About
Jinsoo An
Product Designer & Researcher
Jinsoo designs visionary products around changing behaviors, emerging cultures and converging technologies—by interweaving wellness, mobility and media.
For over 13 years, he has been building, scaling, revamping and diversifying products through multidisciplinary practices—including UX design, behavioral research, anthropology, growth strategy, risk mitigation and foresight.
His expertise lies in solving problems by understanding the relationship between people, tools and spaces.
He also specializes in form factors and their software experiences stemming from mobile, wearable and IoT devices, sensory apparatus, and blockchain.
Areas of Focus
Product
Product Design
UX & Interaction Design
Concept Development
Product Management
Insight & Analysis
User Testing
Ethnographic Research
Risk Assessment
Planning & Strategy
Growth Strategy
Platform Integration
Foresight
Profiled On
Experience at a Glance
Years of Experience
Completed Projects
Fortune 500 Companies
Talks Given Worldwide
Industries
Honors & Awards
Notable Clients
Selected Honors & Awards
1st Place Winner & Team Lead
Hololens Hackathon, Microsoft, 2016
1st Place Winner & Team Lead
Extreme Wearables Designathon, Intel & ArtCenter College of Design, 2014
Best Brand Experience, Volkswagen VW.com
UX Awards, 2014
Mobile of the Day, Volkswagen SmileDrive App
FWA, 2013
Nominee, Pop Secret Poptopia & Pop Dongle
The Webby Awards, 2014
Professional Involvements
- Product Owner, Supply Chain Management
Food Lab Accelerator at Google (FLAG), 2019-2020 - Local Group Organizer of Los Angeles
Interaction Design Association (IxDA), 2011-2012 - Member, System Dynamic Society
- Member, EPIC
Bio
Prior to immigrating to California in 1995, Jinsoo was raised on a small family-owned farm in South Korea, just a few miles away from the DMZ.
He grew up tending fields and tinkering with home-brew software and gadget teardowns. There, he dreamed that one day he will use design and science to make the world a happier place.
Decades later, his roles gradually expanded to crafting tools and services across 20 industries such as wellness, food, gaming, sports, consumer electronics, automotive and finance—reaching hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
After having received a myriad of global support and recognitions, he is constantly pushing himself to develop new solutions for the global crisis.
Values
Interest & Passion
He is interested in finding effective means of facilitating social interaction and emotion that offer purpose, meaning and sustainability.
During his spare time, he loves inspiring people of all ages by speaking to them and educating them about the human condition of today and tomorrow. Some of reoccuring themes include food design, play, fandom, commensality, social isolation, aging, community reintegration and behavioral economics.
Periodically, he engages with local and global communities to strengthen public–private partnership to improve the role of technology in people’s lives.
He loves playing indie games and watching art house films and classic TV commercials. He also enjoys dabbling with novel, antiquated cameras and audio gears.
Favorite Reads
Process
Jinsoo leverages a variety of proven and emerging design methods to achieve the best possible outcome for product and team.
A set of appropriately diversified principles, methods, toolkits, frameworks and/or models offers more clarity, deeper insights and greater positioning. It also serves as a guide in choosing the most effective tasks, exercises and deliverables for the team and stakeholders regardless of the form factor, medium or industry.
Below are some overarching fundamentals and methods that have been utilized in past products spanning from broad to narrow.
- Systems Thinking
- Design Thinking
- Human-Centered Design
- Agile / Scrum
- Service Design
- Transgenerational Design
- Spatial Design
- Game Design
- Food Design
- Speculative Design
- Conditional Design
- PEST Analysis
- Cultural Studies
- Cogntive Behaviorial Therapy