Press Release
A' Design Award in Mobile Technologies, Applications and Software Design Goes to Aurora Mobile App by Ping Chen
Ping Chen recognized for mobile technologies, applications and software design by the international grand jury of the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 21, 2026 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that Aurora Mobile App by Ping Chen, designed for Aurora, has been granted the A' Design Award in the Mobile Technologies, Applications and Software Design category. The result belongs to the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition and was decided 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.
The A' Design Award Explained
The Iron A' Design Award is awarded to good designs that meet the rigorous professional and industrial standards set by the A' Design Awards. This recognition is reserved for works that demonstrate a solid understanding of design principles and show creativity within their execution. Recipients of the Iron A' Design Award are acknowledged for their practical innovations and contributions to their respective fields, providing solutions that improve quality of life and foster positive change. These designs are a testament to the skill and dedication of their creators, showcasing their ability to address real-world challenges through thoughtful design.
More About Aurora Mobile App
Aurora is a mobile app that supports emotional regulation for people with Adhd through music based interaction. The interface combines state matched playlist generation, a multi mood journal, and daily pattern summaries. Each journal entry links the current track with mood intensity sliders and a short note. The trend view highlights key moments when music improved focus or reduced stress. A rhythm synced visual mode provides gentle motion cues during listening to support grounding.
About Ping Chen
Ping Chen is a product designer whose work spans UX and digital product experiences across health, AI, retail, and e commerce. She leads end to end design from research and strategy to interaction design and design systems, partnering with product, engineering, research, and marketing teams. Her projects include modernizing science based health platforms, improving AI workflow tools, and redesigning consumer experiences for global brands.
Award Record
With this recognition, Ping Chen is a winner of 1 A' Design Award.
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. The competition 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. Entries typically include smartphones, tablets, wearables, mobile applications, mobile games and mobile software. Awarded mobile designs are published at https://designers.org/design-category/mobile
About A' Design Award & Competition
A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade organized annually since 2008. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The A' Design Award has a philanthropic mission 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. Entries are peer reviewed and anonymously evaluated 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. The A' Design Prize granted to eligible laureates 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, the upload of a work and the 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. Further information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://designers.org/182515
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/182515
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!182515
- Laureate Profile: https://designers.org/d/380825
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
- Aurora Mobile App
- Function
- Mobile App
- Category
- Mobile Technologies, Applications and Software Design
- Discipline
- Communication Design
- Industry
- Software and Electronics & Appliances
- Colors
- Gainsboro, White Smoke, Lavender, Thistle and Gray
- Images
- 5
- Client
- Aurora
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Ping Chen
- Country
- United States of America
- Recognition
- A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2025 - 2026
- Design ID
- #182515
Credits
- Team
- Haowei Zang
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- Aurora is a music-based emotional support app for people with ADHD. Unlike traditional music platforms that recommend by genre or history, Aurora learns from users' mood journals to generate state-matched playlists, highlight moments when music helped, and reveal daily regulation patterns. Rhythm-synced visuals add gentle grounding during listening. The result is a low-effort tool that turns everyday songs into long-term self-regulation habits for wellbeing support.
- Inspiration
- After interviewing 10 people with ADHD, I saw a repeated pattern: music helps them focus or calm down, but generic playlists rarely match the moment, and it is hard to remember what worked later. This gap inspired Aurora. I combined mood journaling, pattern insights, and rhythm-synced visuals to turn listening into a repeatable self-regulation tool.
- Research
- Research Objectives: Understand how people with ADHD use music to manage focus and mood. Methodology: Semi structured interviews and concept testing. Data Collection and Research Tools Used: Interview notes, affinity mapping, storyboard and UI prototypes. Participants: 10 adults with ADHD. Results: Music helps regulation but playlists rarely match the moment and helpful tracks are hard to recall. Insights and Impacts: Led to mood logging, pattern highlights, and state matched playlists. Effect of the Research in Real-Life Phenomena such as Business, Society and Design Itself: Supports neurodiverse wellbeing and reframes music as intentional support.
- Challenge
- The main challenge was designing for mixed emotional states without adding cognitive load. Many mood trackers force a single label, while detailed journaling can feel too demanding for ADHD users. This was addressed by using a small set of mood dimensions with quick sliders, blended visual cues to reflect mixed states, and an insight-first trend view that highlights only the most meaningful moments instead of showing every entry.
- Realization and Technology
- Aurora is designed as a mobile app concept with interactive prototypes. The experience is structured around three modules: playlist generation, mood journaling, and visual listening mode. Mood inputs are captured with multi-dimensional sliders and saved as time-stamped entries linked to the current music track. The app then summarizes entries into daily patterns and generates state-matched playlists based on past mood and listening records. Rhythm-synced visuals are designed to respond to BPM and audio energy.
- Operation and Interaction
- Users listen to music, then log a quick moment: what they are listening to, how they feel across a few mood sliders, and a short note. Aurora turns these moments into state matched playlists and a daily trend view that highlights when music helped stabilize focus or calm. A visual mode adds gentle rhythm synced motion during listening to support grounding and reduce overstimulation.
- Project Duration and Location
- Aurora was designed over approximately 8 weeks in the United States (Boston, MA). Work included user interviews, synthesis, concept development, wireframing, and high-fidelity UI prototyping.
- Specifications
- Platform: Mobile app (iOS and Android concept). Core inputs: current track metadata, time stamp, multi-mood intensity sliders, and short text notes. Core outputs: state-matched playlists, daily mood pattern summaries, highlighted key moments, and rhythm-synced visual modes. Data model links each journal entry to a song and a time period to support calendar navigation and trend views. Visual modes include multiple selectable patterns designed for low stimulation.
- Keywords
- ADHD support, emotional regulation, mood based playlists, music journaling, rhythm synced visuals, neurodiverse wellness, focus support, calm support, behavior design
