Solo Sisters

The aim of this project was to create a musical instrument inspired by nature and biomimicry adapted to people with disabilities. To do this, we were inspired by the spotted woodpecker and its drumming, which allowed us to experiment with the resonance of wood. We wanted to offer a fun, sound and visual experience to users.

Oasis is a smartphone application for mental support through digital mindtrip. It designs to support individuals in recovering from traumas, creating new connections, and boosting their mental health. It simulated a trip from the desert to an oasis. Daily challenges must be completed by the users in order to advance toward the oasis. The users of this journey not only experience changes in their own mindset, but also the community’s support. Every day’s challenge will be recorded, to witness user’s journey and effort during the days. It will automatically be generated into a personalized diary. Users can view the diary and share them with the community. As time goes by, users will find more and more smiles in their Oasis Diary.

Out of the 39 million blind people around the world, only 10% know how to read/write in braille. Even those who know braille cannot understand the shapes of many objects around them. Through Fittle, we are trying to make visually challenged children learn braille letters, spellings of words, and shapes/forms of the objects that these words represent—all at the same time, engaging them through a puzzle.

Behind the glamour and entertainment of live events there is always a production crew working fast to manage multiple people and data points in an often linear and disconnected environment. Seeing the big picture is difficult, and a lot of hours of manual labor are required to keep track of everything. Balls get dropped, errors get made, and work that needs to be accurate, fast, and on time, eventually turns into a debacle.

Out of the Box is a simple yet effective solution for the increasing number of cell-phone users who have difficulties with learning to use a new smartphone. For older people, this experience can be particularly frustrating as they apply analogue modes of learning to digital experiences - looking in the box for help that simply is not there. Rather than design a dumbed down “special phone”, the designers decided to look at the problem in a different way. Instead of designing another device, they looked at changing the way people learn to use them. By drawing on user strengths and familiar mental models, the designers created a set of books which would act as the packaging and provide an entire learning experience for any device. The books actually contain the phone, and use each page turn to reveal the elements of the phone in the right order, helping the user to set up the sim card, battery and even slide the case onto the phone. The phone then slots into the book, which acts as the main manual. Arrows point to the exact locations the user should press, avoiding confusion and eliminating the feeling of being lost in a menu.

thirteen23 was approached to design and develop the mobile strategy for Barack Obama's 2012 bid for re-election. Working with Obama for America, the team crafted an ambitious set of mobile applications designed to support Obama's large base of campaign volunteers and grassroots supporters. Instead of creating a simple brochure application outlining the President's policies, the team focused on creating a real-time mobile solution to aid campaign organizers and volunteers working in the field.

Similar to how GPS technology helps people to navigate physical infrastructure, the IBM Cloud Infrastructure Visualizer maps out virtual network infrastructure and converts it into an interactive map. This birds-eye view allows users to visualize how resources are interconnected, how are they configured, and suggests actions to take in case something isn’t working as expected. With this tool, IT Administrators will no longer be stuck navigating their virtual infrastructure and instead, they can focus their energies on other tasks that require their technical expertise more and bring value to their enterprises.

Soundline is a playful, social, sonic intervention which aims to investigate the potential for technology to influence the future of entertainment and the facilitation of the state of group flow within these spaces. Turning an “error” within the festival experience, into an opportunity for play and creative exploration, this roaming performance creates an environment that invites audiences to engage through music, dance and performance.

When we try to translate our own experiential geography on a flat surface we often get puzzled. Maps, even online and mobile ones, seem to us hostile, deliberately complex, sometimes cryptic. The reason is that we cannot communicate with them. They always look the same. They know everything, but they do not learn. They are fixed and identical for everyone. And as long as they get more complex, with layers upon layers of information constantly added to them, they become more and more confusing. Terrarium is the solution to the maps’ ineptitude in making themselves understandable, enabling us to communicate with them. It allows the creation of personalized paths, giving directions for the easier route based on the user’s knowledge, which is not possible with other navigation systems, and integrates suggestions in the path-generation process. It adds sharing possibilities, which unlike existing services allow real-time collaboration on creating maps and location databases, and sharing not only places but also paths, itineraries and whole maps. It finally joins together in a single mobile application all this functions, using a graphic interface that remains simple and intuitive in spite of the complexity of the system.

Architecture is one of the most amazing arts in the world. It deserves a more appealing way to let people know them. So how to create an immersive experience to discover famous architecture is the most important task in my design. When I look through the current interactions and games, the users’ journey is mainly about users getting instructions from the platform and then following the rules. But now it’s time to reverse the whole journey. Design with advanced technology is not just about giving a tutorial or a comfort zone for users. Because creating a fantastic world is not a privilege only for designers. Design could be an inspiration, an Eye of Agamotto, and even a magic wand beyond the physical world for everyone. Archimood is an AR app that helps you learn about the greatest buildings and let them interact with you! There are 10 different filters on it, where you can dance with buildings, create your own imagination and share with your friends. Archmood brings a whole new meaning to augmented reality. You can use simple, fun interactions to create creative augmented architectures around you. It improves the interactive experience among the whole physical world, human choreography, and users. It makes the learning process more vivid and participatory. In the future, every user will become an imaginer to co-create an amazing world by trying Archimood.