Negotiabbles 태블릿 애플리케이션 by Negotiabbles is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2026 A' Design Award 철상 in 교육, 교구 및 교육 콘텐츠 디자인 Competition Category.

철교육· 2026

Negotiabbles 태블릿 애플리케이션

by Negotiabbles

Client: Negotiabbles

A' Design Award 철상 Winner in 교육 Category

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View at A' Design Award Press Release Award Badge

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The Design

About Negotiabbles 태블릿 애플리케이션

Negotiabbles는 유치원부터 8학년까지의 어린이가 협상 능력을 연습할 수 있도록 돕는 교육용 태블릿 애플리케이션이다. 이 앱은 자원을 나누거나 의견 차이를 해결하는 등 또래 사이에서 흔히 일어나는 상황을 삽화가 담긴 이야기 챕터로 제시한다. 어린이는 인공지능 캐릭터와 대화하며 자신의 요구를 말하고, 이유를 제시하고, 상대의 말을 경청하고, 합의에 이르는 과정을 안내받는다. 각 캐릭터 위에 떠 있는 감정 말풍선은 색상, 크기, 형태가 변화하며 감정 상태를 실시간으로 보여준다. 요약 화면에는 사용한 전략과 세션별 성장 과정이 기록된다.

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 철상

Negotiabbles 태블릿 애플리케이션, 이 작품은 A' Design Award 철상 수상작으로, 잘 디자인된 창작물에 기대되는 전문적·산업적 요건을 충족하는 좋은 디자인에 수여되는 권위 있는 인정입니다. 철상 수상작은 창작자의 뛰어난 기술, 높은 전문성, 전문가다운 이해, 창의적 역량을 보여 줍니다. Negotiabbles 태블릿 애플리케이션, 이 작품은 높이 평가받고 감탄과 사랑을 받는 창작물로서 실용적이고 혁신적일 것으로 기대됩니다. 이 철상 수상 디자인은 업계 모범 사례를 통합하며 노하우와 재능으로 연결된 유능한 기술적 특성을 갖추고 있습니다. Negotiabbles 태블릿 애플리케이션, 이 작품은 철저함으로 존중받으며 삶의 질을 개선하여 세상을 더 나은 곳으로 만들도록 디자인되었습니다.

