Discover our Finalists and Winners

Plug-In-Play is an interactive installation consisting of an architectural scale projection and a series of networked input platforms representing a playful take on the future of the connected city. It was the central installation of the 2010 01SJ Biennial in San Jose, CA by the LAB at Rockwell Group.

Powerchair football is soccer for people in motorized wheelchairs.The Argentine team trains only once a month due to costly and difficult logistics. Training requires a large space with a smooth floor, and the athletes have to bring their sport chair as well as their everyday chair.We created VR Power Trainer, a virtual reality platform that empowers players to train anywhere.Using human-centered design and input from the players, we built a virtual gymnasium where they can practice anytime.

The Practice Fusion iPad app empowers doctors to review and chart patients medical history while meeting with patients. The application liberates the doctor from the desk-bound keyboard and mouse, letting them engage more with their patient than with their technology. Our design delivers an EHR experience that matches the thinking and workflow of doctors. With a patient's entire history at their fingertips, they can see the context for the visit, and easily capture details about their condition through touch or voice. The complexity of the underlying system has been pushed to the back, giving the doctor a simple schedule-driven interface to guide their day. The iPad leverages a doctor's existing data in Practice Fusion's EHR and gives her a lighter, less intrusive tool for working with it.

Precious Plastic is a combination of people, machines, platforms, and knowledge to create an alternative global recycling system. In selecting this year’s Future Voice Award, I found myself looking at designers who are looking around at how do human beings interact with the planet … In brief, Precious Plastics is trying to solve the horrific environmental crisis of the waste of ocean plastics … what I’m recognizing is tens of thousands of individuals around the world who are bringing out their own Interaction Designer … addressing some of the most problematic carnages that come from how we live on this world. – Dan Makoski, Interaction Awards Jury Chair

Small to medium sized shops account for 80% of the machining market. 70% of parts are programmed manually at the CNC machine — on an interface stuck in the 80’s. Designit partnered with Sandvik to redefine industrial machining workflows with Prism, the first computer-aided manufacturing app for iPad. It manages the entire cycle of machining and enables less experienced operators to create the programs that control CNC machines to drill, mill and carve out the parts we want to create.

Project Shasta brings AI-powered audio recording and editing to the web. A million stories wouldn't quench humanity's thirst for listening. Nor would a billion. There will never be enough stories. More people than ever wish to speak their story through podcasts. But, deciphering the intricacies of audio production is a buzzkill to many creators. Tools should inspire people to create, not discourage them from it. We built a tool that empowers anyone to tell their story through pro-sounding audio.

A global study showed that the number of people in the UK dying before they reach 75 was worryingly high (the UK ranked 12th of 19 EU countries). Equally, levels of early death varied hugely between the regions of England, demonstrating that where we live can impact how long we live. The Secretary of State for Health made tackling premature mortality a key priority. He issued a call to action, vowing to save 30,000 lives in 7 years. He commissioned Public Health England to make the relevant data transparent and available to all. The goal was to generate debate and awareness of the issue across multiple audiences whilst inspiring intervention from local government to build healthier populations. This gave rise to Longer Lives, a new website providing the information and insight needed to facilitate better health and reduce premature mortality. The team, a partnership between Public Health England (PHE) and SapientNitro, delivered a compelling solution in a matter of weeks.

In late winter 2020, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated restrictions on travel, commerce, and public gatherings. Public Math is an organization dedicated to provoking joyful math conversations in public spaces. In a time and place where there are no public spaces, how might we adapt our work?

Earlier Rig Control Systems were engineered to perfection and capable of displaying complex controls and information. But it was too complex to use and required a lot of training to educate an operator. To motivate, and encourage old and new operators to work with these complex machines and avoid losing well-trained operators and billions of dollars, we designed a new rig control system for one of our most complicated rigs — Boomer.

This project was created as part of investigating how silicone can be used as a medium for soft robotics and HCI.

My colleague, Kent Eisenhuth, and I were asked by Keysight Technologies, the world’s leading electronic measurement company, to redesign the software that controlled their line of Atomic Force Microscopes.

ReadyForZero is a free, online financial program that helps people get out of debt. It automatically pulls in all their financial data, helps them make a plan, and tracks their progress as they change their financial behavior for the better. The tool focuses on using research-based, data-driven, and user-tested design to empower people. It takes an aging industry of debt relief and applies new technology to make both people and banks happier.

