(she/her/her)
Yu-Ting Cheng
Design PhD
HCI Design Researcher
Research Areas:
Data-Enabled Objects
Human-AI HCI Interaction
Privacy-Aware Interaction
More-Than Human-Centred Design
Thing-Centered Design
Research Skills:
Research through Design Method (RtD)
Design Fiction Method
Empirical Study Method
Object-Oriented Design Perspective
Email:
Education
Double PhD in Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands, and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan
Current Position:
PostDoc Researcher (National Taiwan University | NTU-IoX Center)
Design Areas:
Smart Home System Design
Data-Enabled Product Design
Graphic, Interface
User Experience & Interface & Interaction
Design Skills:
Tangible Prototyping (laser cutting, 3D printing, soldering, Raspberry Pi)
Digital Prototyping (Illustrator, photoshop, cinema 4D, Raspberry Pi coding [python])
Language
Traditional Chinese, English
Nationality:
Taiwan
Hobby
Sci-fi, anime, volleyball, travel, blog,
Free diving
A Bit About Me
Yu-Ting Cheng obtained a double PhD in Industrial Design from TU/e (Eindhoven University of Technology) and NTUST (National Taiwan University of Science and Technology). She focuses on developing design fiction and speculative design related methods in order to studying the emerging future. She had worked in the NTU IoX Center in Taiwan to support the research teams to envision future scenarios for their technologies. Some of her works tried to deploy fictional objects into the field to probe users' behaviours. (Please see Wearable R.I.P on Core77.) She is also an avid blogger, sharing her thoughts in Speculatizen to introduce design fiction to the Chinese community. Her current researches are (1) Designing data privacy for Internet of Things, (2) Studying user's intention through observing traces of things, (3) Studying Sci-fi Movies to speculate new interface possibilities for the intelligent agents.
Research Areas
I am a human-computer interaction (HCI) and design researcher who specializes in developing creative methods and designerly tools that support designers in creating and exploring novel experiences and interactions between humans, non-humans, and data. My research combines methods of designing and making and qualitative empirical studies.
More-Than-Human-Centred Design:
Speculation, Design Fiction,
Object-Oriented Design Thinking
Develop creative methods and tools to engage people with alternative perspectives and revisit people's everyday life beyond human's naked eyes (e.g., objects, animals, and plants).
Human-Data Interaction:
Trust, Control, and Privacy in Connected Intelligent Systems
Explore and design mechanisms for establishing trust between humans and intelligent objects, fostering collaborative interactions that enable the adjustment, formation, and refinement of mutually preferable intelligent behaviours.
The Aesthetic of Human-Technology Experience
Explore and define the aesthetics for the future interface and interaction of intelligent interactive systems.
Education
2017 - July 2023 (expected)
PhD
Eindhoven University of Technology
(Eindhoven, the Netherlands)
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (Taipei, Taiwan)
2014-2015
Exchange
ArtCenter Design Collegae
(Pasadena, USA)
2013 - 2016
Master
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (Taipei, Taiwan)
2009 - 2013
Bachelor
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (Taipei, Taiwan)
I took a double PhD program between two design departments and worked on Internet of Things home system design research. I was supervised by Mathias Funk, Lin-Lin Chen, and Rung-Huei Liang.
I took government funding and enrolled as an exchange student in the Product Design department.
I obtained my degree in the Design department and was supervised by Lin-Lin Chen and Rung-Huei Liang, working on wearable design research.
I obtained my industrial design degree in the Design Undergraduate Honors Program, working on baby bathing series product design.
2007 - 2009
High School
Deguang Catholic Senior High School (Tainan, Taiwan)
2006 - 2007
High School
Taichung Municipal Hui-Wen Senior High School (Taichung, Taiwan)
Work & Teaching Experience
Jan 2022 - Feb 2023
Feb 2017 - Apr 2020
Sep 2018 - Dec 2019
Sep 2016 - Dec 2017
Sep 2013 - Jun 2014
Aug 2012 - Aug 2013
I was a Curatorial Consultant at Ground Zero Studio in Taiwan, responsible for reviewing, reorganising, and revising the exhibition's articulation, booklet, and final report to ensure alignment with the collaborators' and sponsors' requirements. I also worked with the Studio to write a funding proposal for a government grant to support their artistic endeavours. I also served as a Graphic Designer, designing interactive QA pages for advertising their activities.
