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Guest Post By Marc Rettig, 2013 Interaction Awards Jury Chair.

A new award: why?

The IxDA Interaction Awards take a view that’s pretty close to the trenches: people enter recent work, the jury choose winners worthy of recognition, and the result presents a snapshot of the current landscape of interaction design.

But we are moving across that landscape. You can see ways in which this year is different from the last year, and at the Interaction 13 conference there was lots of talk about trends that are going to change what we see in the Awards next year.

The Future Voice award steps back from the landscape of current work, and asks different questions. Instead of asking, “What exemplifies good interaction design this year and where is it going?,” it asks: “Where could we choose to go?” The Future Voice award is a way for us to recognize work that inspires us to lift our heads from the work immediately in front of us, and consider the view from a higher altitude, a further depth, and a more distant horizon all at once.

Choosing the recipient of the Future Voice Award.

The Future Voice Award is chosen by each year’s jury chair, in consultation with the rest of the jury and the Awards committee. It is selected not only from entries, but from anything in the world whether entered or not, as representative of the following statement:

This work deeply embodies the spirit of the interaction award categories – optimizing, engaging, empowering, expressing, connecting, disrupting. And it does something more: The Future Voice Award recognizes work that demonstrates the profound potential of Interaction Design, which at its heart deals with the dynamics and depth of human relationship and conversation. Recognizing its recipient celebrates evidence of what Interaction Design could choose to become.

The recipient of the 2013 Future Voice Award: Studio H Bertie County

I’ll let the video make the introduction:

We’re honored to announce this year’s top winners for the second-annual Interaction Awards!

Tonight, from the GE sponsored Awards ceremony and party at Interaction|13 in Toronto, Canada, 21 Balançoires, Daily tous les jours was awarded Best in Show, UX for Good: New Orleans, UX FOR GOOD was awarded People’s Choice, 100 BPM, by Maxime Dubreucq, Doris Feurstein, Shivanjali Tomar, Natalie Vanns and Umeå Institute of Design took home both Best Student and Best Concept.

“Interaction design was born in technology and business, but is growing up and leaving the nest. I can’t think of a more poetic example than our Best in Show winner, 21 Balançoires. It embodies the science of cooperation,” said Marc Rettig, 2013 Interaction Awards Jury Chair. “The design uses familiar play as an invitation to something surprising, something larger. That’s a glimpse of what can come from the interaction design point of view, which focuses on what happens between people, things, and places.”

A very special new award was also presented tonight, the Future Voice Award, selected by the jury chair and awarded in consultation with the entire jury. This year, Studio H: Bertie County by Project H was selected.

The Future Voice Award recognizes work demonstrating the profound potential of Interaction Design, which at its heart deals with the dynamics and depth of human relationship and conversation. The Studio H work tangibly demonstrates the spirit of the interaction award categories – optimizing, engaging, empowering, expressing, connecting, disrupting.

“Studio H demonstrates a way of designing with people rather than for them,” offered Rettig. “It represents a focus on a community’s abilities and relationships as explicit outcomes of design. In that way it is a ‘future voice’ for interaction design, and we’re celebrating that evidence of what Interaction Design could become.”

This evening, we celebrated a total of twenty five projects selected from hundreds of entries from 27 countries. These projects demonstrate exceptional design ranging from health-related products to interactive installations to new tools for civic participation.

“These winning projects clearly demonstrate the breadth, depth and impact of interaction design.” said Steve Baty, IxDA President. “They embody the material diversity of contemporary practice; the importance of both concept and craft; and the range of challenges being tackled by interaction designers. IxDA is thrilled to recognize these examples of excellence in interaction design.”

In selecting this year’s winners, our jurors engaged in long, thoughtful discussions, part of which are captured in the below video shorts:

We worked with filmmaker Christian Svanes Kolding and our sponsor Adobe TypeKit to create a collection of video shorts profiling all of our top winners. You can find them all here.

We want to thank everyone for participating this year, especially our kind sponsors Adobe TypeKit and GE. We look forward to seeing what’s in store for the 2014!

Full List of Awards

Top prizes were awarded in the following categories: Best in Show, Best Concept, Best Student, People’s Choice, and Best in Category for six categories. An international jury selected the category award winners, and the People’s Choice Award was chosen by online voting, A full list of our winners can be found here.

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We’re looking forward to celebrating the winners of the 2013 Interaction Awards, but there’s one award-winning project left to choose, and it’s up to you! The Interaction Awards’ People’s Choice voting is now open at http://awards.ixda.org/vote. All 75 of the shortlisted projects are eligible for the Award.

Cast your vote and follow our announcement on January 29 to see how your vote compares to our jurors’ selections. Last year’s People’s Choice winner, Interaction Cubes by Fundação Oswaldo Cruz/Museu da Vida, from Brazil, was also a top winner–taking home best in category, Engaging.

You can cast as many votes as you like, but you can only vote for each project once. Visit the gallery now, review the entries, and cast your votes today. Then spread the word and promote your favorite projects before voting closes on January 28 at 11:59pm EST.

The winner of the People’s Choice Award will be announced at the Interaction Awards celebration on Tuesday, January 29th, at Interaction 13 in Toronto. We hope to see you there!

We’re pleased to announce the winners for the second annual Interaction Awards!

