shows how important these things are just for life, like that is life, right? 

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yeah. 

Andrea Hiott: Connecting with people and feeling like you're being seen and trying to understand something together, even if you can't completely understand it, that's a good life.

And then the other one, when [00:46:00] everyone's too busy and everyone's just like talking to apps and um, trying to get to the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, which feels like what we're supposed to be doing. It's not a very good life. 

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yeah. It's very transactional. Yeah. It's just so different feelings.

So I'm very happy. I spent like 10 on Uber to find a real, I spent more money and time, but I feel happier. I feel like, Oh my God, this is exactly. I need, I, he followed up with me next week. Let me know the process, how I got a new car for how long versus like, Oh, everything talked to chatbot. Yeah, I can, I don't need to spend like 10 on the Uber.

I can just do it by myself, you know, but I just want to know what happened and the quality. 

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, the quality and the rhythm of your life is better, you know, and that is continuous. That was the second thing I was going to say is the reason I love that story so much is, um, it really speaks to what you were trying to say about design because, and also what [00:47:00] I was trying to express about your Way of doing it because you kind of took a step back again and you shifted the perspective, right?

Like what's another way that I could come at this instead of just feeling like you're stuck in that situation. And you just, you know, you thought, Oh, actually I could go here and it's, I don't know how to express it, but in my own life dealing with different problems, I feel like that's always an almost epiphany kind of moment when you're able to switch out of the habitual mindset.

That you're in, you know, um, yeah, 

Sheng-Hung Lee: yeah, that's, that's, yeah, I just, I, I mean, sometimes I think, oh, when I get older, I feel like, oh, I can shift my perspective. You know, even like everyone has people you don't want to work with in a company or in organization or in the small group, people have their own circle.

But the funny thing is that you can actually learn a lot of things from the people you cannot resonate with. You know, you can, you can look at that. And [00:48:00] then I learned so much when, at the time when I was an ideal and design continue, even though at MIT, some people, you just can't resonate. And this is so true.

Like you cannot be a, like people, personal or like a social butterfly all the time, you have your own perspective, your own value, your own belief. And somehow, people doesn't resonate with you, how do you deal with that? And that's the piece of art. You can escape, I used to escape or disappear, but now I try to embrace it, because that's ambiguity, right?

You have to, oh, let's look at different perspective, different shadow, to look at the object. So, you can find another perspective or landscape. From that 

Andrea Hiott: landscape, I use that that word a lot. And again, that's that kind of holding the polarity rather than trying to resolve the polarity and realizing there's like not just polarity.

There's all kind of other nested complex systems relative to whatever that position is. Do you remember a time in your life when you? Recognize that or felt that maybe earlier in your design career, when [00:49:00] you, like what you were talking about with, uh, not feeling comfortable in the situation. And instead of running away from it, just sitting with it, do you remember any moments that like, where you learned something in your career that way?

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yeah. When I, when I was in college, like, uh, most people don't want to work with me. Because I'm like workaholic. It's, it's too painful. Like, why are you so serious on this? Like, this is just a no critic assignment. And I was like, no, but this is like, uh, it's attitude, you know? So, it's so hard. Like, nobody wanted to work with me, you know?

Like, it's, it's too painful. And then, It's okay. And I do a lot of individual work, but in the company, everything's about teamwork. So we have the gray system. We have like facility facilitation before the project start in the middle of the project and post project. So we know, Oh, what are you want things you want to learn?

And are you a morning person night owl? And how can we accompany that? Right. And which kind of [00:50:00] role you want to play? Are you more like a client management style? You want to work on your craft or you want to more like work on the So we have a lot of like communication and like, uh you know, just make sure that everyone on the same page.

So a lot of like a communication, I think sometimes over communicate. So make it like people know each other better. And every project I work at IDEO is every time with all different designers around the globe. So every project, like a new startup. You know, like, Oh, start a program. So every time is different.

Some people are super hard to work with or super hardcore. And some people are like, Oh, very chill disappear all the time. So how do you self navigate and how do you find the anchor of the project? How do you report back to the client with the confidence? So these are things like, it just like, Oh, it needs to be communicated in different ways.

