Edward M. Kennedy Institute

One of the greatest shortcomings of human-centered design is its lack of guidance on how to include diversity as part of the design process. Which human, exactly, belongs in the center? Most designers end up using their own abilities and experience as a baseline for their designs. This problem is even more pronounced for the predominantly young and able-bodied designers that work in technology. The result is products that work well for people with similar abilities and resources, but end up largely excluding everyone else. This is especially true for roughly 1 billion people on the planet with disabilities.

Expressive Wearable explores clothing as a communication tool. This project imagines a scenario in which clothing expresses the wearer’s attitude directly without the concern of adhering to social conventions.

As more and more people were streaming content on their mobile devices HBO approached HUGE to plan and bring to market a suite of applications that would allow users access to the complete library of acclaimed HBO content through an interface that delivered the feel of the HBO experience. HBO had previously developed HBO GO as an on demand service that existed solely on HBOGO.com. HUGE's development of the HBO GO app aimed to harness the vibrant content of HBO to deliver a truly unique and seamless digital experience on the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and Android.HBO GO was developed to provide an ideal place for current HBO subscribers to not only view, but become fully immersed in, HBO's selection of programming. By expanding their platform, HBO Go would give more value to HBO subscribers while also creating a compelling product that could attract new subscribers.

Jammies are a set of musical instruments designed to improve the quality of life for people living with mild to moderate Dementia by empowering them to reminisce, improvise and jam along to music that is of personal value to them without assuming any prior musical ability or knowledge. They are envisaged to be part of the vastly ignored recreational product ecosystem for people living with Dementia (PLWD) managed by their caregivers or as a part of the toolbox music therapy professionals employ.

Pas a Pas is an interactive educational tool that enables children to learn and experiment through animation. It is designed to support and integrate in to an existing curriculum and is not meant to alter the natural learning pace of children. Pas a Pas incorporates physicality and the animated outcome of stop motion animation to bridge the gap between abstract concepts from maths, physics or arts - usually represented by graphs, equations or words - and reality. Pas a Pas contributes to an education that integrates 'play' and 'create' in to the learning process.Due to the inherent tangibility of stop motion animation, the concept fits into Montessori education methods - it is aligned with the idea of self-directed learning, indirect teaching and multi-age grouping.

Paper is the simplest and most beautiful way to create on the iPad. It allows you to express your ideas as sketches, diagrams, illustrations, notes or drawings and instantly share them across the web. Ideas begin on Paper.Our lives have become driven more and more by empty patterns of consumption. At a time when we face so many real challenges, we find ourselves using the most powerful technology in our history to slingshot birds and update our status.Yet we all know our most rewarding moments are those we create for ourselves. As people, we have a need to create. It's our calling to invent, discover, and do our best to leave this place a little better than when we arrived. We have an innate need for creativity.To be human is to create.

MetaCancer is an organization that is built on helping people with advanced stage cancer. MetaCancer has worked for many years building a compassionate user community and programs to support them. MetaCancer was technologically delinquent. Their old bulletin board system was the furthest thing from inviting. Partnering with the Center for Expressive Arts, MetaCancer developed a program that illustrated the healing capabilities of art as participants expressed their personal experiences through painting and poetry. MetaCancer needed a vision on how to best use technology to leverage all they had learned about their community over the years, and give them an experience that was empowering and trustworthy. Designed and built with mobile in mind, Mosaic has the simplicity of a journal with the richness of a photo or paint application. Mosaic juxtaposes technology and art for a therapeutic and empowering community experience. It represents every user’s personal journey through a challenging time in life.

For many asthmatics, the daily routines of asthma management can be a complex process entailing; monitoring the condition, logging results and inhaling the medicine in the right way. Life-long treatment often has a huge impact on people’s daily life. For an asthmatic regular, the measuring of one’s condition and tracking in the long term, is crucial to learn their own triggers. With several products and routines, living with asthma can be a constant daily challenge. Otto creates one seamless experience and redefines the asthma treatment process.

Sonivivi is an interactive mobile application that helps people who are partially blind, or those who have recently lost their eyesight to become more self-sufficient in their daily life. As the intended use of Sonivivi is for the visually impaired, the interface does not rely on sight, but instead focuses on using gestural interfaces and audio feedback to navigate through three-dimensional audio space in order to improve the user's listening skills. Sonivivi offers an enjoyable and less labor-intensive alternative to traditional methods of learning. It facilitates a self-directed and empathetic learning experience and can be used as a support tool both for educational organizations and parents who have visually impaired children.

TactorBots is a haptic toolkit to empower designers to explore emotional robotic touch. It contains eight plug-and-play wearable tactor modules that render a series of social gestures driven by servo motors. Our specialized web GUI allows easy control, modification, and storage of tactile patterns to support fast prototyping. Taking emotional haptics as a “design canvas” with broad opportunities, TactorBots is the first “playground” for designers to try out various tactile sensations, feel around the nuanced connection between touches and emotions, and come up with creative imaginations.