This project rethinks the way Oslo University Hospital handles the entire referral and diagnostic process for breast cancer patients.

How can we facilitate conversations around health and make them more meaningful for patients and their supporters? Reflect is a game-like conversation app that provides a playful platform for patients and their supporters to engage in meaningful conversations around health. It provides them with a template to ask sensitive but important questions to make better health decisions. It also helps them set up goals and co-work as a team in overcoming their challenges.

Musicians are unique. They each bring their own perspective to how they create and practice music. Rehearsal is a tablet application that is designed to support the diverse practicing habits of musicians, whether they read music or not. The Rehearsal App is designed to optimize practice rituals with tools that explain, curate, and inspire their music. The app is accessible to a variety of musicians because it supports their primary learning style, whether it is visual (sheet music) or aural (by ear), and provides methods that broaden their musical perspective. My goal in creating the app is to improve musicians' craft and comprehension.

What if we could help awaken memories through music and sounds? An estimated 5.4 million people suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. Personalized music helps these people to remember who they are.

Typical physical-digital and electronics prototyping require a fairly steep learning curve, meaning that hours are spent dealing with syntax. Many platforms rely on wiring and physical connections that can be fiddly and cause extra failing points within the design. SAM is designed to empower students, designers, and creatives of all ages and skills to make prototypes, connected products, and services, with zero code.

We saw a great opportunity to build better teams by freeing up scouts in the NFL to spend more time actually scouting for great players than searching, collecting, and entering data. “We’re not looking for the best players, we’re looking for the best players for the 49ers. The more you can analyze data, the better decisions you can make.” – Jed York, 49ers CEO The scouting process is complicated in nature. In order to evaluate players, the scouts watch players all over the country both in person as well as on film. They then form their opinions about the players and enter their evaluations in the system of record. Information also trickles in at different times from multiple sources like medical reports or workout reports at various football events. All this information needs to be looked at collectively. The scouts need to support their views with confidence and ensure that pertinent and up-to-date information about players is reflected at all times of the year. The management needs to be able to quickly access the most relevant information about a player and make decisions on whether to draft, claim, trade or cut a player.

On-court coaching has been a hot topic in women’s tennis since its implementation in 2009. The ability to call a coach on court during a match has been embraced by many players as a concept that can help fulfill their potential. In 2015, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) permitted coaches to bring a WTA-authorized mobile device on court during a coaching break, but they may only have 90 seconds to use it. In a tennis match that can last for hours, this brief interaction is crucial, as it can change the tide of the match completely.

The problem of food waste is as easy to solve, as it is to overlook. The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has discovered that American consumers waste 40% of food, and the goal of this campaign is two-fold: first, to raise awareness of this issue, and second, to engage consumers with actionable behavioral changes that can help end food waste.

A picture is worth 1000 words. Great visuals can enhance, dramatize and even bend the narrative. From historical photos to modern-day digital images made of millions of pixels, images have always been instrumental in shaping our visual understanding of the world around us. As much as they have been instrumental in shaping reality, easy access to image manipulation has also resulted in widespread misinformation. When we can fake anything, honest representation of reality in images has become a complex problem to crack.

Living in developed countries with superior infrastructures and seemingly unlimited access to the ubiquitous things, we tend to forget: resources are not infinite and need to be taken care of. Current smart home solutions for regulating and optimizing consumption give little to no information to the user on their behavior and routine. Although every device in our home is a data touchpoint, hardly any of this is reflected in our living space, where we most need it.

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.

Sway is an engaging ‘interactive meditation’ experience making mindfulness available to everyone anywhere, anytime. It uses your phone to track movement and provides feedback to help you gain focus and improve your attention. With six unique levels, you will learn new techniques to be mindful in everyday life situations and subtly practice mindfulness anytime and anywhere.

SWYP (See What You Print) radically simplifies printing by giving you the ability to see and manipulate, in a 1:1 scale, what the finished result will look like before you print. The underlying idea is that many common problems, including the wasting of time and paper, could be fixed by making all aspects of the printing interaction more natural, predictable and understandable.

