Haiyan Zhang: Innovating User Experiences

Haiyan Zhang

Haiyan Zhang is an interaction designer, technologist and maker of things. She is Innovation Director at Microsoft Research, Cambridge. Exploring new “Connected Play” experiences enabled by cutting-edge technology. 

Haiyan was formerly Innovation Director at Lift London, a Microsoft Game Studio; Co-Founder and Design Lead for the innovation platform, OpenIDEO. With over 50,000 users worldwide solving challenges for social good and used as the enterprise innovation engine for organisations such as British Airways, DeutscheBank, Harvard Business School. Working at the design consultancy, IDEO, she has created innovative tech experiences for community building, entertainment, and financial services. She has also worked with leading videogame makers on research and game ideas for new play experiences. Clients Haiyan has worked with include Mattel, Electronic Arts, HBO, France Telecom, Alcatel, Cisco, and AT&T. Haiyan’s work is informed by her previous profession as a software engineer and user interface designer creating applications for the biomedical and data-mining industries. As part of a team of software developers from Excel Tech in Canada, she created an electroencephalograph (EEG) visualization tool for intra-operative monitoring which is currently being used in hospitals across North America. She has lived and worked in Australia, Toronto, China, Italy, San Francisco and now resides in London.

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