Rules & Fees

The Interaction Awards recognize and celebrate examples of excellence in interaction design across domains, platforms, environments and cultures.

Overview

We’ll award up to 40 prizes for outstanding works that embody and improve meaningful relationships between people and the products and services they use, exemplifying outstanding interaction design.

Entry to the awards competition is open to all companies, individuals and students from now until October 1, 2012 at 11:59pm PST. To reflect the diversity of the global IxDA community and support fair and inclusive participation, entry fees are based on geography and professional status.

A shortlist of up to 75 projects will be announced in October 2012, and will be showcased online. We’ll invite the community to evaluate the shortlist and their favorites for People's Choice.

Each shortlisted entry will have the opportunity to submit additional materials, including a physical or digital prototype, for evaluation by the jury at an on-site final judging event in New York City, November 10-11, 2012.

We’ll announce the final award winners in each category in January 2013, to be celebrated at IxDA’s Interaction13 conference in Toronto, Canada. Winners will receive a trophy and a cash prize.

Schedule

Categories

Professionals and students are invited to submit both concepts and production work of any kind, created during the past two years, that exemplify outstanding interaction design in one of the following six categories:

Connecting

Facilitating communication between people and communities.

Engaging

Capturing attention, creating delight and delivering meaning.

Empowering

Enabling people to go beyond their limits.

Expressing

Encouraging self expression and/or creativity.

Disrupting

Re-imagining completely an existing product or service by creating new behaviors, usages or markets.

Optimizing

Making daily activities more efficient.


See last year's award winners for sample projects in each category.

Prizes

Prizes are awarded for up to 40 Category Winners, 6 Best in Category, People's Choice, and Best in Show.

All Winners are awarded a trophy and discounted registration for the Interaction 13 Conference.

Cash Prizes

Best in Show: $1500
Best Student: $1000
Best in Category: $750
People's Choice: $750

How It Works

What You'll Need

To enter a project, you’ll need a few simple things.

Information about you

Who you are, where you live/work/study, and how to find you on the Internet.

Information about your project

Was it for yourself? For a client? You’ll tell us about your work, how it was impactful, and why it should be recognized.

Images

Show us the best side of your project. Share up to two photos or illustrations.

A video that tells your story

You’ll create a video, up to 2 minutes in length, that explains your project and captures your design solution.

Fee Structure

To reflect the diversity of the global IxDA community and support fair and inclusive participation, the entry fee for your project corresponds to your geography and professional status. The fee structure was guided by the widely accepted International Monetary Fund classification. Professional and student tiers are reflected on the right.

Payment per entry is submitted via credit card and signature debit card.

Fees per Project
Region 1

Students: $50    Professionals: $200

Region 2

Students: $20    Professionals: $120

See which region you live in.

Jurying Process

Selection for an Interaction Award is a two-step process.

Round One

A geographically-dispersed panel of peer reviewers will evaluate all submissions (3-5 each) to select a shortlist of up to 10 entries in each category. These entries will be recognized and showcased online in November 2012.

Round Two

Shortlisted entries will be invited to send additional materials for evaluation at an on-site jury event in New York City. The jury will select up to 40 final winners, to be notified by email in November 2012. The award winners will be celebrated at the Interaction13 Conference in January 2013.

Judging Criteria

Reflecting the broad spectrum of interaction design, we have created categories that speak to the nature of the interactions as opposed to the forms that they take. Platforms, domains, and professional status will help the jury to understand the context of the work better, but the ultimate decision is based on the quality of work and the design sensibility of the jury. That's why we worked hard to find tough, fair and collegial judges.

The judging for each round is based on the following three criteria of design excellence, and weighted by the judges as they deem appropriate:

Context: the challenge, culture and geography in which your work is intended to sit. The relevance of the problem it addresses, and the timeliness and appropriateness of the solution.

Impact: the potential impact of the work on people -- it’s intended users and society; on business – profit, cost, brand; and on the planet – the environment and the world.

Craft: the coherency, structure, behavior, and meaning of the work. It’s presentation, emotional content, and practical purpose. Its elegance in language, functionality, and use, as it supports human interaction. Attention to detail, fit and finish, how the medium serves the purpose and goals of the design.

Eligibility

The interaction awards are open to all professional and student designers worldwide. To be eligible for an award, you must meet the following criteria:

  1. You must be at least 18 years of age.
  2. Your work must be original, and you must have the right or authority to submit it for review and have it published.
  3. If you enter student work, you must be able to prove student status between August 2010 and October 2012.
  4. You must be an IxDA member. You can register at ixda.org for free at any time.
  5. All entries must be received by October 1, 2012.
  6. All entries must be in English
  7. Read and accept the 2013 Interaction Awards Terms & Conditions.
  1. All eligible entries must have been completed between September 2010 and October 2012:
    • Submitted projects must have been completed between September 2010 and October 2012.
    • Student entries must have been submitted to a school between September 2010 and October 2012.
    • Concept entries must not be scheduled for production, and must have been finalized between September 2010 and October 2012.
  2. Entries that do not meet the above criteria will not be considered for an award.

The Fine Print

  • All entries are submitted through Wizehive, an online contest software.
  • You only need to register once on Wizehive. After that you can submit as many entries as you like.
  • Each project should be submitted separately.
  • You can save and edit your entries as much as you like, until you proceed to the payment step.
  • You can make changes or delete your entry until submissions close.
  • You must complete payment to finalize your submission and be eligible for judging.
  • We will not reimburse paid entries, but we thank you for your contribution to the awards.
  • Once judging has started, you’ll need to contact us to remove your project from consideration.