Anson is an independent industrial designer based in San Francisco, with over a decade of experience designing award-winning technology products in both consumer and enterprise hardware.
He was previously a Partner at Bould Design, the studio behind iconic designs such as the Nest Thermostat, Roku streaming devices, and GoPro cameras. On the design side, He led work for clients both large and small, shipping dozens of products with the team there. On the business side, He led business strategy, operations, and marketing, growing the studio from a team of 6 to 20 staff with my business partners over 6 years.
Anson loves simple, elegant, functional design. He believes that the thoughtful application of technology paired with well-considered user experiences can meaningfully improve people’s lives.
Anson writes regularly about design and creativity on LinkedIn and his blog, Design Things.
Panel Discussion: Should You Pivot to UX?
In the last decade, we have begun to see more and more industrial designers jumping onto the UX Design gold rush. This trend has become so common within the field of Industrial Design that many have started to wonder—”Should I pivot to UX as well?”
It’s easy to think of UX Design as purely the creation of screen-centric experiences. However, without the integration of the physical housing, none of the digital experiences could have existed. The expectation of more fluid experiences that bridge the physical and digital interfaces is becoming higher than before, especially during a post-pandemic world. So, how might we approach our problem solving more holistically, and how will industrial designers play a critical role in the product development process that involves complex user touchpoints?
In this panel discussion, we will cover a range of topics for industrial designers to consider when figuring out where they want to take their careers, with the experiences and skillsets they have gained from Industrial Design into a more interdisciplinary creative field.
Anson Cheung, IDSA, is Studio Director at Bould Design and a leader on IDSA’s DEIC. As a member of the DEIC Data Team with 2020 Young Educator of the Year Award recipient Betsy Barnhart, IDSA, Anson—with Betsy and volunteer partners across multiple design organizations and IDSA’s Board of Directors—shaped the 2021 IDSA Membership Survey. This survey, conducted in the summer of 2021, resulted in valuable data, presented in key parts during the 2021 IDSA Membership Meeting and in the upcoming 2021 Winter issue of IDSA’s INNOVATION magazine.
Anson has been inspired in 2021 by the resilience, adaptability, and creativity of his team at Bould Design. “For much of 2021, as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact all aspects of daily life, we continued to work remotely without knowing when we might be able to return to our studio,” he says. “Despite this, our team leveraged the organization and communication gains that came from working from home for over a year to produce excellent design work for our clients. We actually brought several new designers on board during this time and our team has grown to the largest it has ever been.”
As Anson and his team have transitioned to working primarily in the studio, after everyone got their vaccines, Bould Design “has embraced a hybrid model of working from home two days a week,” he says, “which has allowed us to spend less time commuting and more time with family and loved ones, while still facilitating a high degree of in-person collaboration and physical prototyping that fuels great design.”
A source of inspiration for Anson is seeing his team’s work manifest in a clear and positive impact. For example, R-Zero Systems, a start-up founded in the early days of the pandemic, partnered with Bould Design in 2021 to launch not one but three products that provide targeted and continuous UV disinfection for businesses to address the lingering challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Seeing devices that started as a sketch on a piece of paper in my home office deploying to schools, restaurants, offices, and other facilities is a great motivation to keep doing what we’re doing,” Anson says.
Another client, Span, launched three new products that Bould Design worked on this year to enable homeowners to transition more easily to clean energy sources like solar, and better control their energy usage. “It seems that a confluence of factors is now enabling technology and incentives to align and enable products to have real impact on major issues like climate change,” Anson notes, adding, “I’m excited for us designers to be part of that journey.”
Also inspiring to Anson is the ongoing work of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council, with the support of IDSA. “What being part of this Council has made clear to me is that the path to solving any issue that affects the design community or any community starts with giving those affected a voice and space for their concerns to be heard,” he attests. “Seeing the conversations that start in and the subsequent actions that come out of our monthly DEIC leadership meetings inspires me to do more.”
Anson strongly pushed for the IDSA Membership Survey in particular because he believes “we can’t improve if we don’t know what we’re improving on.” Seeing a meaningful amount of data return has been very satisfying for him; and on a personal note, “the support of IDSA after the wave of Asian hate earlier this year, and the speed at which they offered a platform to myself and a diverse group of Asian designers (Amanda Huynh, Ana Baluca, Danielle Chen, Michelle Lee) to host a frank discussion of how Asian American issues intersect with the design community was incredibly meaningful.”
Next year, Anson says he would love to keep doing what he’s doing now, but more and better. “I’m looking forward to continuing to produce design work with our amazing team that has a positive impact on the world,” he says. “I also look forward to continuing my work with the DEIC and utilizing the data we collected through the Membership Survey to inform our work.”
