On the afternoon of October 17, 2020, the final of the 12th UXD Award came to an end at CEEC Center, Upper Hills, Shenzhen. A total of 1 gold award, 2 silver awards and 3 bronze awards were issued at the event. A special award was set up this year considering prevalence of COVID-19. "Safe-Off——PPE Voice Prompt Interactive System" developed by the interdisciplinary innovative design team of the School of Arts of Chongqing University in collaboration with the Department of Infection, the First Affiliated Hospital of Army Medical University (Southwest Hospital) defeated the other 1,230 teams and more than 5000 participants all the way through the preliminary contest, special half-final and final, and won the gold award in the final and the special award in the Special COVID-19 Competition. Associate Professor Xia Jinjun won the title of outstanding instructor.

The 1st UXD Award was held in 2009 and was sponsored by UXPA China (User Experience Professional Association). It is the first and the only innovation competition for user experience in China. The event is exclusively for college students, and it is carried out in cooperation with colleges, universities and enterprises. UCD (user centered design) concept is advocated in the event. Students participating in UXD Award are required to simulate enterprise project team, serve functions like product manager, user researcher, visual design, interaction design, front-end development and other functions. They will be asked to complete product or system design that meets the user experience standard. Senior industry experts are invited to act as judges at the event. Those experts will review and provide comments and guide on the works of the participating teams in different stages, including user demand analysis, conceptual design, concept verification and optimization, detailed design and prototype production. It is a promotion-oriented competition for the purpose of education. Up to now, it has covered hundreds of colleges and universities, involving nearly 100 enterprises and tens of thousands of participants. It has cultivated a large number of new force of user experience for the industry, and promoted the popularization and promotion of user experience in China.

The topic of 12th UXD Award was announced in February 2020. The interdisciplinary innovation design team of the School of Arts of CQU carried out design research on this competition topic, and had design discussion about the difficulties in PPE protection and work of the medical workers in the fight against COVID-19 with the Department of Infection of the First Affiliated Hospital (Southwest Hospital) of the Army Medical University. They also worked together to make constant improvement, and performed well in the preliminary contest, and made it to the Special COVID-19 Competition. On September 6, 2020, a total of 23 teams from 16 universities, including Jiangnan University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Wuhan University of Technology, Hunan University, Beijing Institute of Technology, Sichuan University of Fine Arts, Beijing Institute of Technology, Shenzhen University and Beijing Normal University participated in the online defense session of the event. The interdisciplinary innovation design team of the School of Arts of CQU reached the national final as the winner of the gold award of the Special COVID-19 Competition.

The theme of the Special COVID-19 Competition was “merciless disease, warm experience”. Team members demonstrated their strong sense of social responsibility and carried out the conceptual design taking into account the challenges medical workers had encountered during the fight against COVID-19. Their design concept “medical care-caring for medical workers” brought warmth to the angels in white fighting on the front line of the war against COVID-19.

On October 17, 2020, team members Feng Jixuan and Yang Zhentian went to Shenzhen to participate in the national final on behalf of the interdisciplinary innovative design team of the School of Arts in Shenzhen. They competed with another 29 teams from Zhejiang University, Tongji University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Hunan University, Jiangnan University, Beijing Normal University, Beijing Institute of Technology, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Beijing University of Posts and telecommunications, China University of Geosciences, South China University of Technology and Guangdong University of Technology for the final prize. The two students performed as expected during the competition and won the heart of the enterprise judges with their professional design literacy, perfect product planning and exquisite design display. Finally the team won the gold award in the final and the special gold award in the Special COVID-19 Competition. At the same time, Feng Jixuan participated in the round table discussion on Digital Transformation in the Post Epidemic Era on behalf of the special gold award winning team of Chongqing University, and introduced the relevant efforts made by the Department of Design of Chongqing University to fight against COVID-19 to all guests participating in the UXD activity.

In this competition, the interdisciplinary innovation design team of industrial design was substantially supported by the Teaching Affairs Office and the Student Innovation Practice Center of Chongqing University. And thanks to their support, the team was able to make it to the final after rounds of selections in the half a year period. They carried out repeated design experiments and interation of design results at Huxi Campus and Southwest Hospital, and demonstrated the results of innovation and entrepreneurship practice work of CQU, and the teaching achievements in interdisciplinary joint design research integrating arts and science made by the Department of Industrial Design of the School of Arts of Chongqing University by promoting development of the first-rate program product design, with new engineering courses as the supporting point, as a way to contribute to the “Double-First-Rate” construction of Chongqing University and encourage students to start a business and make innovation.