Press Release
Tiange Wang Receives the Bronze A' Design Award for Elf Body Environment Wellness App in Mobile Technologies, Applications and Software Design
Tiange Wang of VLab recognized for mobile technologies, applications and software design by the international grand jury of the 2022 - 2023 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 20, 2023 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has confirmed the Bronze A' Design Award in the Mobile Technologies, Applications and Software Design category for Elf Body Environment Wellness App by Tiange Wang of VLab. The award was conferred within the 2022 - 2023 A' Design Award & Competition and was determined through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who evaluated anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
What the Bronze A' Design Award Means
The Bronze A' Design Award is given to outstanding designs that showcase a high degree of creativity and practicality. It recognizes the dedication and skill of designers who produce work that stands out for its thoughtful development and innovative use of materials and technology. These designs are acknowledged for their professional execution and potential to influence industry standards positively. Winning this award highlights the designer's ability to blend form and function effectively, offering solutions that enhance people's lives and wellbeing.
More About Elf Body Environment Wellness App
Elf is an innovative mobile app that fosters the connection between environment health and body health by offering personalized suggestions about indoor environmental improvements and behavioral change. With realtime environmental and health data, Elf coaches and nudges the user about actions they could take to their indoor environment to improve how they feels and performs. The design incorporates intuitive and interactive data visualization with beautiful, soft grainy color gradients and uses conversational UI to align the character of the app to a house elf for stronger emotional appeal.
About Tiange Wang
Tiange Wang is a multidisciplinary software designer at IDEO, where she creates human-centered and data-driven experiences through UI/UX, frontend development, XR prototyping, spatial design and data visualization. She has worked across various industries in North America and Japan, and crafted user-friendly and culturally-sensitive experiences for clients from worldwide trading conglomerate to large biotechnology company to small home care brand. As a designer-developer hybrid, she weaves interaction design, software development, storytelling and system thinking into a holistic, full-stack design process.
About VLab
We are a multidisciplinary design lab specialized in experience design innovation, digital & physical product design, and speculative design. We blend experimental experiences and market-ready ideas to create tangible futures around emerging technolog
Award Record
Tiange Wang of VLab is a winner of 1 A' Design Award, including this recognition.
About the A' Mobile Technologies, Applications and Software Design Award
The A' Mobile Design Award is an international design competition recognizing good design in mobile industry by leading designers and brands worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to mobile designers, application developers, software engineers and user interface designers from all countries. Typical entries include smartphones, tablets, wearables, mobile applications, mobile games and mobile software. The awarded mobile designs are published at https://designers.org/design-category/mobile
About A' Design Award & Competition
Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://designers.org/147452
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/147452
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!147452
- Laureate Profile: https://designers.org/d/340253
- Further Information from the Laureate: https://tiangewang.io/elf
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Elf Body Environment Wellness App
- Function
- Body Environment Wellness App
- Category
- Mobile Technologies, Applications and Software Design
- Discipline
- Communication Design
- Industry
- Software and Electronics & Appliances
- Colors
- Tan, Rosy Brown, Light Gray, White Smoke and Goldenrod
- Images
- 5
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Tiange Wang
- Country
- United States of America
- Brand
- VLab
- Recognition
- Bronze A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2022 - 2023
- Design ID
- #147452
Credits
- Team
- I-Yang Huang
- Image Credits
- Tiange Wang, I-Yang Huang, 2022.; Tiange Wang, 2022.
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- Elf fosters the connection between environment health and body health by offering personalized suggestions about indoor environmental improvements and behavioral change. Using realtime environmental and health data, Elf coaches and nudges the user about actions they could take to their indoor environment to improve their everyday wellbeing. Through conversational UI and colors, the user is guided to understand key environmental qualities that are influencing how their body feels and performs.
- Inspiration
- Studies have found that in North America and Europe, we spend90% of our time indoors and the quality of indoor environmental elements like air, sound and light affects comfort, wellbeing and productivity. While there are plenty of apps that monitor environmental and body data separately, less attention has been paid to connecting the two explicitly. How might we help people live healthier lifestyles by leveraging this connection and providing personalized coaching for their indoor health?
- Research
- Through domain expert interviews and in-depth literature research in environmental science and public health, we obtained deep domain knowledge that informed feature definition, feasibility and UX writing of the app. We collected data around environmental thresholds to calibrate the content and frequency of advice generation. We also interviewed 16 people of different profiles and data literacy levels, and the results led to defining the following: user personas, key use cases, and mental load perception preferences.
- Challenge
- 1.Balance complexity of data &simplicity of communication. A related goal was to reduce mental load & ensure smooth experience for the most &least data-literate users. It is essential to communicate beyond numbers and we used gradient colors to convey overall qualities and conversational UI for further details. Together they also provide redundancy for enhanced accessibility. 2.Organize information hierarchy between data reading, tips and routines across the app to fit a natural mental model.
- Realization and Technology
- The project is highly cross-disciplinary. We used lots of desktop research, expert interviews and data collection to gain deep domain knowledge around how key environmental metrics trigger +/- interactions with the human body indoors. We also conducted in-depth competitive analysis to find unique market positioning that intersects smart environment, wellbeing and habit-forming. We used human-centered design thinking to identify design principles, main features and data communication approach.
- Operation and Interaction
- Elf takes in environmental and body health data (tracking), identify areas of improvement (analysis), output suggestions (advice) and allows in-app sharing of information (community). Users start by setting up basic demographic profile, geolocation, health interests and data collection. The app has 4 main areas: home (see realtime environmental highlights, actionable tips and personal routine timeline), data (explore detailed data), tribe (share insights) and profile (bookmarks and settings).
- Project Duration and Location
- The project started Jan 2022 and completed this version in Sept 2022 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is an ongoing process with updates depending on new needs and business goals. It was selected into Harvard i-Lab’s Venture Incubation Program and was a Semi-Finalist at Harvard’s Presidential Innovation Challenge.
- Specifications
- Elf is a mobile app for both iOS and Android users. It incorporates interactive and intuitive data visualization in showing environmental and body health data. The conversational UI supported by AI makes tips and advice easy to digest and helps align the character of the app to a house elf to create stronger emotional appeal. Machine learning algorithm calculates personal comfort zones based on body health profiles and environmental attributes to support personalization of advice.
- Keywords
- Smart Environment, Wellbeing, Health, Interaction Design, Interface Design, Behavioral Change, Conversational UI, Data Visualization
