Design Ideas, Put to the Test
This year, HOTO partnered with ArtCenter College of Design on a course exploring how design ideas can translate into tools for everyday life.
On August 15, ArtCenter students and faculty visited HOTO’s Shanghai headquarters for the final presentations and a design review with HOTO Founder and CEO Liu Lidan, Head of Tool Products Zheng Lu, and Product Director Lai Sheng.
The students approached the brief from different directions. Some started with broader design principles and asked what a tool could enable. Others looked at familiar tools and existing product experiences, then explored how they could work differently in new contexts.
What connected the projects was a common question: how can design make a tool more useful, intuitive, and relevant to the way people actually live?
From Concept to Product
For HOTO, good design does not stop at the idea.
During the review, Liu Lidan focused on the thinking behind each concept, challenging students to push their ideas further. Zheng Lu brought the discussion back to product design, functionality, and real-world use. Lai Sheng introduced different user profiles to help students examine how habits and expectations can change the way a tool is experienced.
The discussion moved between two sides of design: what is possible, and what makes it work.
Students were asked to explain not only what they designed, but why. What problem were they solving? What did they choose to prioritize? What would change when the concept met a real user?
Design Starts With the User
The review was not about arriving at one “right” answer.
Each project reflected a different interpretation of HOTO’s design philosophy. The role of the HOTO team was to challenge assumptions, raise practical questions, and help students see where an idea could go next.
Designing a tool means balancing form, function, precision, and the context in which it will be used. A good idea becomes a good product through the decisions made along the way.
The ArtCenter course offered HOTO another perspective on design: seeing tools through the eyes of a new generation of designers. Their proposals brought fresh questions to familiar product categories and explored how tools can fit into different lifestyles, habits, and everyday situations.
Learning Through Exchange
For HOTO, that exchange matters. Design is not a fixed formula. It evolves through observation, discussion, testing, and the willingness to look at familiar things differently.
HOTO will continue to work with emerging designers and design communities to explore what tools can be, and how thoughtful design can make everyday work simpler, more capable, and more enjoyable.
Author: HOTO PR team
