On the morning of March 17, 2015, Dr. ZHAO Feng, Assistant Managing Director at Microsoft Research Asia, visited College of Design and Innovation of Tongji University (D&I). LOU Yongqi, Dean of D&I, delivered a welcome speech firstly, and then awarded Dr. ZHAO the appointment letter of adjunct professorship of Tongji University. After that, Dr. ZHAO, Dean LOU, together with SUN Xiaohua, vice dean of D&I, and Dr. LIU Wei announced the establishment of the Microsoft-Tongji User Experience Design Joint Research Centre and unveiled its nameplate. This research centre, with Dr. Liu as its director, would put innovation design thinking into practice and facilitate its dynamic development in teaching and research process, with its research interests covering research through design, smart living, context design, interactive technology, embodied and tangible interaction, emotional design, user research, etc. It will strive to make contributions to education, research and industry cooperation in the field of user experience design.

After a brief celebration ceremony, Dr. ZHAO Feng gave a lecture themed “The Innovation and User Experience in the IOT Era” in the conference hall. He emphasized the importance of the close integration of “Hardware-Interconnection-Big Data” for future innovative design, and used cases to illustrate how to apply “Disruptive Innovation” thinking to improve the user experience in life and work contexts. He also showed the audience how the intelligent hardware, on basis of technology circles, can bridge the gap and create new “wisdom experience” and “win-win ecosystem” for users. During interaction with the audiences, Dr. ZHAO Feng gave the advice of “accurately grasping market trends and user demands and enhancing user experience”.

Dean LOU shared with audience his opinion on artificial intelligence and information security. He also expressed his wishes to conduct in-depth cooperation between D&I and Microsoft Research Asia, particularly, with focus on promoting the cooperation in prospective scientific research and education in the domain of wearable and embedded user experience.

D&I has spared no efforts to contribute to building Shanghai into a global innovation centre by pooling the resources and power of its strategic cooperation partners.