Tianshu Yuan

Joinery is a location-based social app designed to help international Gen Z residents explore Melbourne and connect through shared interests. The project investigates how digital design can bridge social gaps by turning spontaneous city discoveries into real-world connections. Users can find cafés, events, and local hotspots, view others interested in the same places, and plan outings together: all within one platform.

Joinery focuses on usability, inclusivity, and safety. Features such as personalized feeds, verified profiles, and interest-based matching create a welcoming experience that encourages exploration and belonging in a new city.

This project explores how print-inspired aesthetics can transform everyday digital tools like weather and timer apps into more expressive, sensory experiences. Combining Risograph textures, printmaking-style illustrations, and editorial card layouts, the design brings analog warmth into digital interaction. A palette of fluoro pink, grass green, and medium blue gives the interface a lively, handcrafted feel, while roughened typography and visible texture layers evoke the charm of printed media. Through flipping weather cards, interactive slider timers, and balanced layouts, the project reimagines functionality as something tactile, playful, and visually engaging.

Tomo is a hybrid wellbeing and guidance system designed for international first-year students navigating their first year abroad. Combining a portable AI device with a visual companion app, Tomo introduces the concept of a “Future Self” : an evolving AI persona that listens, learns, and grows with the user.
Through daily voice-based reflections, real student story matching, and AI-generated insights, Tomo bridges emotional reassurance with actionable guidance. It helps students see their growth over time, connect with relatable experiences, and take small, confident steps toward their academic and personal goals.

This project envisions a digital companion app for the Modern History and Art Museum and its exhibition Herstory in the Making, celebrating feminist artists redefining power, identity, and representation. The app reimagines how users discover and purchase art prints through an immersive, editorial-style interface. Combining Radical Modernist precision with expressive elements: bold yellow and deep purple contrasts, clear hierarchy, and subtle motion, the UI guides users from exploration to purchase in a gallery-like flow. The result is a shopping experience that feels curated, elevated, and unapologetically bold.

Nomi is an XR-powered AI teammate designed to support collaborative learning in university classrooms. Built for mixed-reality environments, Nomi helps students form stronger group dynamics through clear task roles, balanced participation, and meaningful communication. From customizable onboarding to real-time visual cues, live transcript support, gesture-based interaction, and conflict mediation, Nomi fosters inclusion, clarity, and shared growth in every group task.
This project was developed using a human-centred design approach, responding to real challenges faced by students and educators in collaborative academic settings.

The F.A.B. app transforms museum visitors into active participants in the storytelling process. Designed as part of the F.A.B. exhibition for the Monash Museum of Computing History, the interface allows users to scan a QR code, submit a factual statement, and track how it mutates through algorithmic filters across the exhibition. Each choice: emotion, tone, or preferred narrative, influences the story’s outcome.

Built with a UI/UX focus on interaction and immersion, the app bridges the physical and digital experience. The interface encourages curiosity, reflection, and play: making visitors aware of their role within systems of digital storytelling and misinformation.