Three weeks ago, the Interaction Awards Jury met in New York City to review the 75 shortlisted entries and choose the best examples of interaction design for 2013. Thank you to our sponsors, Adobe Typekit, for supporting the jurying event! It was a daunting task, but our amazing jury was up to the challenge. We received some stellar, high-quality projects, but 25 stood out as winners.

Each of the winners will be honored at the Interaction Awards Ceremony, sponsored by GE, at Interaction13 on January 29, where we will announce the top winners: Best in Category, Best Concept, Best Student, Best in Show and the winner of the People’s Choice Award.

All 75 of the shortlisted projects are eligible for the People’s Choice Award, which we’ll open up for voting the first week in January.

Congratulations to the 2013 Interaction Awards winners. We look forward to seeing you in Toronto to celebrate the top winners for 2013.

2013 INTERACTION AWARDS WINNERS

Optimizing
Making daily activities more efficient.

• 10,000ft, Artefact
• FreshBooks for iPhone, FreshBooks
• MyFord Mobile for Ford Motor Company, IDEO
• Nike+ FuelBand, R/GA
• Practice Fusion iPad application, Cooper
• Rehearsal: an App for Practicing Musicians, Kirsten Southwell/North Carolina State University

Engaging
Capturing attention, creating delight and delivering meaning.

• 21 Balançoires, Daily tous les jours
• Chrome Web Lab, Google Creative Lab
• Fiiiit, Fiiiit Team/Tongji University + Tsinghua University
• Gundulas Stories – an interactive learning environment, Fabian Gampp/HTWG Konstanz

Empowering
Enabling people to go beyond their limits.

• 100 BPM, Maxime Dubreucq + Doris Feurstein + Shivanjali Tomar + Natalie Vanns / Umeå Institute of Design
• Nike SPARQ, R/GA
• Nike+ FuelBand, R/GA
• Sonivivi, Daim Yoon/Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design
• Teemo, Ammunition
• ZocDoc, ZocDoc

Expressing
Encouraging self expression and/or creativity.

• Iuvo, Matteo Loglio/SUPSI
• Lego Life Of George, Lego System
• Paper by FiftyThree, FiftyThree

Connecting
Facilitating communication between people and communities.

• Honolulu Answers, Code for America
• JK5, Ilari Laitinen + Enni Koistinen / Lahti Institute of Design
• Obama for America Mobile Campaign, thirteen23

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

• Hormone check, Apt
• Nike+ FuelBand, R/GA
• Nova, LUNAR

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We’re excited to announce GE as an official sponsor of the 2013 Interaction Awards. GE’s sponsorship will help support the 2013 Interaction Awards ceremony, to be held at the Steam Whistle Brewery during IxDA’s annual conference this January in Toronto.

GE’s support and encouragement during our inaugural year made them a natural partner for honoring the 2013 Interaction Awards, and we’re thrilled to have them as an official sponsor this year.

“The Interaction Awards in Dublin was an amazing event to witness. GE is proud tocontinue the newest IxDA tradition, recognizing the best and the brightest in interaction design,” said Greg Petroff, Director, GE Design & Experience. “We look forward to celebrating this year’s winners in Toronto. See you there!”

The Interaction Awards jury, led by jury chair Marc Rettig, convened in New York City three weeks ago and was sponsored by Adobe Typekit. 25 winners were chosen from a shortlist of 75 entries from 17 countries. The winners of the Awards will be announced tomorrow, and the People’s Choice Awards will open next month.

Each of the 25 winners will be honored at the Interaction Awards Ceremony, sponsored by GE, atInteraction13 on January 29 in Toronto in Toronto. There, we’ll announce the top winners: Best in Category, Best Concept, Best Student, Best in Show, and the winner of the People’s Choice Award.

About GE
GE works on things that matter. The best people and the best technologies taking on the toughest challenges. Finding solutions in energy, health and home, transportation and finance. Building, powering, moving and curing the world. Not just imagining. Doing. GE works.
http://www.ge.com

This year’s Awards Jury session is fast approaching! This weekend our 7 esteemed jurors from around the globe will converge on New York City to decide the 2013 Interaction Awards winners.

Last-minute lineup change – We’re sad to report that Anab Jain will be unable to join us in New York this year due to unexpected visa Issues (The UK Border issue has taken over 5 months to issue her UK visa and return her passport!) We will certainly miss Anab this weekend, but we are pleased to announce that Ben Pieratt, designer and co-founder of Svpply, will be joining us in her place. Welcome Ben, we’re excited to have you on the team!

Great news!

We’ve finalized the shortlist of entries for the 2013 Interaction Awards. The following 75 projects from 17 countries will be evaluated by our esteemed international Jury Panel when they convene in New York City on November 10 & 11.

2013 Interaction Awards Shortlist:

Optimizing

Making daily activities more efficient.

• 10,000ft, Artefact, US
• Barclays Pingit, ustwo studio limited, GB
• Danske Bank – Tablet Bank, In2media, DK
• Elmo Calls App from Sesame Street, IDEO, US
• FreshBooks for iPhone, FreshBooks, CA
• Google Wallet, R/GA, US
• Lincoln Center Mobile App , IDEO, US
• MyFord Mobile for Ford Motor Company, IDEO, US
• Nike+ FuelBand, R/GA, US
• Office Radial Menu, Microsoft, US
• PKO Bank Polski website redesign, K2 Internet, PL
• Practice Fusion iPad application, Cooper, US
• Rehearsal: an App for Practicing Musicians, North Carolina State University, US

Engaging

Capturing attention, creating delight and delivering meaning.

