Zidong (Jerry) Lin

Design (MPhil/PhD)
A black-and-white photo of Jerry squatting beside a stone wall, holding his favourite West Highland White Terrier - Over.
A visual overview of a PhD research methodology outlining epistemological positions, mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative), research stages, practices, timeline and research questions.
A visual overview of a PhD research methodology outlining epistemological positions, mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative), research stages, practices, timeline and research questions.
A methodology overview of the PhD research.
Participants seated around a table are engaging in a creative design workshop, using illustrated worksheets, sketching tools, printed visual prompts and design probes to explore ideas for pleasurable experiences though IoT transformations.
Participants seated around a table are engaging in a creative design workshop, using illustrated worksheets, sketching tools, printed visual prompts and design probes to explore ideas for pleasurable experiences though IoT transformations.
A workshop within the PhD research engaging HCI researchers in ideating pleasurable experiences through the transformation from analogue to IoT products, using three physical design probes.
A stylised image showing three overlapping pages of an academic paper, presented in a 3D perspective against a dark background, showcasing Jerry's paper published at the DRS 2022 conference.
A stylised image showing three overlapping pages of an academic paper, presented in a 3D perspective against a dark background, showcasing Jerry's paper published at the DRS 2022 conference.
Key Publication: Lin, Z., Hall, A., and Sommer, B. (2022) Designing experiences for IoT products: A case study testing existing UX frameworks, in Lockton, D., Lenzi, S., Hekkert, P., Oak, A., Sádaba, J., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2022: Bilbao, 25 June - 3 July, Bilbao, Spain. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.593
A stylised image showing three overlapping pages of an academic paper, presented in a 3D perspective against a dark background, showcasing Jerry's paper published at the ICED 2023 conference.
A stylised image showing three overlapping pages of an academic paper, presented in a 3D perspective against a dark background, showcasing Jerry's paper published at the ICED 2023 conference.
Key Publication: Lin, Z., Ahmed-Kristensen, S., Hall, A., and Sommer, B. (2023) Using Pleasurability to Compare Wristwatches and IoT Smartwatches: Providing Novel Insights into UX Design. Proceedings of the Design Society. 3, pp. 3761–3770. https://doi.org/10.1017/pds.2023.377
A visual overview of a PhD research methodology outlining epistemological positions, mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative), research stages, practices, timeline and research questions.
Participants seated around a table are engaging in a creative design workshop, using illustrated worksheets, sketching tools, printed visual prompts and design probes to explore ideas for pleasurable experiences though IoT transformations.
A stylised image showing three overlapping pages of an academic paper, presented in a 3D perspective against a dark background, showcasing Jerry's paper published at the DRS 2022 conference.
A stylised image showing three overlapping pages of an academic paper, presented in a 3D perspective against a dark background, showcasing Jerry's paper published at the ICED 2023 conference.

About

Zidong (Jerry) Lin is a design researcher and interaction designer whose research-through-design practice explores experience design for Internet of Things (IoT) products through socio-technical narratives and experimental design methods. From 2019 to 2025, he completed his PhD in Design Research at the Royal College of Art. He previously earned an MFA in Design Informatics from the University of Edinburgh and a BA (Hons) in Product Design from the University of Lincoln.

His PhD thesis “Exploring Pleasure-Driven Design Through Internet of Things (IoT) Transformations” adopts an emergent methodology that integrates a research-through-design approach with a mixed methods approach, employing multiple methods including questionnaires, workshops, material speculation, co-speculation, technology probes and interviews. The research begins with exploratory practices that identify differences between IoT products and their analogue forms in terms of pleasurable experiences, while also uncovering deficiencies in existing experience design frameworks. Subsequently, the Internet of Things Transformations for Pleasurable Experience (IoTT for PLEX) Framework is developed to guide designers in delivering pleasurable experiences by utilising IoT transformations as materials and to enable design researchers to explore pleasure-driven design in this context. The framework is initially tested with designers and then with human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers through material speculation. Building on this framework, the CloudPlanter – a technology probe and research product – was developed and applied in a co-speculation experiment that involved four pairs of participants to explore the future relationship between humans and networked objects.

His PhD research makes a valuable contribution to both the design and HCI research communities by expanding upon existing pleasure-driven experience design approaches specifically for IoT products and uncovering the mutual influence between pleasure-driven design and IoT transformations. The major contribution of this research is the development of the novel IoTT for PLEX Framework. The research also generates knowledge at an intermediate level, including reflections on applying established approaches and an emergent methodology of investigating pleasure-driven design within the specific contexts and cases of IoT transformations. Overall, it offers new possibilities that should help designers create novel experiences through IoT transformations, inspire future research in IoT experience design and empower the IoT product industry to create more pleasurable and meaningful products.

His wider work spans HCI, object-oriented ontologies (OOO), data-driven design and speculative design among other topics.

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