Systems thinking-driven
designer shaping research,
scattered signals, and early
explorations into focused
experiences worth building
designer shaping research,
scattered signals, and early
explorations into focused
experiences worth building
YaYing Yu
Designing at Dartmouth DALI Lab • Open to opportunities
Selected works
Design principles for complex problems
Symptoms are not the problem
Clarity emerges at leverage points
Interaction reveals what reasoning cannot
My work focuses first on diagnosing systems and guiding intervention.
Then I refine the designs that express it.
DESIGN IN OUR CURRENT TIMES
Let's address the elephant in the room.
AI raises the floor. But, the ceiling still belongs to designers who can turn
real insight into something worth building.
AI has changed how I work, not what I'm working toward. I use it to move faster through early exploration,
generating directions, pressure-testing ideas, cutting the mechanical work down.
But I come from cognitive science. I think in systems before I think in screens.
The value I bring isn't in producing outputs; it's in knowing which problem is actually worth solving, and making sure
the design reflects that. Not just what looked good in a mood board or what AI suggested felt right.
Anyone can generate options now. Fewer people can tell you why one of them is the right one.