• 21 Balancoires, Daily tous les jours, CA
• Barefoot World Atlas, Touch Press LLP and Barefoot Books, GB
• Chrome Web Lab, Google Creative Lab, GB
• Columbia Sportswear GPS PAL, ISITE Design, US
• Environmental Data Visualization for General Services Administration, IDEO, US
• Fiiiit, Fiiiit Inc, CN
• Frijlets, Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, DK
• Gundulas Stories – an interactive learning environment, HTWG Konstanz, DE
• Ignite, LUNAR, US
• Lost Rivers, Catbird Productions, Inc, CA
• Nike+ FuelBand, R/GA, US
• One Copy Song, R/GA, US
• Pringles Crunch Band, CP+B, SE
• Reuters The Wider Image, Method, Inc., US
• Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex Skeleton Puzzle, Bluecadet Interactive, US
• Urban Forest, Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology, US
• Vestas Mobile CVI, Designit A/S, DK
• What the Book, The School of Visual Arts, US

Empowering

Enabling people to go beyond their limits.

• 100 BPM, Umea Institute of Design, SE
• Google Chrome Ramayana, Fantasy Interactive, US
• HELP – Human Emergency Life Protection, HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd, DE
• Jarlene, Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, DK
• Nike SPARQ, R/GA, US
• Nike+ FuelBand, R/GA, US
• Philips InSight app , Philips Design, HK
• Practice Fusion iPad application, Cooper, US
• SF Prep, LUNAR, US
• ShopWell Mobile App, ShopWell, US
• SONIVIVI, Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, DK
• Teemo, Ammunition, US
• The Virtual Chemistry Lab Table, Formula D interactive, ZA
• Viggle, Method, Inc., US
• Wealth Insight for PNC Bank, IDEO, US
• WTPh? What the Phonics, The Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design , DK
• ZocDoc, ZocDoc, US
• zSpace, Infinite Z, Inc., US

Expressing

Encouraging self expression and/or creativity.

• audible color, Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, DK
• Illusio, Centro de Informatica – Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, BR
• Iuvo, SUPSI, CH
• LEGO LIFE OF GEORGE, LEGO SYSTEM A/S, DK
• One Copy Song, R/GA, US
• Paper by FiftyThree, FiftyThree, US
• Tang.3D, Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, DK
• TIM BETA, R/GA, BR

Connecting

Facilitating communication between people and communities.

• HIV Collaborative DataSpace, Artefact, US
• Honolulu Answers, Code for America, US
• JK5, Lahti Institute of Design, FI
• Let’s Talk, Indiana University , US
• Mime, The Relationship Entertainer, ENSAD Paris, FR
• Nike SPARQ, R/GA, US
• Nike+ FuelBand, R/GA, US
• Obama for America Mobile Campaign, thirteen23, US
• Skube, Copenhagen Institute for Interaction Design, DK
• Skype on XFINITY, Comcast, US
• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Visitor Center, POSSIBLE, US
• The City Listens, IIT Institute of Design, US
• TIM BETA, R/GA, BR

Disrupting

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

• Google Wallet, R/GA, US
• Hormone check, apt as, NO
• Ignite, LUNAR, US
• MyFord Mobile for Ford Motor Company, IDEO, US
• Nike+ FuelBand, R/GA, US
• Nokia Asha, Cheeky UI for touch phones, Nokia, FI
• Nova, LUNAR Europe GmbH, DE
• NrityaDhol, National Institute of Design, IN
• past fm, CIID, DK
• Pizza in Your Pocket, Plastic Mobile, CA
• Playing with Pigs, collaboration between Utrecht School of the Arts, Wageningen University and designers Kars Alfrink, Irene van Peer and Hein Lagerweij, NL
• Primo, SUPSI, CH
• Refact: making phone bills worth reading!, User Studio, FR
• TIM BETA, R/GA, BR
• UX for Good: New Orleans, UX for Good, US
• weCycle, University of Applied Science Potsdam, DE

The caliber of projects submitted this year from around the globe made selecting the shortlist among them quite difficult. Many thanks to our peer reviewers around the world who helped us get here, and to everyone who supported the awards by entering their work.

Good luck to the shortlist in the final round! Stay tuned for this year’s People’s Choice voting, opening in January 2013, as well as the celebration of the 2013 Interaction Award winners at Interaction 13.

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Thanks to everyone who submitted work to this year’s Interaction Awards, and all who helped us spread the word over the past several weeks. This year’s variety of projects from around the globe will really make our jury’s job difficult!

Our next step in the process is a two-week shortlisting period, during which a panel of 120 international Peer Reviewers evaluate the entries to select a shortlist of projects that will go to the NYC Jury Session on November 10 & 11, sponsored by Adobe Typekit, and be considered for the top awards. Our esteemed Jury will chose the finalists who will be celebrated at the Interaction Awards Ceremony on January 29th at Interaction 13 in Toronto, and recognized among the best in our field this year. We’ll be announcing the shortlist in the next few weeks, so stay tuned!

It’s coming down to the wire with just five more days left to submit to the 2013 Interaction Awards. We’ve got entries coming in every day, from all over the world, and they’re looking great! BUT we want to make sure we’ve got all the best projects entered. And you can help.

