Root Challenge
The gradual loss of traditional handicrafts is a critical issue driven by modernization, lack of commercial avenues, and diminishing cultural transmission. Many remote women artisans, who have devoted their lives to preserving traditional legacies, face economic challenges and limited market access, preventing them from sustaining their craft or passing down their skills to the next generation.
As globalization advances, the value of these crafts—rooted in heritage, symbolism, and intricate techniques—risks being overshadowed by mass-produced alternatives.The core challenge is to preserve these endangered intangible handicrafts while simultaneously enhancing the artisans’ livelihoods through meaningful, culturally respectful commercial opportunities.
Systematic Solution
The systematic solution involved building a digital platform that serves multiple purposes: cultural preservation, economic empowerment, artistic innovation, and public awareness. The system was designed to create an ecosystem where heritage craftsmanship could be valued, revitalized, and commercially sustained. This initiative, titled "Legacy Weavers", aimed to weave traditional art into the fabric of the modern world through strategic luxury brand collaborations, innovative digital platforms, and broad educational outreach.
Background Story
While serving as the Brand Marketing Manager of Marie Claire China, I managed a charity foundation called Woman Happiness Fund, in collaboration with China Soong Ching Ling Foundation. This initiative aimed to empower remote women artisans and support social causes through various campaigns and projects.
The former Chief Editor of Marie Claire China, Deng Li, who later established the QSWH Culture Foundation in 2021, dedicated her efforts to promoting intangible heritage preservation through collaborations within the fashion industry. I worked closely with her to build this system from 0 to 1, drawing from our shared past experience in using media, fashion, and cultural platforms to elevate traditional craftsmanship and promote sustainable growth.
Annual Income for Minority Artisans
> 90%
Luxury Brand Partnerships
> 8
Artisan Participation Growth
> 220%
Subscription
Growth
Rate
> 120%
Year
2022 - 2023
My role
Product Design Manager
Team
Founder/CEO 1
Content Editor 6
UX/UI Designer 2
Engineer 3
My Role as Product Design Manager
In this project, my primary responsibility was to lead the entire product design lifecycle, from concept ideation to final deployment. Working alongside other UX/UI designers, we translated the mission and business goals into a cohesive, user-centered digital experience. I oversaw user research, prioritized feature roadmaps, and facilitated design sprints to ensure the platform remained aligned with user needs and cultural sensitivities. I also acted as the cross-functional bridge—communicating design vision with developers, curating feedback loops with stakeholders, and ensuring design and system consistency and excellence throughout the project.
This involved extensive, on-the-ground research, including virtual and in-person meetings with remote artisans, traveling to their villages to understand their environments and production workflows, and conducting interviews with digital-native customers and modern designers. These insights directly shaped the platform's interaction patterns, content tone, and feature prioritization, ensuring relevance, empathy, and inclusivity across all user touchpoints.
A central part of my role was to maintain rich storytelling as the foundation of the user experience, while strategically balancing it with lightweight UX patterns. I designed a modular, progressive architecture that allowed the platform to deliver depth without bulk—ensuring smooth performance on mobile and low-bandwidth devices. Each design decision was grounded in cultural context, technical feasibility, and long-term scalability, making storytelling both emotionally engaging and technically efficient.
I : Platform Design and Development
Website Architecture Design
The website was architected as a responsive digital museum—designed to showcase the richness and complexity of traditional crafts through high-quality visuals, layered storytelling, and curated exhibition modules. Acknowledging the depth and diversity of content as core to the mission, we structured the platform to handle volume without overwhelming users. Key performance strategies included:
• Lazy loading and progressive image rendering to maintain speed without compromising media quality.
• Component-based structure that allows content blocks (e.g., artisan stories, dress galleries, technique walkthroughs) to be loaded independently based on relevance and user flow.
• Integration of offline caching and data prefetching for smoother navigation in low-bandwidth environments.
• Flat-but-deep hierarchy—prioritizing intuitive pathways into layered content, with clear entry points like themes, seasons, or regions.
The result was a system that embraced depth without bulk, narrative without clutter, and culture without compromise, all while remaining efficient and adaptive across devices.
Feature Optimization
Ensured accessibility, engagement, and conversion through user-friendly design, intuitive navigation, and seamless e-commerce integration. Features included bilingual support and culturally contextual UI elements tailored to highlight the artisans' stories.
Given the platform's role as a digital museum, preserving a large volume of rich content was non-negotiable. However, that posed clear trade-offs in terms of performance and cognitive load—especially on mobile.
To balance depth and performance, we adopted a modular and progressive architecture:
• Content was grouped by theme (e.g., seasons, embroidery, artisan stories) and revealed progressively through collapsible modules, horizontal swipes, or filters, keeping the initial interaction surface simple.
• Video and image assets were loaded responsively based on device and connection speed, using adaptive compression and streaming techniques.
• A search and tagging system helped users find specific content without endless scrolling, while personalization features like “Recently Viewed” and “You Might Like” created shortcuts for returning users. These features were designed with lightweight logic and user behavior tracking in mind. The search function used metadata and keyword tagging to filter content by themes, artisans, or cultural regions. “Recently Viewed” was implemented through session-based storage or user accounts, allowing users to easily revisit content they engaged with.
