Synergy, Meet Opportunity

[Photo] Interaction and landscape designer Sida Li in 2012 assembling the public furniture installation Movable Landscape.

SYNERGY, MEETOPPORTUNITY

With a degree in landscape architecture, Sida Li (MDes 2016), used her innate curiosity about the intersection of art and psychology to become an interaction designer working for a medical startup.

Born and raised in China until she was 22, Li completed her Master of Landscape Architecture degree at the University of New Mexico before moving to San Francisco to work at a nonprofit focused on urban beautification. It was there that she gained an appreciation for community-based design and, for the first time, met user experience designers, who showed her how technology enabled design to create greater social impact.

A simple Google search for interaction design programs led her to find CCA, where she applied for and enrolled in the Master of Design in Interaction Design program.

“At CCA, this type of interdisciplinary journey is becoming commonplace,” says Interaction Design program founder and chair Kristian Simsarian. “Seeing where synergy turns into opportunity is a specialty of our program.”

It wasn’t until Li lived in America that she learned about addiction, the epidemic tearing apart the lives and families of her newfound friends. In Hugh Dubberly’s Systems course at CCA, her assignment was to identify a friend with a serious medical condition. The agony Li witnessed in studying her friend’s drug addiction inspired her to create an app that served as a digital support group, sparking her passion for wellness through design.

“Because of my background in landscape design, I was trained to think about functionality and aesthetics at the same time,” Li says. “But the Systems project helped me realize technology’s potential, that it’s not just about how cabs can pick us up faster, or how we can get meals delivered more easily. I learned how design can be used to create behavioral changes.”

Soon after Li graduated from CCA, she got a job offer from a Silicon Valley firm. But upon learning from her mentor Simsarian about a role at Carrot—a Redwood City–based smoking-cessation company that combines mobile-sensor technology with clinical strategies and delivers them via an accessible app— she immediately changed course and

[Photos, this page] Carrot Inc.’s smokingcessation app, Pivot, features a carbon monoxide breath sensor.

landed her dream job, changing lives for the better through creativity and compassion.

“Carrot and Sida Li were a perfect match right from the start. Her broad skill set has helped fuel the social-impact mission of our growing startup,” says Grace Lee, Carrot’s vice president of design and experience. “Building on her previous work as an urban designer, the CCA MDes program gave her a combination of cutting-edge design craft skills, leadership skills, and adaptability that a growing startup needs.”

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