The Next Web is encouraging their readers to tweet about their favorite interaction design projects, and we’d love it if the interaction design community did the same. This is a great way to to make sure we’ve got the best projects represented this year, but it’s also important for the entire interaction design community and industry. Building awareness around great projects and publicly acknowledging great work is important, even in the form of a tweet. It’s all part of evolving the conversation as an industry and discussing what exemplifies the best of what our industry has to offer.

Don’t be shy about publicly supporting our friends and colleagues doing fantastic work! Help build the kind of awareness we collectively need as an industry and community. We can only truly educate people about the importance of interaction design if we engage them with great examples to learn from.

So join us and share projects that have inspired you and give your friends and colleagues a little shout out and support!

Here’s an example tweet from Harrison Weber from The Next Web

Hey @BERGCloud! I <3 the little printer! You should enter him in the @ixdawards http://t.co/9hJc1cpm

— Harrison Weber (@HarrisonWeber) September 25, 2012

We’re looking forward to hearing about some of your best-loved projects!

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We’re excited to announce Adobe Typekit as one of this year’s 2013 Interaction Awards sponsors. Their generous support will help cover the costs of this year’s jury session in New York City, as well as the subsequent documentaries highlighting the winning work. Jurying will be held in November and the documentaries will debut January 2013, at this year’s Interaction Conference in Toronto.

“Storytelling is one of the most important things we do, and interaction design has become one of the most important media to do that today,” said Jeff Veen, Vice President, Product at Adobe. We’re thrilled to be able to support the Interaction Awards and broader interaction design community by bringing the jury together and helping to share the work of this year’s winners.”

“IxDA is deeply thankful to Adobe Typekit for their support of this important initiative, in turn providing the global interaction design community with a platform for recognising and rewarding excellence,” said Steve Baty, IxDA President. “The jury session, and the documentaries recorded around it offer important insights into the criteria against which excellence is adjudged, and we’re proud to have Adobe Typekit’s support.”

Interaction Awards evaluates and celebrates the theory and practice of interaction design, honoring the very best examples from throughout the global design community. The documentaries created from the Jury Sessions, directed by Christian Svanes Kolding, reflect deep consideration and appreciation of the evaluation process and this year’s winning work.

A selection of last year’s videos can be seen here.

Interaction Awards submission deadline is October 1. The Interaction Awards will be presented during the Interaction 13 conference in Toronto. Those interested in submitting work for the awards or attending the January conference can find more information at awards.ixda.org

About Adobe Typekit

Adobe Typekit is the easiest way to use real fonts on the web. Built around web standards, our service gives designers and developers a subscription-based library of hosted, high-quality fonts to use on their websites. We have over 250,000 customers including some of the largest sites on the web today: The New York Times, Conde Nast, IGN, Twitter, and many others. We are also actively integrating Typekit into hosted platforms—such as WordPress, TypePad, and Posterous—so that anyone with a website can use real fonts.

About the Interaction Awards

The Interaction Awards is a global competition, designed to recognize, promote, and celebrate excellence in the discipline of interaction design. The Awards celebrate the work done by designers every day, to create meaningful relationships between people and the products and services that they use. They will provide tangible examples of design excellence, inspire designers and businesses alike, and stimulate discussion on the role and value of design. The 2013 competition is open until October 1, and will be awarded at Interaction 13 in Toronto, Canada, in January, 2013.

About Interaction 13 | Toronto

Interaction is the annual conference of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA), a global network of over 25,000 members worldwide. Join the IxDA community, at Interaction13, to celebrate 10 years of interaction design and embark on a journey toward defining our role as guides through social interactions, digital and beyond. Inspire and be inspired at Interaction13 and make an impact on the social fabric of your community, organization, and society. In collaboration with our academic partner OCAD U, Canada’s design university of Imagination, this event will continue the IxDA tradition of curating inspirational speakers and practical learning while exploring how we can continue to evolve our craft within the realm of Innovation with Impact.

There is only one week left to enter the Interaction Awards! Submit your work today, before the submissions close on Monday, October 1 at 11:59pm. Need some inspiration? Here are four pointers on creating your entry from one of last year’s winners!

Guest post by Bas Bijpost, Senior Interaction Designer at ICEMOBILE

Before we submitted our winning entry for Appie (Best in Category Optimizing) for the 2012 Interaction Awards, we didn’t really have a plan of attack, nor any experience with submitting work for interaction design awards. I’ve tried to identify what I think we did right, and have a couple of pointers which hopefully help you build a great case.

Focus your story
Condensing months or years of work into a few paragraphs, a couple of images and a 2 minute video is not easy. Getting it right is important, though. Focus on the uniqueness of the problems faced, the solutions created, the process followed, and the resulting impact. Imagine talking to a fellow interaction designer who’s never heard of your creation. What would excite him or her about your project?

In fact, stop imagining, go out there, and find real peers to discuss your work with. Identify what they respond to, what inspires them about your project, and build your story around that.

Don’t say the same thing 3 times
As with any design problem, each medium has its own merits. You have text, images and video available to you to help you create a compelling case. Try not to repeat yourself too much across these media, but use them to complement each other where possible.