I enrolled as a Teaching Assistant in Technologies for Connectivity bachelor design course organised by Dr. Mathias Funk at the Industrial Design Department at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. I designed engaging and challenging assignments for students. These tasks included designing for a connected escape room (2017), connected treasure hunting (2018), and a data constellation workshop (2019).
I enrolled as a Co-Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Innovation bachelor design course organised by Prof. Dr. Lin-Lin Chen at the Industrial Design Department at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. I designed the course curriculum, assignments, and rubric. I gave lectures and facilitated discussions with students on designing privacy-aware Internet of Things systems for the home.
I served as a Design Researcher (UX/UI) at NTU IoX Center in Taiwan, responsible for proposing potential user scenarios, new applications, and social impacts of the latest technology developed by the centre. My jobs included studying future trends, conducting user studies, developing novel research probes, and visualising scenarios. My focus is on creating meaningful experiences for potential future users and identifying how the technology could create new meanings in their lives.
I worked as a part-time UX/UI designer both in Gallant Precision Machining Co. and DBI Dermacare Biomed inc. I designed posters, flags, and slides for internal use in GPM. I designed the product brochure and the user interface of the cooling machine in DBI.
Honors
2020-2021
TOP Grant
[Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology]
1-year oversea program to Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands
2018-2020
Dragon Gate Grant
[Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology]
2-year oversea program to Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands
2017
XUE XUE Sponsor
[XUE XUE Foundation]
1-week oversea program to Boisbuchet Design Workshop in France
2015
Sakura Science Sponsor
[Sakura Science Club]
1-week oversea program to Kyushu University in Japan
2014-2015
MOE SPOSAD Grant
[Taiwan Ministry of Education]
1-year oversea program to ArtCenter College of Design in USA
Publications
Journal
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Yu-Ting Cheng, Mathias Funk, Rung-Huei Liang, and Lin-Lin Chen. 2023. Seeing Through Things: Exploring the Design Space of Privacy-aware Data-enabled Objects. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. 30(4), Article 56 (August 2023), 43 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3577012
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Yi-Ching (Janet) Huang, Yu-Ting Cheng, Rung-Huei Liang, Jane Yung-Jen Hsu, Lin-Lin Chen. 2021. Thing Constellation Visualizer: Exploring Emergent Relationships of Everyday Objects. Proceedings of ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 5, CSCW2, Article 479. https://doi.org/10.1145/3479866.
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Yu-Ting Cheng, Rung-Huei Liang, Lin-Lin Chen. 2022. Exploring Constellation of Everyday Things to Envision Future Collaboration of Smart Things. Journal of Design, 27 (4). [Chinese, semantic translation]
Conference
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Fei (Dillon) Shieh, Yu-Ting Cheng, Renee Noortman, Mathias Funk. Minty Zoo: an interspecies plant-based communication system. In Nordic Human-Computer Interaction Conference (NordiCHI '22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 92, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1145/3546155.3547295
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Yu-Ting Cheng, Yi-Ching (Janet) Huang. When People Vanish: A Study to Investigate How Human Presence Changes the Scenario Speculation. Companion Publication of the 2021 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing(CSCW ’21 Companion), https://doi.org/10.1145/3462204.3481781.
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Matthew Lee-Smith, Tracy Ross, Yu-Ting Cheng, and Mathias Funk. Human-Data Interaction (HDI). the accepted paper for the HDI Workshop in the 2021 Human-Computer Interaction Conference (CHI'21). ACM: New York. http://designresearch.works/chi2021-hdi-workshop/accepted-papers.html
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Cheng, Yu-Ting. Awareness of Things: Designing Novel Data for Future Daily Objects. In Proceedings of Doctoral Consortium of the 2020 Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS'DC'19). ACM: New York. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3393914.3395833.
