About

Yvette Shen is a designer, researcher, and educator, currently Associate Professor and Aea Coordinator of Visual Communication Design at The Ohio State University. She also serves on the AIGA Design Educators Community board, contributing to a strong network of academic and professional peers.

Born in Shanghai, her work is shaped by movement across cultures, disciplines, and modes of making, evolving through research, teaching, and creative practice.

With training in fashion design, computer science, and visual communication design, Yvette began her career as an interactive designer working across industries, from pharmaceutical research to art, mobility, and culture.

Today, her work focuses on information design, data visualization, and UX/UI, with particular attention to how generative technologies are reshaping design education and professional practice. Through research, teaching, and experimentation, she examines how tools such as generative AI influence visual reasoning, authorship, and decision-making, using design as both inquiry and method to translate complexity into forms that support understanding and care.

Understanding empowers. Creativity connects. Good design brings clarity with intention. Every decision, large or small, deserves a story shaped by honesty, care, and attention to context. Design is not only about appearance. It is about how systems work, how information supports people, and how experiences invite engagement.

Yvette works through research, prototyping, and collaboration. She integrates design research, visualization, and participatory methods to develop visual systems that make complex information legible, usable, and meaningful in real contexts.

By working closely with stakeholders, domain experts, and communities, she builds frameworks that support sensemaking, learning, and more equitable access to inormation.