And this is like, you have, there's no shortcut. You have to learn, understand your pattern and also receive what other [00:51:00] people's pattern looks like. You know, I, I have, I have a lot of like, uh, interesting experiences with a business designer. It's so unique, different world. And we have to work on the same project.

So it's. It's painful, but also beautiful, the results. It's great. You have different perspectives. 

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, that's really important to me that what you just said, because in the philosophy I do a lot of it's trying to understand that, that we all have different paths and trajectories and we might be in the same landscape, but we've gotten there very differently.

And that's why we're approaching the problem differently and we even see the landscape differently like we were in the same landscape It's real, but maybe we see very different things there maybe what I see you don't even notice and vice versa And I think it can be really hard to share that with one another especially when you're really coming from different paths 

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yeah 

Andrea Hiott: But it can also be very, very creative. Have you had any moments like that in your [00:52:00] actual, I'm sure you have them all the time in your studies, but in, when you were working first in design and maybe when you were doing some of the projects, I don't know if you want to talk about one in particular maybe the library or maybe something else where you did notice that opening to these other perspectives gave you something or gave the project something or.

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yeah, the, the library project is a great example. It's like, um, uh, redesigned Shanghai library innovation space. And you know, the Shanghai library is like a phase, like a front door for, for the government, for the Shanghai city, and they want to redesign this. Um, I'm very lucky. It's like, cause I, I used to taught there, used their space to talk like a university students, undergrad kids.

And then for four years, so they, they feel like, Oh, I can be a great person to leading this project. And it's really like a side project. So I'm the one person team, but one [00:53:00] person team designer, and I collaborate the whole innovation space team. So I have five or six people there from different department.

So marketing, communication, or people do the research or people like a leadership role. So it's like very diverse, even though we all speak in Chinese, but people are so different. The way they look at a library, they have different ideas and position. Cause I'm asking what's the value proposition for a Shanghai library?

Like, You guys not like a coffee shop. You guys like community hub, but you guys also close early four o'clock. So how people get, uh, really, really enjoy the time there. You guys provide the classroom the weekend. So it's very complicated project. And then we. It's a one year long project. We start from interviewing people who are the lawyer customer, who really use the library a lot, the parents with the kids and who are the vendors.

So we know there's different voices. And then in [00:54:00] their mind, we try to project how they view Shanghai library is a community center. Is it like a hub for to connect different people or just like a reading center for undergrads, for graduate students? So pretty. pretty amazing research and also design process.

And then we got a strongly support from the director, from the leadership level, from the Shanghai library, they want to do it well. So, so everything's like pushed in the right direction. What I learned from this process is like, I'm the only designer, but also I'm not design everything. We co design together, like I say, like participatory design process.

So I host like three, Design workshop with them first, workshop with all the leadership team. So let's bring Lego, the, the Play-Doh, all the thing to co-create the, the thing, the corner of the library. So they have their ideas and we have, we really like, uh, present together so they feel the ownership [00:55:00] of this design process.

I have to make sure their voices got heard for the final round. The second round, we invite some participants, some local people who use the library a lot to get their voices. The third round for the final presentation. So the whole design process is like evolving. And I use that design process or workshop to really connect the dots, connect people from different backgrounds and Because design, it's not like, Oh, This is a solution.

Make it happen. No, no. It's, I propose some ideas, they co create together, and then I do the final polish, final touch, and celebrate together. Otherwise, it's so hard. It's like, how, how's that possible? And most of the design challenges nowadays, really like that, it's very complicated and systematic. 

Andrea Hiott: Gosh, that's so beautiful.

And it reminds me of something else you said, maybe when we talked the other day, or I don't know when, but about sort of finding a landing place, or again, we were [00:56:00] at this kind of landscape and space that holds all these different polarities, right? There's something about that of design being not about.

A linear solving of something, but opening a space where different people can solve their problem, whatever they need to solve in different ways. Right. I 

Sheng-Hung Lee: think 

Andrea Hiott: maybe you kind of express that at some point, um, when we've talked before. And that also reminds me of what you're working on now with like longevity and a lot of the studies you've been doing where you have all kinds of voices coming in through these questionnaires and, and so on.

