Chang spent her teenage years in Dunhuang, where her father founded and served as the first director of the Dunhuang Academy. She was later introduced to design in Beijing by Lin Huiyin, a reputed architect, and became her assistant at Tsinghua University in the early 1950s.

Chang once said that one important lesson she learned from Lin was to give ancient arts and crafts, like Dunhuang art and the jingtailan enamel tradition, a modern revival by integrating them into people's lives.

With Lin's words in mind, Chang created pieces that ornamented architecture in Beijing, and were given as gifts to international visitors.

Hao says that as their predecessors did decades ago, designers today also undertake dual tasks, "on one hand, studying the history of Chinese design and underlying cultural traditions, on the other hand, participating in global exchange to bring Chinese design to the world stage".