Design in Use: A Shenzhen Lens for Family-Office Advisers Attending BODW 2026

From inspiration to a useful question

Imagine leaving Business of Design Week with a notebook full of ideas.

Beautiful spaces. Reinvented brands. Products that make you stop and look.

Then your client asks: “What should we actually change?”

That is where the useful conversation begins.

For family-office advisers supporting family-owned businesses, design becomes commercially interesting when it changes a customer’s experience, an employee’s workflow or the way a business delivers its promise.

A striking store is a starting point. What matters next is whether people can find, understand and use what it sells.

Business of Design Week 2026 will bring together over 50 creative leaders and business decision-makers across six topic pillars, including brand transformation and luxury and artisanal innovation. That creates plenty to discuss. The harder task is deciding which ideas deserve closer investigation. Source ↗

Observe design in use

If Shenzhen is part of your wider itinerary, give the visit a specific business question.

Watch someone handle a product. Notice where a service feels effortless, and where it creates friction. Ask what depends on local habits, infrastructure or expectations.

Bring those observations back to your client’s situation.

Who uses it?

What gets easier?

What would your client change?

These questions help distinguish an attractive concept from something worth testing. A family-owned retailer might examine the journey from discovery to purchase. A hospitality business might focus on arrival, service and repeat visits.

The objective is a better brief: what to investigate, what to test and what would make the idea relevant at home.

Explore your private brief

Futurebound Private builds personally hosted Shenzhen programmes around defined business and creative questions, with preparation, local context and a private debrief.

Visit Futurebound to explore a private Shenzhen brief. What would you want your client to understand before deciding what to change?