I want to like, get to that before we close. And. In this context that we've been talking about, and also we mentioned before, human centered. Uh, design and that, and I want to bring that in because I, I think there's also like life centered design. I know you told me before there's like animal centered design.

Maybe there's even plant centered design, tree centered design. I don't know. But, you know, I, I want to try to connect that too. Like I want to hear about the longevity a bit, but also, [00:57:00] That also seems like design itself is trying to find this way of accompanying all these perspectives in the sense that you were just talking about, like the human, the animal, the plant, and, and they're all not separate.

So there's all these nested levels. But first, maybe just what is this longevity is? Cause you brought up the financial, there's ageism, there's all these things that maybe people don't know how to fit together, but. 

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yeah, no, the ideas of design for longevity is like, we actually. During like, uh, earlier for like, uh, after like, uh, industrial revolution, I think we mainly think about design for linearity design for waste.

So everything's like, okay, you, you have ideas, you design, you do production, you manufacture, and you shift and you dispose. So one way, right. And then now people think about, design for a circularity. circular economics, right? Oh, everything is a circuit, like a butterfly chart. So everything's like from the [00:58:00] beginning all the way to the end, how can you recycle it and to do it again, again.

So try to optimize the material floor flow and make sure that we can really use every single material in the design process. And now design for longevity is like, we're not just talk about, uh, circularity. Also we shifted because things or material evolving through times. So it depends on like, Oh, your personal growth, your life stages.

Right. And you're like health conditions. So that's kind of the ideas is like, yeah, we want to think about the ideas like design for longevity is like, we try to think about The dimension of time is evolving with your personal growth is evolving with your relationship with your patterns, the all differences.

And then somehow the human design become much more important because we don't want the product like, uh, know you, every single of you, you'd have no privacy. No, we want to make sure you feel safe. You feel like confident to [00:59:00] grow and you have, you have. And you know what happened, you can plan and prepare for that.

So human centered design is important because now we talk about people, but also want to talk about bigger issues like our healthcare system, our financial system, our social infrastructure, because Now people live longer, but also aiming for better quality of lives right now. Why you say people retire at age of 65 or 67 retirement is a, it's a makeup concept.

So basically like you, people want to live with the purpose, you know, with a meaning, with a motivation and can, can designer do that. Right. And that's part of the important reason why I feel design for longevity is super critical because my parents, for example, my dad retired at age of 52 and he got upset for three years.

Because like nobody celebrate his birthday anymore, you know, you your friends and colleagues at different levels, right? And then you retire Okay, you isolated by yourself. [01:00:00] Where's our society support, right? And people say Longevity planning Finance is one pillar like a three leg stool Finance is one pillar.

Another pillar is like family and community And also like your quality of lives, your like social wellbeing. And these are all interconnected. And we mainly think about finance part, but actually people, cause we're social animals. We need support. We need friends. We need community. When you relocated for aging place or for other places or close to your kids, the thing you cannot move is your community.

Where's your neighbors, right? Yeah. You got a better house. You have better restroom, bigger house, everything's safe. anti slippery mat, you know, floor, but you can't bring your park with you. Where's your like neighbors? You missed that connection. I know we have like a AR VR, we have like a zoom call, but the human touch is [01:01:00] missing.

And that's why it's super important. And that's part of the thing I'm working on right now. Sorry, I talked too much too long, but that's the idea. No, you 

Andrea Hiott: didn't. That was wonderful. I wish you'd keep going actually, because I think that relates to so much. We already brought up. I mean, even, you know, your parents giving you a hard time when you were a student about hurry up and finish and hurry up and make, have a good career and hurry up and make a lot of money and hurry up and retire and hurry up.

 That's, that seems not what we're designed to be what we, what we want to design, right. And what you were just talking about seems more, it's this rhythm, like what's the rhythm of your life? What's the meaning, the fulfillment you brought up that word purpose, I love that you're bringing all this in to, and it also makes me think of, you, what you just said about the finances, we try, we think of everyone thinks of finances, but as you just kind of showed us, like that's not disconnected from community, from environment, from.