Indonesian state-owned bank, Bank BRI, is one of the biggest banks in Indonesia that are specializes on micro segment. As a way to help adult population in Indonesia who are still unbanked or underbanked, Bank BRI wants to find a way to help the customers do savings that are more convenient for them. Many of them still rely on cash for daily transactions. They keep their money at home, in a piggy bank, or join informal neighborhood saving program. This way of saving money is prone to thief and cheat. The customers themselves often get itchy to open their piggy bank and use the money.

School in the Cloud takes Sugata Mitra’s vision for the future of education beyond the seven TED Prize Labs in the UK and India and turning it into a global movement for self-organised learning.

Atopic eczema is a very itchy, chronic, non-contagious, inflammatory skin condition that affects approximately 10-20 percent of the world’s population. Due to changes in our modern daily lifestyle, it has become 2-3 times more prevalent today, compared to 40 years ago. There is no single cause of eczema: it can be inherited, caused by environmental factors, or a combination of both. An incremental lifestyle change is believed to improve one’s condition, but correlating behavioral changes with itchiness severity is difficult to measure, highly subjective, and often overlooked.

For nearly 70 years, we have been interacting with computers using a keyboard, and for the past few decades with a mouse. With the rise of touchscreen technology and the Internet of Things, we’re long overdue for a more intuitive way to create and work with technology.

“How might we connect the voices in Taiwan and HK, and make them interactive and impactful?”

Sharks are majestic creatures that have, unfortunately, received a bad reputation. The Shark Sense VR exhibit was designed to challenge visitors to aquariums to see the world from a shark’s perspective and discover just how incredible these animals are. Based on the principles of experiential learning – the understanding that we are all able to better grasp concepts, and learn and retain information when we experience things firsthand – the experience is designed as an immersive virtual reality game.

Signet is a concept that brings personal shipping into the digital age, by giving everyday users the ability to send a package or letter to a person, not a place.

Simple is an app that helps busy clinicians to manage hypertensive patients by tracking their blood pressure and medications and ensuring, through regular check-ups, that patients stay on treatment. The India Hypertension Control Initiative (IHCI), aims to improve hypertension control by 25% by the year 2025, in order to drastically reduce heart attacks and strokes, which kill millions of Indians. Simple is a key component in that effort.

Skype in the classroom is a free service for teachers that allows them to collaborate with each other, bring guest speakers to their classrooms, and take children on virtual field trips.

Sniffing out the Differences is a series of olfactory and multi-sensory interactive installations dealing with extremely critical cultural issues such as identity formation and xenophobia. It consists of 5 installations – Jallianwala Bagh, Identity stories, Mir Abdul Attarwala, Xeno 500, and Diversity in us and was exhibited at the State Art Gallery, Hyderabad, and Pratt Institute, New York. Each installation was designed specifically to engage the audience, both within India and abroad, through a showing of the common, yet unknown and allowed them to introspect and fill in the missing gaps.

Physiotherapy is all about movements. To assess patients, physiotherapists must be able to closely observe the subtle differences in patient’s movements, e.g., shifts in weight distribution while walking. Over the last decade, Australian physiotherapists are increasingly relying on video consultations to treat patients living in remote and rural areas. Such consultations are organised using video conferencing tools like Skype. Video consultation is particularly important in Australia because of its large distributed population and the increasing prevalence of long-term conditions like chronic pain.

Solo female travel is absolutely booming! But despite the growing interest, many women still lack the confidence in their abilities to take and enjoy a trip alone; citing concerns of safety, navigation, and social isolation as what’s holding them back.

Sound Blocks, was a fantastically fun project to be part of. More so that it is an amazing tool to teach children and adults alike about the basic elements of sound of made of.

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.

The world’s cities are facing explosive growth. Over the next 30 years, cities will grow by 2+ billion people. This requires building higher, denser and faster than before — while also providing high living quality and sustainable urban environments. Achieving this is a global challenge, recognized by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Meanwhile, construction, one of the least digitized industries globally, is struggling to adapt.