Know your own limitations
You can’t possibly think to write a submission, create the images, and shoot and edit a video all by yourself. Just because you’re a great interaction designer, doesn’t mean you can write a clear case or create an engaging video. Make sure you’ve got a few people with the right skills to help you out. If you work in an agency or similar organization, make sure you get plenty of resources and time to work on your submission.

Let the results do the talking
Say you developed an iPhone and Android app, which is downloaded 1.2 million times and used by 300,000 people every day. For an American peer or jury member, that might not sound very spectacular. But if you live in country where only 2.4 million people own an Android or iPhone device, things start to look a lot more interesting. It means that 50% of all potential users has downloaded your app, and 1 in 4 of those use it on a daily basis. Not bad, eh?

Don’t forget to complete your entries by Monday, October 1 at 11:59pm. Be recognized among the best interaction design this year!

Guest Post By Mercedes Coats, Executive Producer, Marketing at Smart Design.

Smart Design and our client, Ford Motors, were the recipients of the inaugural IxDA Award in the “Disruptive” category in 2012. Thrilled as we were to receive such an unambiguous and unprecedented honor from our peers, we had been talking about the SmartGauge project for a while. It’s one of the key stories we are able to tell about how Smart Design successfully partners with our clients to address and solve the complexities of innovation. In other words, we knew it was good work. But how best to convey to the IxDA jury not only the final product, but also our vision and thinking? We couldn’t exactly deliver a Ford Fusion Hybrid car to the jury room for evaluation.

Or could we? Luckily, the medium of video allows us as award entrants to tell the stories behind our work in a compelling way. We’re not saying anything groundbreaking with that statement… Video has a pretty, um, strong reputation as a storytelling medium. It’s just that within the narrow arena of design award competitions, video submissions are a fairly new thing. Competitions now encourage if not require people to create videos to help the jury understand what they’re judging. For us this was great because often video is the perfect medium to communicate the stories behind our work and expertise.

Our approach to making the video was to go beyond the normal ‘what is it’ and ‘how does it work’ to answering the question WHY. Why did we make the decisions we did? And, why does this benefit the people it’s intended for – drivers. Why is this a great business solution, too? We went with an authentic, documentary feel that was pretty straightforward. No fancy stuff.

But could we illustrate the ‘disruptive’ nature of the work without elaborate motion graphics? Again, we went for simplicity by asking one of our co-founders, Dan Formosa, to sit down and talk about it from a high-level. He also talked through some of the key research the team did which informed design decisions. We used as many photos, sketches and pieces of footage as we could to bring the SmartGauge to life, both from the ideas to the real experience. And we kept it brief and to the point. It got the job done. To boot, we now have a great little tool to help share this story with anyone who will watch.

We’re very excited that the IxDA awards have established a strong foothold in the landscape of design competitions. It’s vital to acknowledge the amazing work being done, but more importantly, share that work with the rest of the world. Go on, you’ve got great work to share. Get a camera and dive in!

Entry to the competition is open to all companies, individuals, and students until 1 October.

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Guest Post By Michal Pasternak, partner and head of user experience at Huge

Here at Huge, a global digital agency based in Brooklyn, we were honored to be selected as a winner for two client projects at the inaugural IxDA Interaction Awards this year. We worked on both the Pepsi Refresh Project, which was named “Best of Category” for Connecting, and HBO GO, which was chosen as a winner in the Engaging category.

For those of you thinking about submitting for an award, I’ve put together some tips to get you started.

Tip #1: Think about your audience.
Remember: before any entries go to the jury, they are reviewed by your peers. As a peer reviewer for the awards last year (I didn’t review any Huge work, of course), I looked at a bunch of submissions and the entries that really stood out to me weren’t necessarily the highest video production value or the snazziest interface. The strongest entries solved a design challenge in a new and interesting way but they also told a clear story of what they set out to do, how they achieved it (or didn’t!) and what the impact was.

When we developed our entries last year, we made sure to focus on communicating each project’s most impressive results. We asked ourselves questions like:

• What design problems did the team successfully solve?
• What made this project different from others that have come before?
• What impact did the project have on its target audience?
• What specific business goals did the project achieve for the client?
• How did this project make users’ lives better?

We made sure to communicate these points clearly in both the written entry and the video. Great design work does speak for itself, but remember the judges are evaluating you on context, impact, and craft –it’s important to give the judges a behind-the-scenes look at what went into creating the project in order to provide context on how problems were solved.

Tip #2: Pick the right category.
The work you submit is compared to other submissions in the same category so picking the right category is pretty important and can determine if you win or lose. The categories are broad: Empowering, Engaging, Optimizing, Expressing, Connecting or Disrupting. In an ideal world, a project would achieve all of those things so you should pick the category that fits with the biggest impact your project made.

We ended up submitting the Pepsi Refresh Project under Connecting, because it’s biggest impact was facilitating communication between people and communities. We submitted HBO GO to the Engaging category, but we could have also gone with Empowering, Optimizing or Disrupting. We decided that at its core, the HBO GO product is a way for viewers to engage with HBO’s quality content, whenever and wherever they’d like.

Tip #3: Just do it.
It can seem daunting to summarize a project you’ve poured so much time into a short video with some descriptive paragraphs but it’s a very rewarding experience whether you win or lose. It’s a good chance to reflect on your proudest work and what made it so great. And, the video can come in very handy in the future if you’re giving a talk or posting it in your portfolio.