The goal wasn’t to minimize content—but to minimize friction in accessing it. This is where “lightweight UX” becomes about flow, personalization, and modularity—not just page size.
Every design element was guided by the principle of graceful complexity: revealing depth only when the user is ready to engage.
Rule-Based Logic — Simplified Example
E-commerce Model Design
Implemented robust digital merchandising tools, including limited-edition drops, artisan spotlight pages, and behind-the-scenes storytelling for each collection. Integrated wishlist, pre-order, and gift card features to enhance customer experience. The platform also allowed for direct artisan-to-consumer sales, building transparency and trust while preserving cultural authenticity.
II : Sustainable Ecosystem Building
Luxury Brand Partnerships
Developed a commercial ecosystem through collaborations with eight high-end luxury brands. By integrating traditional craftsmanship with premium branding, the project enhanced visibility, cultural awareness, and long-term growth.
Multi-channel Sustainable Model
The Legacy Weavers platform is underpinned by a multi-channel sustainable model that ensures both economic viability and cultural preservation. This model integrates diverse revenue streams and strategic collaborations to support remote artisans while expanding audience reach and product relevance.
It also provides luxury brands with free cultural storytelling and media exposure, enhancing their brand credibility, deepening public engagement, and aligning them with values of sustainability, heritage, and social impact. This makes the ecosystem especially appealing for long-term brand growth and cultural legacy building.
Market Targeting and Audience Segmentation: Tailored products for diverse audiences valuing both the beauty of traditional art and the prestige of luxury brands.
Motivation & Incentive Design — Feedback Loop
Applied behavioral science strategies to encourage continuous participation and creative contribution. This feature centers on artisan lifestyle sharing—designed to be dynamic, user-responsive, and rooted in evolving cultural context. The core goal is to ensure the system restores artisans' pride and agency while evokes curiosity, admiration, and a sense of meaningful contribution within consumers. It also adapts with user behavior, community input, and artisan needs—transforming both engagement and content into an evolving feedback loop.
Modular Content Models: Artisans can upload a variety of content types, such as videos, stories, finished products, or step-by-step process clips—allowing them to share their craftsmanship in personalized ways at their own pace.
Feedback Loops: Users can “love,” comment on artisan posts. These interactions are tracked and analyzed to inform what gets featured or suggested to other users, encouraging the most resonant content to rise organically.
III : Educational and Awareness Mechanisms
Award Panel Design
Established a distinguished panel including public figures, celebrities, and cultural experts to encourage modern artists and designers to co-create new product collections that integrate traditional handicraft techniques. The panel served as a platform to bridge the gap between heritage and innovation, inspiring artistic reinterpretation rooted in cultural legacy.
Cultural Legacy Promotion — From Digital to Physical
Enhanced awareness and creativity through competitions, exhibitions, and collaborative initiatives that celebrate both traditional craftsmanship and contemporary artistic interpretations. The initiative extended from digital storytelling into physical exhibitions, offering immersive experiences in public and cultural spaces. These exhibitions not only showcased handcrafted artifacts but also told the deeper stories of the artisans, their heritage, and their creative processes—bridging the online and offline worlds to foster cultural resonance and lasting appreciation.
IV : Future Vision
Future Vision
• Scaling the platform through additional brand partnerships and expanding the curated product catalog.
• Continued cultural preservation efforts by integrating new technological tools, like AI, VR, and AR to augment storytelling, product interaction, and craft appreciation—aligning more closely with younger digital-native generations.
• Fostering a new generation of artisans and designers through mentorship, digital education, and community-driven innovation.
• Now, this platform has transitioned into a mobile-only version hosted on the WeChat media platform—adapting to China's unique e-commerce ecosystem and evolving consumer habits, where website traffic continues to decline in favor of app-based interactions. Despite this shift, the business pattern remains strong, and the founder, Deng Li, continues to devote her time and resources to preserving these beautiful and intricate endangered handicrafts through cultural initiatives, digital commerce, and community advocacy.
• To build long-term adaptability and resilience, the platform’s roadmap evolves beyond luxury brand collaborations. While early stages focused on co-branded collections to boost visibility and cultural prestige, the next phase introduces a customization model that allows a broader market of consumers to design their own products using traditional artisan techniques. This strategic shift supports scalability, inclusivity, and sustainable growth—creating layered entry points for diverse customer segments without compromising cultural integrity.
Self-Reflection
After finishing this project, I decided to accept an offer from NYU master’s program ITP to deepen my design and technical skills. Leading this initiative, however, also reinforced my belief in the power of design as a cultural force. I learned how systemic thinking, creative storytelling, and strategic collaboration can transform heritage into opportunity—empowering women, shifting perceptions, and enriching global cultural discourse.
Working from the ground up to integrate e-commerce, user-centered design, and stakeholder alignment required both empathy and execution.More than a platform, Legacy Weavers became a space where tradition finds new relevance and artisans are seen not just as laborers, but as cultural innovators. This experience has shaped my ambition to continue designing products and systems that champion purpose, dignity, and future-forward heritage innovation.