The goal of this Project was to explore a different way to use Spotify at home without a computer. As we move towards digital services, we become more dependent on computers and smartphones. Digital music has changed the way we consume music and this project brings back physicality to this type of media. The final concept is a standalone device that comes with 8 tags that can be linked to albums, playlists, artists… Once set up for the first time, the user can link music to the different tokens. This way you can easily grab a tag and start listening to it without having to navigate a screen interface. Place a tag on the device and music will start playing. Remove it, and it will stop. The device has no screen, but the LED display behind the pattern of the speaker will display relevant information when needed: low battery levels, connection problems…

When developing SquareTalk, our goal was to explore ways that we could use tacit technologies to foster a sense of connectedness between strangers at large-scale festival events.

Step should win in the “Expressing” category because it represent an innovative, engaging and creative way of approaching music production for children between 6 and 100 years old.

n the beginning of 2010, Microsoft Research came to our interaction class at Art Center College of Design and proposed a design challenge–“service meets social”. Being from California, our educational system has been deeply effected–to name a few of the giant issue: budget cuts, young and new teachers getting pink slips, students being packed into classrooms, and outdated standards. Our group easily, though sadly, found a field that desperately needs real solutions. Watching our family, friends, and community being negatively affected by the troubling educational system, we were motivated and inspired to find innovative ideas to solve our state’s educational problems. We approached our project with these questions: How do we update and integrate relevant technology into the classroom? How do we allow teachers to feel comfortable to share their ideas? Most importantly, how do we allow students to get the most out of their education? STEPS, our project, is an online resource and community for educators. With lesson plan databases, member profiles, and a series of expandable integrated applications and devices. STEPS brings networking to K-12 education and allows innovative ideas to be shared beyond the classroom.

Stories play an intrinsic part of our lives, society, and culture. We all make and tell stories to connect to others, share our emotions and express ourselves. Storytelling fosters positive role in a child’s physical and cognitive development from the small age. Children use simple media like pen/paper or wooden blocks to sophisticated online software like Scratch or electronic toys like Lego Mindstorms to imagine and create stories. Stic Stac (pronounced as Stick Stack) is a new way of making stories. It is a storymaking tool that allows children in the age group 9-14 years to create unique stories using tangible blocks and augmented reality.

The idea of Stic Stac Code blocks was born when I realised that most of the augmented reality (AR) based mobile applications out there let children only consume digital content. These apps impress you with polished 3D models, textures and animations, but they lack cultivating creativity amongst its users. Creativity lies in the power of Making and Tinkering and I believe a better part of technology should be designed to foster learning. Thus the question was – How might I design a creative tool that let children manipulate, create and express their unique content?

For centuries people around the Swedish lake Storsjön have talked about a mysterious lake monster called Storsjöodjuret. Since the 19th century hundreds of observations have been documented and there are even more unofficial testimonies. For a few years the monster was even on the Swedish list of protected species. There have been many attempts to catch or convincingly photograph the animal, but none of them have succeeded.

Street debating is a job to bridge social divides which also works as a social alternative to begging. Street debaters use a set of scales that makes public opinion visible with coins to evoke a discussion with the passerby. This job aims to promote empathy and tolerance in society by creating an opportunity for people to break out of their own social bubble to meet people with different opinions.

Studio H is a high school design/build curriculum for rural community benefit. Launched in Bertie County, North Carolina, the program now resides at Realm Charter School in Berkeley, California. By learning through a design sensibility and “dirt-under-your-fingernails” construction skills, we’re developing creativity, critical thinking, citizenship, and capital to give students the skills they need to succeed, while building the assets the community needs to survive. Given the opportunity to engage within a public education system, we believe the next generation will be the greatest asset and untapped resource in rural communities’ futures. Studio H is a different kind of classroom. We design, build, and transform.

The main purpose for indoor climate systems is to create healthy environments with clean air and agreeable temperature for people’s well-being. Functionalities and features to improve air quality is evolving, and our increased environmental consciousness puts new demands on energy efficiency, as well as lowering cost and the overall environmental footprint.As one of the top innovative companies in the ventilation industry, Swegon faced a challenge with their new generation air handling units. Over the years, more and more features had been added making it increasingly complex and difficult to handle. It required professionals with extensive experience to navigate and handle the large number of settings needed to stage for a world-class indoor climate and also saving energy. Important functions were not being used, because many vital features were hidden and the users never understood how to use them or that they even existed. In 2010 Swegon engaged Veryday to help them transform an overloaded control system into a user-friendly control unit. Besides turning complex into simple they wanted this new control unit to play a key role in the overall brand experience.