We’re excited to see the best work in the industry on display when next year’s winners are announced. Good luck to the entrants of 2013!

We firmly believe that understanding and recognizing the rich and diverse interaction design thinking and process from all corners of the world is fundamental to evolving our shared profession and making good on our IxDA mission: improving the human condition through improvements in interaction design.

When the Interaction Awards were created last year, ensuring it would be globally inclusive was a deliberate decision impacting all early planning–from jury selection to tiered submission fees, to the communications and outreach strategy. And we continue that commitment this year.

With the help of IxDA’s 120 global chapters we were successful in recognising and celebrating local design and innovation and we were pleased to see so many submissions from all over the world: 315 submissions from 33 countries and our top winners came from four different countries. That was an important achievement, but with nearly 200 countries in the world, the majority are missing from this conversation. This year, we’re determined to do better.

We understand that high submissions fees are sometimes a barrier to global entries. To reflect the diversity of the global IxDA community and support fair and inclusive participation, the entry fees are tiered according to geography and professional status, including students. The fee structure was guided by research across comparative programs committed to global participation.

Last year the Interaction Awards received submissions from 33 countries:
Austria, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Iran (Islamic Republic Of), Ireland, Italy, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Republic Of South Korea, Russian Federation, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States of America.

Who’s missing? Who should be here? Help us invite more people representing design thinking from more countries all over the world.

There are two and a half weeks left to submit your best work to the awards. We’re closing submissions October 1. Start your entry now: http://awards.ixda.org.

We asked Nathan Moody, Design Director at Stimulant, to share a few words about his experience answering last year’s Interaction Awards call for entries. Stimulant’s application Loop Loop for the Sifteo game cubes won two Interaction Awards, including Best in Show. Nathan posted about the process on Stimulant’s blog. Here’s an excerpt of what he had to say:

Awards are like weight loss. We’d all like the benefits, we know it could be great for us, and yet the process scares us off… even though it’s usually far simpler than we think. I’m here to tell you that there’s no need for procrastination, and that submitting your work for the 2013 Interaction Design Awards is not just easy, but like weight loss, it’s good exercise.

First, we shot a video of our project. It was a great exercise: How does one showcase the project in the simplest, most concise way? Might fancy post-production or elaborate production value get in the way? Finding that balance really brings one face to face with the purest essence of one’s project, clarifies its value proposition, and underscore the most important ways in which its interaction was differentiated. Next, we had to fill out the entry form, which didn’t take long at all. Shooting the video had already led us to the hardest questions about positioning our project. The award form is like talking shop with another interaction designer over a cocktail: Natural storytelling that you don’t need to simplify or gloss over. Tell the story of your challenges, your solutions, what worked, and what obstacles you overcame. Whether it becomes the tale of a hero’s journey or a simple report-out of your process, use your own honest, genuine voice!

As Nathan says, “the hardest part about submitting to the Interaction Design Awards isn’t actually submitting… it’s waiting for the results!”

Enter your work to the 2013 Interaction Design Awards today. The deadline is 1 October!

We’re thrilled to announce that artist, technologist and educator Kate Hartman has joined this year’s Interaction Awards Jury.

Kate’s work spans the fields of physical computing, wearable electronics, and conceptual art, and she is the co-creator of Botanicalls, a system that lets thirsty plants place phone calls for human help, and the Lilypad XBee, a sewable radio transceiver that allows your clothing to communicate. Her perspective will be a great addition to our all star group of Jurors. Kate is replacing the wonderful Matt Cottam, who is expecting his first child right around jury deliberations. We’re sad to see Matt go, but we congratulate him and his wife and we’re pleased to welcome Kate to the group!

Read more about Kate and our whole jury panel.

For our third profile in our series on the 2013 Interaction Awards Jury, we’ve interviewed London-based juror Anab Jain. Anab invents stories, scenarios, products and experiences that imbue our everyday lives with a sense of the magical, and provoke thought and reflection around the near future. She is the Founder and Co-Director of London and India based design studio Superflux. Working both as a client-facing Consultancy as well as a more open-ended research Lab, the studio’s projects range from the wildly speculative to the immediately applicable, but always with a focus on humanising technology and its implications. Recent clients include Sony, European Commission, Microsoft, Design Council and Mattel Toys. Originally from India, Anab has a Masters in Interaction Design from the Royal College of Art and has been a TED Fellow since 2009.

We asked Anab two questions, and here’s what she had to say:

1. What is your favorite product, digital or otherwise, to use, and why?

I have been trying to think of some of the current products I use – guess the phone, kindle and laptop would feature at the top. But they are not necessarily my favourite products, they are more products of necessity that allow me to be more efficient in my work and social life.

Actually thinking about it, probably one of my all time favourite ‘products’ is our family’s paper calendar that hung near the kitchen when I was growing up, back in India. Like paper calendars in homes around the world, my Mum, Dad, sister and I, and occasionally cousins and friends who visited, annotated it with birthdays, school trips, work trips, holidays, anniversaries and so on. But there’s more to it.

The amusing and often entertaining part of the calendar were all the other things that were marked on it. Numerous festivals, from Kiteflying to Diwali, Rakhsha Bandhan to Dussehra, were important cultural events that would otherwise be missed, as there are too many to remember. Then, it also had a second calendar parallel to it – the lunar calendar which showed the growing moon all the way upto full moon day and back to no moon day. This was important for all those who were going to do any kind of fasting.

And finally, the most important marking on the calendar was the Hindu Swastika symbol, a little red mark on the corners of the dates which were meant to be auspicious. Now this was serious stuff. If you were going to buy a car, you’d do it on a day that had that symbol. If a wedding was being arranged, you’d sift through the pages to come to the month in question, and find the most auspicious day for it. If you were about to name your baby, you’d wait for the right time and day. Despite our amusement and jokes around it, secretly we’d all glance at it just to make sure we were not crossing the dreaded boundaries of auspiciousness. In case we did ignore it, neighbours and relatives who would be invited for any family event would go look at their calendars to make sure we did not plan a wedding on a day that was not auspicious. In strange ways, this little paper artifact with its little red markings and a growing moon governed our lives.

From being a reminder to a conversation piece to controlling how we would buy things and plan family events, it felt like it was part of the family somehow, almost as if it had agency or a life of its own. Unlike so many products we use today, this paper calendar understood cultural context, it understood its users whims and idiosyncracies, it understood the value of collaboration and conversation, it was flexible and it could grow. Yet was cheap to buy, never ran out of batteries and was 100% recyclable. Really quite brilliant.

2. What are 5 things all designers should know?

This is my personal current list, it keeps changing, as such lists do. Actually I dont keep many such lists for that very reason.

1. Saying NO is OK.
Designers feel obliged to say YES, just in case saying NO might mean turning down potential opportunities in the far future. One day. Maybe. But between a sense of moral obligation and humility, exercising good judgement to avoid being pulled into a tiresome spiral of never ending ‘favour jobs’ is OK.

2. Writing is a GOOD thing.
Designers dont write enough about their work, stuff that excites them, stuff that annoys them. I know its not our job to write, but I have learnt that actually sitting down and writing is super helpful in articulating my thoughts. It also brings clarity for clients and collaborators, and creates useful debate in the community.

3. Collaboration is BETTER then stagnation:
I prefer to collaborate and work with many of the talented, wonderful people I meet and get on with, rather then hold onto precious ideas which eventually stagnate and decay.

4. Drinking lots of TEA is important:
We drink *loads* of tea in our studio. Everyone makes it, everyone drinks it, everyone talks around it. We’ve invented bands, hatched plans to hijack space jets, listened to amazing lectures, drawn pirates and watched ridiculous amounts of cat videos around cups of tea.

5. Make a WISHLIST, amuse yourself:
Robert Boyle’s wishlist has left a remarkable impression on me. Some of the ideas in the list are far-fetched, others have already been achieved. But its not so much about what is actually realised, but the way in which the wishlist helped him articulate his vision for a desirable future that he hoped science would realise. As a designer a wishlist might perhaps help me think more carefully about what my ambitions are, how they juxtapose with our collective hopes and, naive as it might be, how I can push myself to be a useful member of society.

You can learn more about Anab at superflux.in and follow her on twitter @anabjain.

The Interaction Awards are open until October 1st and will be celebrated at Interaction|13 in Toronto in January 2013. Find out more, read about our other jurors, and submit your work!

For our second profile in our series on the 2013 Interaction Awards Jury, we’ve interviewed Sydney-based juror and IxDA President Steve Baty. A Principal at Meld Studios, Steve has over 15 years experience as a design and strategy practitioner. He actively contributes to public discourse on these topics through the design community, articles and conferences. In addition to serving as IxDA President, Steve sits on the Good Design Council of Australia. He is the founder of UX Book Club; co- Chair of Australia’s UX Australia, Service Design, and Agile UX conferences; and served as Chair of Interaction’12 – the annual conference of the IxDA for 2012.

We asked Steve three questions, and here’s what he had to say:

1 – What is your favorite product, digital or otherwise, to use, and why?
I have a Parker Sonnet fountain pen, with a medium-width italic nib, which I just love to use when writing. It has a really nice balance to it in your hand, and the ink flows smoothly out onto the page. There’s a wonderful sense of solidity and tangibility to it that is mostly lost in our increasingly digital age.

2 – What excites you about being a designer & why do you keep doing it?
I approach Design as a way of solving problems and creating something new and better. Each project, each artefact, each audience has very specific attributes. I’m constantly learning; constantly being pushed; and since there is always room for improvement, I know I can use Design as an avenue for self-improvement throughout my life. And at the same time, I’m helping people every time I design something new and better.

3 – What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned, and who taught it to you?
You will never get it right the first time. And those people who make it look effortless? Neither did they. But they worked at it. They practiced. They reflected on their mistakes and sought ways to improve. And eventually they arrived at a point where it looks as easy for them as breathing. And some day, with the same dedication and perseverance, it will be for you.

On the other hand, if you never try; never take that first step, then I guarantee you won’t ever be perfect.

Life has taught me that.

You can learn more about Steve at meldstudios.com.au and follow him on twitter @docbaty.

The Interaction Awards are open until October 1st and will be celebrated at Interaction|13 in Toronto in January 2013. Find out more, read about our other jurors, and submit your work!