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Yu-Ting Cheng, Mathias Funk, and Lin-Lin Chen. “Connected Peekaboo Toolkit: Exploring Privacy-Aware Data Collection at Home.” In Data Science Summit 2019, 1, n.d. https://www.tue.nl/en/research/research-areas/data-science/data-science-summit-2019/.
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Huang, Yi-Ching (Janet), Cheng, Yu-Ting, Hsu, Jane Yung-Jen, Chen, Lin-Lin. Human-AI Co-Learning for Data-Driven AI. arXiv paper. https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.12544
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Huang, Yi-Ching (Janet), Cheng, Yu-Ting, Hsu, Jane Yung-Jen, Chen, Lin-Lin. Human-AI Co-Learning for Data-Driven AI. In Data Science Summit 2019, 1, n.d.
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Yu-Ting Cheng, Mathias Funk, Wenn Chieh Tsai, Lin-Lin Chen. Peekaboo cam: Designing an observational system for home ecologies. In Proceedings of the 2019 Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS’19). https://doi.org/10.1145/3322276.3323699. (Acceptance Rate: 20-25%)
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Yu-Ting Cheng, Guo-Ling Tsai, Heng-An Lin, Yi-Ching (Janet) Huang, Rung Huei Liang, Lin-Lin Chen. 2019. Call me by my names: Exploring roles of sci-fi agents. In Proceedings of Extended Abstracts of the 2019 Human-Computer Interaction (CHI'EA'19). ACM: New York. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290607.3313074.
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Po-Hao Wang, Yu-Ting Cheng, Wenn Chieh Tsai, Rung Huei Liang. 2019. Flâneur’s phonograph: A flâneur shift in urban exploration. In Proceedings of the 2019 Research through Design (RTD’19). https://research.tue.nl/en/publications/fl%C3%A2neurs-phonograph-a-fl%C3%A2neur-shift-in-urban-exploration
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Yu-Ting Cheng, Wenn Chieh Tsai, David Chung, Rung Huei Liang. 2018. Once upon a future: An audio drama game for episodic imagination. In Proceedings of 2018 ACM Conference Companion Publication on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS '18 Companion). ACM: New York. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3197391.3205429
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鄭宇婷、孔博雯、朱千慧、李佳恩、李宜庭、梁容輝,2017,以侘寂為互動素材,探索「時間感現身」的「時間形」設計 (Expanding on Wabi-Sabi as Material to Design Temporal Form)。台灣人機互動學術研討會(TaiCHI),成功大學。 (Best Paper Award / 9%)
Outreach
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Yu-Ting Cheng. 2023. More-Than Human-Centred Design. Online Talk in the Department of Industrial Design at Shih Chien University in Taipei, Taiwan.
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Yu-Ting Cheng. 2023. Once Upon a Future. Online Talk in the Department of Industrial Design at Shih Chien University in Taipei, Taiwan.
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Yu-Ting Cheng. 2022. Future is Already Here. Online Talk in the Department of Industrial Design at Shih Chien University in Taipei, Taiwan (Jan/06).
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Yu-Ting Cheng. 2022. Once Upon a Future. Talk In the Department of Industrial Design at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan (Organised by Design Research Institute (TDRI)).
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Yu-Ting Cheng. 2022. Once Upon a Future. Talk in the Department of Industrial Design at Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology in Tainan, Taiwan (Organised by Design Research Institute (TDRI)).
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Chia-Wei Ho and Yu-Ting Cheng. 2022. Realities Above. Talk in Weight Books book store in Taipei, Taiwan (Sept/2).
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Yu-Ting Cheng. 2019. Peeking Everyday: Designing Object-Oriented Sensing. In Dutch Design Week in the Netherlands, Eindhoven (Oct/26).
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Yu-Ting Cheng. 2018. Once Upon a Future. In VanBerlo Design Studio in Eindhoven, the Netherlands (March 13).
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Yu-Ting Cheng. 2017. Designing Einstein’s Dreams. In Xue Xue Foundation in Taipei, Taiwan (Jun 6).
Talks
More in my CV: