Zou Yuanhua
1. Congratulations on winning the London Design Awards! Can you introduce yourself and share about what inspired you to pursue design as a career?
Hello everyone, I’m Zou Yuanhua, Chairman of Shenzhen Wandechang Innovative Intelligence Co., Ltd. The core inspiration driving me to engage in design-related careers is combining technology with design to solve practical pain points in life and make people’s lives more convenient.
2. What does being recognised in the London Design Awards mean to you?
This award is international recognition of our product’s design and innovative value, a great encouragement to the team’s efforts, and will inspire us to continue deepening our focus on the intelligent delivery field.
3. How has this achievement impacted your career, team, or agency, and what opportunities has it brought so far?
For me, it strengthens my determination to deepen engagement in the intelligent delivery field; for the team, it greatly enhances cohesion and confidence; for the company, it significantly boosts international visibility, attracting many overseas cooperation inquiries and market expansion opportunities so far.
4. What role does experimentation play in your creative process? Can you share an example?
Experimentation is key to turning ideas into reality—it verifies feasibility and optimises details. For example, for Bear Big’s navigation system, we repeatedly tested in various complex indoor and outdoor scenarios, adjusted algorithm parameters, and finally solved the problems of precise obstacle avoidance and efficient path planning.
5. What's the most unusual source of inspiration you've ever drawn from for a project?
The most unusual source of inspiration came from observing ants collaborating to carry food in my community—their ability to find paths accurately and cooperate efficiently inspired us to optimise the robot’s path planning logic and multi-robot collaborative delivery scheme.
6. What’s one thing you wish more people understood about the design process?
Design is not just about pursuing aesthetics; its core lies in pragmatism based on user needs and repeated refinement—every detail is backed by responses to pain points and countless optimisations.
7. How do you navigate the balance between meeting client expectations and staying true to your ideas?
The key is "understand first, reach consensus second": first, deeply grasp the client’s core needs, then persuade them with product logic and practical value data.
For example, a client once requested simplifying functions to control costs; we proved the necessity of core functions like fresh-keeping and navigation, and finally found a win-win solution of "streamlining non-essential features".
8. What were the challenges you faced while working on your award-winning design, and how did you overcome them?
The core challenge was balancing the robot’s battery life and food preservation—both have conflicting requirements for hardware space and energy consumption. We collaborated with battery and material teams to develop high-efficiency lithium batteries, paired with vacuum insulation compartments, and achieved the balance through hundreds of energy distribution tests.
9. How do you recharge your creativity when you hit a creative block?
When hitting a creative block, I’ll step into real delivery scenarios to observe user needs, brainstorm with the team, or follow new industry technologies—such as referencing innovative cases in logistics to break out of fixed thinking.
10. What personal values or experiences do you infuse into your designs?
I always infuse the values of "pragmatism and truth-seeking", "empathising with users", and "adhering to quality" into my designs. Past experiences of observing pain points in the delivery industry have made me firmly believe that design must solve practical problems while never compromising product safety and reliability.
11. What is an advice that you would you give to aspiring designers aiming for success?
Root yourselves in real user needs, don’t fear mistakes, and uphold your passion for innovation—the value of design will ultimately shine through in solving problems.
12. If you could collaborate with any designer, past or present, who would it be and why?
I would choose Dieter Rams. His philosophy that "good design is useful, simple, and enduring" aligns perfectly with our core design pursuit of "solving problems and prioritising users". I look forward to learning more wisdom from him on balancing functionality and texture.
13. What's one question you wish people would ask you about your work, and what's your answer?
I wish someone would ask: "Beyond convenient delivery, what social values can Bear Big bring?"
My answer: It can reduce carbon emissions from traditional delivery vehicles to support environmental protection, and alleviate the pressure of labour shortages during peak delivery hours, making resource allocation more efficient.
