Otto - Improving daily asthma management

An International Bank Account Number (IBAN) is crucial for identifying bank accounts across countries. It includes a country code, indicating the account's country. However, in the EU, while businesses must legally accept any EU country's IBAN for transactions or payroll, some still prefer local IBANs. This preference impacts expatriates, digital nomads, and global citizens who often reside in one EU country but have a bank account from another, leading to issues in receiving salaries, paying bills, or accessing local services.

Little Signals, a series of interaction experiments, explores new behaviors for technology in our daily lives. The objects in the series signal for attention with different sensorial cues like a waft of air, a soft shadow, or an ambient sound. Additionally, their simple movements and controls bring them to life and make them responsive to changing surroundings and needs. Just as everyday items find simple ways to inform us – like the moving hands of a clock or the whistle of a kettle – this series shows how to stay up-to-date with digital information while maintaining moments of calm.

In New Orleans, music can easily be mistaken for a natural resource. But every note of every song is the product of a human being. Not only are these people often uncompensated for their work, they are often not fully understood. To fulfill its Clinton Global Initiative commitment, Insight Labs convened the second annual UX for Good event in New Orleans on behalf of these musicians.

Local Projects worked with the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, CA to develop the BioDesign Studio which opened on March 18, 2016. The goal of the BioDesign Studio was to design interactive exhibits to demystify one of the least-understood and most controversial topics in modern science: synthetic biology. The client outlined the basic flow of the gallery, splitting exhibits into two groups. The first group familiarized visitors with the fundamentals of biology, and the second group of exhibits builds on these foundations to introduce visitors to more complex concepts from synthetic biology.

Nova is a personal climbing wall that redefines bouldering training at home, making it a celebrated activity through a new take on design expression and a compelling interactive interface. Instead of colored holds usually found on regular training walls, Nova uses light to flexibly indicate a variety of climbing routes and difficulty levels. Users can select a route using their iPhone. Information about the training performance is used to offer personalized training. Nova is practical smart gear for climbing and offers various routes for training. When not in use the climbing wall makes use of lighting to create a modern ambience. Thus the design took into consideration two possible scenarios: training and ambient lighting while not in use. The wall consists of panels with pattern-cut-outs that can be scaled to fit different sizes of rooms and dedicated walls. The new experience proudly reflects the user's passion for their sport and lifestyle.

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.

Before the late-1990s, dial-up was the standard way of connecting to the Internet. Accessing the Internet was a conscious action that involved negotiation between family members living in the same house. The nostalgic dial-up modem sound of Pshhhkkkkkkrrrrkakingkakingkakingtshchchchchchchchcch… was the bridge between the analogue and the digital. Today, we are living in a world where the Internet and connected devices have become ubiquitous. The excitement around connecting to websites has disappeared and the underlying mechanism of the internet is hidden.

Depression is the silent epidemic that affects 1 in 5 teens. Statistically, you or someone close to you has suffered from depression, but unlike a physical illness, and often mistaken for teenage angst, it is invisible and many people suffer alone. Depression and anxiety can make everyday tasks such as getting out of bed or household chores very difficult. The difficult part is knowing when and how to ask for help, as many people feel too ashamed to reach out.

Australian hip-hop legends Hilltop Hoods and Google Play collaborated to create an interactive music video that harnesses mobile capabilities to capture a world turned upside down, as experienced by band member Dan Smith during his son’s leukemia treatment. Two 3D environments rendered in code are navigable by rotating the phone, translating a personal journey into a powerful digital experience. Each listen on Google Play generated a donation to support young Australians living with cancer.

Tax is a give-and-take system that binds our society together as humans by providing infrastructures and services that we all rely on. However, tax touchpoints are often designed for the system rather than the user – the processes and traceability around tax, as well as how it contributes to our shared spaces and society can often feel complex, opaque, or invisible to the individual. Could we reimagine our relationship with it? And how might our connected environments offer new ways for us to interact with them?