Hello!
My name is Allen Wang. I’m a problem-solver and lifelong learner with an eclectic schema and a love for speculative thinking.
I was born in China but grew up in Toronto, Canada where I spent two decades, minus a six-month exchange semester to Denmark. Also on that exchange, I spent some forty-five cumulative days backpacking around some twelve European countries.
I love telling stories. I’ve been working on a novel on-and-off for the past ten years. In the current iteration, it’s a recollection of sequences from my high school years, particularly some of the biking adventures I used to go on. But in reverse-chronological order.
I maintain a broad spattering of interests across classical music, digital photography, languages, modern literature, continental philosophy, critical theory, psychology, art/design history, avant-garde art, and so forth. I read Wikipedia for fun. Nostalgic sentimentalisms are a constant source of inspiration. And so forth.
Feel free to shoot me a message: allen.wang1023 [at] gmail.com
Where am I right now?
Master in Design Studies (Ecologies domain) candidate at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (2023–2025 anticipated) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Statement of design philosophy: Services are the sum of complex patterns of human behaviours surrounding touchpoints between providers and consumers. Unlike outputs in other design fields, services are ambiguous because no single actor has a holistic view and no holistic view reflects the nuances of each individual interaction. User research and facilitation help us navigate in the face of ambiguity and align stakeholders on timely, incremental interventions.
Design is the responsibility to grapple with complex human problems towards optimistic ends. As a critically-trained investigator, I believe the most important question to ask is never “what” or “how, “but “who.” In my practice, I advocate passionately for the voices of users and stakeholders underrepresented in existing systems (“non-dominant perspectives”) to produce holistic outcomes.
Thank you!
“We followed the Highland Creek up into the beach out into a clearing of trees on into the moonlight glare down into a recollection, some recollection of a biking trip when we (when I) went searching for stars (went searching for suns in dark places) and found driftwood.”