U-Bot (The robot that teaches orientation and mobility skills to blind children)

Chat messages, emails, websites, books… digitally written text is ever present in our daily life. But those neatly arranged letters hide secrets. Who wrote them and how? Did they hesitate? Was it a furious typing spree fuelled by a wave of emotions? Or did they carefully choose every word, deleting and retyping them over and over?

Nike's training program-SPARQ Combines-are the proving ground for elite high school football players, an event where the very best attract the interest of college scouts. Based on the core athletic criteria of Speed, Power, Agility, Reaction, and Quickness, the SPARQ Combine event is where players are tested, analyzed, and ultimately for the elite few, awarded scholarships. But up until recently, the drill events were only about the numbers they could put up on a stopwatch. Nike asked us to bring SPARQ to the modern age. This year, through digital diagnostic tools, high school players now have a complete picture of their performance and a plan for improvement.

Recent political events have highlighted a deep disconnect between society and government. Internationally, people have taken to the streets to protest, or used their vote at the ballot box to voice their dissatisfaction with ‘the establishment’. The problem facing policymakers is no less challenging – with the breakdown of traditional media and the rise of ‘fake-news’, it’s harder than ever to communicate effectively with citizens resulting in a breakdown in civic dialogue and an erosion of trust in our public institutions.

With the increase in unforeseen climate-related disasters, designing educational and risk communication tools that are engaging and effective has become vital. These tools are essential for improving the responses of vulnerable communities.

In Uganda, the poor have limited financial options. Without birth certificates or national IDs, there is no identity or credit history. The poor are invisible to formal institutions. Invisibility means that when farmers need to plant crops they have no credit to buy seeds, or when a family member is ill they have no savings to pay for treatment.

New York City’s municipal website, NYC.gov, serves more than 35 million unique visitors per year and gets over 250 million page views annually. It’s the primary resource for New Yorkers to accomplish tasks such as paying parking tickets or determining the right school for their child, and for the city to share its initiatives and accomplishments with its citizens. It had not been redesigned since 2003 and, over time had become a disorganized hodgepodge of text and links. It had become difficult for users to find what they needed, and they were increasingly calling 311 (the city’s public help line). The city had already started to invest in a new technology infrastructure and make city data more open and accessible – this was the final effort to bring more power, information, and transparency to the people of New York. Our goal was to create a more intuitive, usable, and efficient experience that would be easy to search and browse, and a delight to use. The experience had to beat accessibility standards and work in many different languages. At a higher level, our goal was for NYC.gov to set the standard for the way governments communicate with and empower their people.

New drug therapies and medical devices save lives. In some cases, patients wait for years to participate in a clinical trial for a new drug or for that drug to come to market. It takes over a year just to complete study startup, the process of getting all the hospitals, private practices, and government health institutions that are part of a clinical trial ready to see patients. Why? Study startup is burdensome and complex–a large number of documents have to be routed and approved, and many regulatory requirements have to be met. Communication happens mostly through time-consuming methods like phone, email, and fax.

Peel is TV, just for you. You tell Peel what you like, and Peel suggests programs you'll love to watch. A single tap on your iPhone takes you from looking for shows to watching them on your TV. With Peel, channels, sources, and remotes are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is your entertainment.

Engaging men in family planning and nutrition programming provides an opportunity to move towards better health and gender outcomes. To meet this goal, we designed two innovative programs in rural Bihar, India, using Human-centered Design (HCD) research, co-creation, and prototype testing, grounded in behavioral science approaches.

Since 2002, the Institute for Emerging Issues (IEI) has engaged North Carolina’s citizens, bringing people together to turn ideas into action. Experts at facilitating face-to-face communication, they wanted to extend their impact using digital tools. They envisioned an exhibit designed to educate North Carolinians about four of the state’s core concerns­–Education, Environments, Economy, and Health–and inspire and enable them to collaborate on these issues. Working with IEI and our partners, we created the Emerging Issues Commons at North Carolina State University’s Hunt Library.