For our first profile in our series on the 2013 Interaction Awards Jury, we’ve interviewed Helsinki-based juror Dan Hill. Dan is a designer and urbanist. Throughout a career focused on integrating design, technology, cities and people, Dan has been responsible for shaping many innovative, popular and critically acclaimed products, services, spaces and strategies. He works for Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund, in their Strategic Design Unit in Helsinki, exploring how design might enable positive systemic change throughout society. Prior to Sitra, Dan was an Associate at Arup, Web & Broadcast Director for Monocle, and Head of Interactive Technology & Design for the BBC. He writes the well-known blog cityofsound.com, as well as being Interaction Design Editor for Domus.

We asked Dan two questions, and here’s what he had to say:

1 – What is your favorite product, digital or otherwise, to use, and why?
That is a really tricky one. Mostly not digital, actually. I think most digital stuff is still too full of problems. Can’t think of a single thing I really, unequivocally like! Plenty of things I quite like, and of course respect, but I think nothing I love. Why is that?! Probably says more about me, but still.

I’m looking around, and I can see a Genelec speaker by Harri Koskinen which works well and has an appealing character. Also a notebook/sketchbook by a Japanese artist/graphic designer called Fumio Tachinbana, which deliberately frays in an appealing way. I’m typing this resting on some beautiful and functional String System shelving system. Also on that shelving is a an old Tizio desk lamp, designed by Richard Sapper in 1972, which I bought in a second hand shop near Bondi Beach in Sydney a few years ago, which is awkward and a bit broken, but so elegant to use, and so full of character that it – like all of the above – knocks all that aforementioned digital stuff on the head, at the moment. It has two counterweights, and you just have to nudge it into position and it stays there. The arms conduct electricity – so no wires – and was the first to really use halogen bulbs. And it looks amazing, somehow black and stealthy, but elegant, sleek and with dash of colour, and a sensation of floating, and touching both metal and plastic, like the best Italian design (though Sapper was German, this feels like a very Italian product.)

2 – What’s the one product you wish you’d designed, and why?
Even trickier question! I love the idea of making a tool, like a typeface or Photoshop or somesuch. A good typeface, which becomes well-used, would be an incredible challenge – well beyond me – but I like the idea of making a system that someone can build upon. Perhaps also the grid system, after Tschichold/Muller-Brockmann et al. Photoshop or Illustrator, of course, are not particularly well-designed, but still, are incredibly versatile tools. “Western” musical notation is interesting in this respect, but too limiting to be considered really successful, perhaps. That also makes me think of a Gibson Les Paul guitar, maybe. Which in turns suggests cameras, like a Leica M7, which is probably near-perfect.

I like the idea of designing everyday systems, like Kinneir & Calvert’s road sign system for the UK (also hugely influential elsewhere). I’d maybe chuck the barcode (and UPC) into that category too. What an incredible thing to design. While on that tack, currency would also be an incredible challenge and immensely appealing. Or the world wide web, of course. The idea of a single person designing these systems – as the question implies, inadvertently – is also thrown into question here, natch. If the question can extend to service, as well as product, then I’d say something like the UK’s National Health Service – but that is really the work of a multiple people, just as buildings, or these more complex systems are.

Too many to choose from – so again, somewhat off the cuff, the National Health Service, if that counts, or Kinneir & Calvert’s road signs – everyday, universal, genuinely useful, implicated in cultural change, and elegant and meaningful if you take a second glance.

You can learn more about Dan at cityofsound.com and follow him on twitter @cityofsound.

The Interaction Awards are open until October 1st and will be celebrated at Interaction|13 in Toronto in January 2013. Find out more, read about our other jurors, and submit your work!

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The second annual Interaction Awards are now open for submissions! Building on last year’s success, we’re excited to continue inspiring the global interaction design community to share discuss and celebrate excellence in our field.

We are honored to have Marc Rettig, Founder & Principal at Fit Associates, as this year’s Interaction Awards Jury Chair. Marc is joined by an international panel of experts across design domains. The six jury members for 2013 are:

Steve Baty (Sydney, Australia)
Matt Cottam (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Liz Danzico (New York, USA)
Matias Duarte (Mountain View, USA)
Dan Hill (Helsinki, Finland)
Anab Jain (London, UK).

You can read more about them here.

The jury will meet November 2012 to evaluate entries and select 40 outstanding works across six categories that speak to the intentions of our designs and the nature of the interactions we create: optimizing, engaging, empowering, expressing, connecting, disrupting. Entries will be evaluated based on the criteria of context, impact and craft. Winners will be notified December 2012, and officially announced and celebrated at the Interaction 13 conference in Toronto, Canada on January 31, 2013. Read more information about the Interaction Awards rules, categories and prizes.

This year a number of partners have returned as supporters, including media partners Fast Company’s Co.Design and Core77, joined by The Next Web. Twelve educational partners have committed to making sure student designers are recognized for their talent and contributions to interaction design.

The 2012 Interaction Awards recognized 26 winning projects for achievements across domains and cultures, awarding top prize to San Francisco-based design firm Stimulant and product company Sifteo forLoopLoop. Best Concept went to Out of the Box by Vitamins – UK, Best Student project as Pas a Pas by Ishac Bertrant/CIID, and Interaction Cubes by Fundação Oswaldo Cruz/Museu da Vida, from Rio de Janeiro was awarded the People’s Choice Award.

We have exciting plans in store for this year’s Awards, and we can’t wait to share them with you. Start working on your entries, get them in by 1 October, and stay tuned for more!

In the meantime, please help us spread the word:
Tweet about the Interaction Awards and follow us on Twitter for updates.
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