“Good medicine tastes bitter.” said Confucius.

Although its taste is not so pleasant, at least it cures the disease.
What’s more, it keeps us awake.

Do products always have to satisfy the users? How can products that purposely made not so useful affect our perception and understanding of it? How can designers deliver ideas through products? In this project, I try to create a series of products that are not so useful but have good intentioned messages inside, as to explore the purpose and future of product design.

Xinyu Weng
Good Medicine Tastes Bitter
Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
Bachelor Thesis
Product Design / Interaction Design / Speculative Design
Summer 2014
Supervised by Prof. Wolfgang Sattler and Kristian Gohlke

More pictures after the break or on the project website.

Update: Wired article about the project.

Xinyu Weng is a product designer from Zhejiang, China. After graduating in Germanistics in Beijing, he came to Bauhaus University Weimar, Germany – one of the birthplaces of modern design. His interest for design lies in emotional and interactive products.

Xinyu’s work mainly focuses on emotional and conceptual aspects of a product. He constantly reflects on the follow questions: What is the responsibility of a product designer? What do products of tomorrow look like? How can we prevent designers from descending to be the accomplice of the catalyst of our endless desire.

Xinyu recently graduated from the Bauhaus University with distinction.