All the things we mean by human centered or life centered or whatever, [01:02:00] it's weird that we think of it as separate, isn't it? That we Design our financial plan as if it's not related to all this other stuff. It's kind of a weird way of thinking Design, do you think of design is also redesigning those weird ways of thinking that we're 

Sheng-Hung Lee: know?

It's like it needs to be holistic. It's not like, you know, like Traditional Chinese medicine and the Western medicine, like we, when we talk about it, this is a comparison, like I'm thinking about traditional Chinese medicines, like they look at the whole relationship and the vibe, the whole, you know, things versus are you two pointed?

Both are important. I think like for design for longevity is like, We're not just, we can't just think about the money side because otherwise you are not happy, you know, what, like, how do you retire with respect? Right. People still want greeting. People still want to people celebrate your birthday. My parents bought a new house.

I think during the COVID. They all moved to there because the aging [01:03:00] place, but the things like, okay, that where's your name? Where's our neighbor? Where's you know, where's our the part? We usually went to, you know, to hang out with your your friends And somehow this makes me realize. Oh, wow. This is super inborn.

Yeah, you can get any material things new, but The connection, the care, the respect, the motivation, the purpose. These are things you need, people need some help. Yeah, it's not like calm directly. It's not like transaction. No, these are, it takes time. You know, like, do you have the great therapist? Know yourself, right?

Do you talk to yourself? Or like, you just feel isolated. And I feel the sad thing about people live in the city is like, we thought we have everything. But the funny thing is like like you're podcasting the love. How do you, how do you feel love? How do you love other people? Everything's like concrete, you know, in, in the glass boxes, where's the handshake, you know, where's like the, [01:04:00] the thing we can talk, it's just like somehow I feel this missing part, especially for design for longevity section.

Yeah. 

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, I was going to bring up love, of course, because this is love and philosophy and all of this has been about philosophy, but I do think we've been talking about love a bit too, because that rhythm or that, I don't know, how do you see, how do you see that word in your, in your work in design or in life? These aren't separate compartments either, right? It's, we don't always talk about it in those terms, but it is kind of what we want in a way out of this. 

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yeah. I feel, I just feel like, um, lucky and hard work for me to find the right person. So I feel being loved people need to be in love and then they can love people.

They can know how to give back. And I feel like I feel being loved by my family, friends, my, my committee members, very supportive. And then you realize, Oh, even in academia or in industry, you know, how to give [01:05:00] back to help people who need, you know, not just like, Oh, very harsh on the deadline or no, there's something else you can give and talk about it.

And then it could be like work as a family, not as an enemy, you know, it's just, uh, everything's about collaboration. It's really connected. And, and I feel like that, that people need to feel being loved first and to give love to other people. And that's really important. 

Andrea Hiott: Yeah. Well said. Thank you. I mean, you're doing all these interesting interviews for your PhD and I guess like all of this comes out in those too right because When you're here because you kind of sent out all these surveys and you've gotten them all back and to connect this I mean you are asking in a way about almost it's almost like a psychological quality of life kind of survey in a sense because I guess you see that right that people are hungry for community for love for Or do you, or am I imposing that, projecting that?

Sheng-Hung Lee: [01:06:00] No, I think I interviewed like 81 participants and across different ages. And they mainly, we focus on people based in Boston, greater Boston area. And then I'm, I'm very surprised that this project, because we try to design like very safe environment, it is safe environment, make sure there there's no privacy leaking, it's just, everything's safe.

It's just like, you can feel like people struggling all the time. People, like, fight for their environment, fight for their health. And also, they're looking for empowerment. And these, like, people are very vulnerable and fragile. And they're looking for not just, like, finance, like, support. They're really actually for finance, like, uh, consultant.

To, to reduce their anxiety about their things beyond just money, money for them is easy, like, yeah, it's just like income in and out, but I, the feeling, the sense of purpose, one participant told me that he has to wake up [01:07:00] every day before eight o'clock to keep the days moving. He's like 63 and another participant, she's in the age of 67.

She said, I have to make my calendar full. When I have the three things in my day. So, you know, like the purpose is so important. They say, Oh, I feel more busier after I retire because so many things I want to do. I need, I want to be feel connected. I want to hang out with the younger generation. I do like 20 volunteers.

So, you know, these are things that you realize it's really, it's more than just money problem. Yeah. 

Andrea Hiott: Yeah. Because we should say the survey is basically about finances, longevity in terms of that, but then all of these other things are, are part of it. Like you can't separate it. And it reminds me too of, because I've also had people in my life who retire and then they sort of feel like, who am I?

What's my worth? Nobody cares about my birthday kind of stuff. Right. And I think that's connected to what we were talking about with the rhythm. Like if you, if you, [01:08:00] you took the time to find what the, Organic rhythm of your life was and you've been trying to live that and bring that forth and of course, that's not easy, but it's You know who you are, right?

You've said that a few times, like, but I think a lot of the older generations, our parents or people today to young kids, like you just get pushed into these trajectories that don't feel organic for you. You haven't found your own rhythm. You're just taking on what's looks successful and what. It's safe.

It seems safe, right? And then you retire and it's like, what did I just do? Uh, versus someone like who you just described in that survey who has a lot to do, right? They obviously had a lot of interest, like it wasn't a cut, maybe, their retirement. It was like a opportunity to now explore more and more and more of that rhythm.

So that's interesting, too, to think about How that relates to all these things we've been talking about and in terms of, yeah, designing your life. 

Sheng-Hung Lee: Yes, yes. No, that's, that's really, that's really important. Like, yeah, what people are looking [01:09:00] for and what's your purpose of your life, you know, what you are, you're working for yourself or you're working for the company.

Most people work for the company. So when you finish your work, you lost yourself and you have to work yourself first. and then work with the company. Like for me, I view MIT as my client. You know, I'm very happy because I work with my client, but also I work for myself. And that's really important. You always have like a sense of fulfillment, not just your identities is not defined by your business card.

It's defined by your work, your life experiences, your lifestyle, your taste. Otherwise I tear up the business card. Tell me your story. No, I cannot tell my story because all the story is confidential. That's the, you have to, you have to tell your story. I'm curious about you as a person, not you as a product of the company.

So that, that's the thing is very different. And I feel that's why I didn't feel I'm really studying. I really enjoy my different life stages. [01:10:00] transforming and shifting. It's hard. It's challenging, but it's still like for me, exciting and want to explore more. 

Andrea Hiott: That's wonderful. Yeah, and that's not an easy thing to be okay with who you are and feel like you are important but actually it's true of all of us right because we all have unique perspectives and positions and when we can embrace them and And dance with them then if we do bring forth something who knows what it is.

Maybe it's something that seems small By these other standards, but it's not small actually in the big dance of things. So anyway, I just want to say thanks for what you're doing and you've said some really beautiful things today and told us some really beautiful stories. So it means a lot. Is there anything I haven't brought up or that, you know, is on your mind or that you wanted to say, or that came to mind that I didn't let you say earlier before?

No, no, 

Sheng-Hung Lee: thanks for, thanks for having me. I think it's, it's a wonderful, it's I think it's more than just design. It's like everything connected. And then I feel like human beings, it's, it's, as a whole, [01:11:00] it's not like, Oh, sometimes we're just too focused on specific part and miss the whole picture. And it's, I mean, things can go wrong and people are are human, right?

Well, things go wrong. It's okay to go wrong and it should be go wrong sometimes. 

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, you can learn. Like with the bank thing, that was not a nice experience to have, but actually it ended up being a beautiful kind of explication of design, right? The credit card thing and that we talked about. Exactly. So it's a good example.

Well, thank you so much. It's been really great to talk to you and I'll, uh, I, I brought up those little cards a few times in our talk. So for the listeners, I'll make sure I put those in the show notes or whatever you'll have to, I think it's on your website so I can find it. And also some of the books that you've been reading, but thanks a lot.

And I wish you lots of good luck with your work. 

Sheng-Hung Lee: Thank you so much. It's a wonderful talk. Love it. Yeah. Cool.