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties: Negotiabbles is an educational app that helps children in grades K-8 build essential negotiation skills in a safe, playful, and story-driven environment. Many kids struggle to express needs or resolve conflicts and only 28% of children ages 6 to 8 can do so clearly. Our design transforms complex negotiation principles into age-appropriate role-play with AI characters, real-time feedback, and emotion-visualized interfaces. By turning peer conflicts into engaging learning opportunities, Negotiabbles empowers kids to grow confidence, empathy, and lifelong communication skills.
Dimensions & Packaging: Digital application for tablets (10-inch, 2160 x 1620 px). Voice input with real-time AI response. Adaptive difficulty across K-8 stages. Cloud-based architecture supporting single-player, guided, and multiplayer modes. Emotion-visualized bubble interface rendered at 60 fps. Secure data handling for child users (COPPA-aligned).
Tags: Educational App, Children, Negotiation Skills, Social-Emotional Learning, AI Role-Play, Voice Interaction, Color Psychology, Emotion Visualization, Game-Based Learning, Conflict Resolution, K–8 Education, Interactive Storytelling, Child Development, Shape Psychology, Empathy Training
Production Technology: User-centered iterative design process. Voice interaction via speech processing APIs, AI-driven role-play via NLP, real-time emotion visualization through a custom animation system built on color and shape psychology frameworks. Prototyping and usability testing with target-age children refined scaffolding and interaction patterns. Digital-first, cloud-based architecture.
Design Challenge: The central creative and research challenge was to make the invisible visible: negotiation is fundamentally a psychological process involving shifting emotions, competing needs, and evolving positions - none of which have an inherent visual form. The team needed to develop a visual language that could represent these dynamics in a way that is immediately intuitive to children as young as five, while remaining scientifically grounded and systematically scalable. The solution was the development of an "Emotional Periodic Table" - a structured visual vocabulary that combines two psychological frameworks into a unified motion-design system. Color psychology provides the chromatic axis: warm hues (reds, oranges) represent tension, frustration, and assertiveness; cool hues (blues, greens) represent calm, openness, and agreement; transitional tones (yellows, purples) represent uncertainty, curiosity, and shifting positions. Shape psychology provides the morphological axis: angular, spiky forms convey conflict, defensiveness, and high emotional intensity; rounded, smooth forms convey receptiveness, empathy, and resolution. These two axes combine to generate a matrix of emotion states, each represented by a distinct bubble form - a specific combination of color, shape, size, opacity, and movement behavior. For example, a large, red, angular bubble pulsing rapidly represents strong disagreement, while a small, blue, rounded bubble drifting gently represents calm agreement. The system includes transitional animations (a bubble softening its edges as tension decreases, or warming in hue as frustration builds) that create a continuous, readable motion language. The research challenge was ensuring that these mappings were not arbitrary but grounded in established color-emotion and shape-emotion associations from developmental and environmental psychology. The team cross-referenced color psychology literature (warm colors as activating, cool colors as calming) with shape psychology research (angular shapes as threatening, curved shapes as approachable) to build a mapping framework that aligns with children's intuitive perceptions. The resulting periodic table organizes all possible emotion-bubble states into a systematic grid, allowing the design team to ensure visual consistency, avoid redundancy, and create clear distinctions between emotional states. This system serves as both a design tool (guiding the creation of new scenario content) and a pedagogical tool (helping children learn to "read" emotions through visual pattern recognition). The motion language embedded in the bubbles: speed, direction, oscillation, merging and splitting behaviors, all add a temporal dimension that reflects how emotions evolve during a conversation, rather than presenting them as static labels.
Research: This project investigates how interactive, AI-mediated role-play can support the development of negotiation skills in children aged 5-13 (grades K-8). Drawing on social-emotional learning (SEL) theory and child negotiation research, the study identifies a critical gap: while negotiation is a foundational interpersonal skill, it is largely absent from early education curricula. Existing data indicates that only 28% of children aged 6-8 can clearly articulate their needs in peer disputes, and that children with underdeveloped negotiation abilities face significantly higher rates of peer rejection by adolescence. The research proposes an emotion-visualized, voice-based application as an intervention tool. The design framework translates established negotiation principles: BATNA (anchoring, justification, and emotional regulation) into scaffolded, story-driven interactions with AI characters. The emotion visualization system, grounded in color psychology and shape psychology, maps internal states to external visual cues, enabling children to observe and interpret the emotional dynamics of a conversation as it unfolds. The study details the iterative, user-centered design process, including literature review, scenario development, interface prototyping, and usability testing with target-age users. Findings suggest that combining voice interaction, real-time visual feedback, and narrative framing creates an engaging and developmentally appropriate learning environment for practicing complex social skills.
Inspiration: Negotiabbles came from research on social-emotional learning, revealing a gap between children's need for conflict resolution skills and available tools. Research shows that children with weak negotiation skills at age 8 are 2.5 times more likely to face peer rejection. Existing tools focus on emotions but not the full negotiation cycle. Inspired by storybook visuals and color-emotion psychology, the bubble interface makes abstract emotional dynamics visible through responsive shapes and colors.
Project Duration: The project started in December 2024 and finished in June 2025 in the United States.
Operation Flow: The user flow begins with story selection, where the child chooses a scenario drawn from common peer situations such as sharing a resource, resolving a disagreement, or joining a group activity. Each scenario is framed as a storybook chapter with illustrated AI characters. Upon entering a scenario, the child engages in voice-based dialogue with the AI character, who presents a negotiation challenge. The interface displays dynamic emotion bubbles above each character. These bubbles shift in color, size, and shape in response to the tone and content of the conversation, providing real-time visual feedback on emotional states. As the child speaks, the system processes their input and the AI character responds contextually, guiding the child through negotiation stages: stating needs, giving reasons, listening, proposing compromises, and reaching an agreement. At each stage, the scaffolding system offers gentle prompts if the child needs support (for example, a prompt to explain their reasoning or consider the other character's perspective). After the scenario concludes, the child receives a summary screen displaying which strategies were used, how emotional states shifted during the conversation, and specific areas for continued development. Progress is recorded in a personalized negotiation profile that tracks growth across sessions and strategy types. In multiplayer mode, two children engage in a guided negotiation with each other, with the AI serving as a mediator that monitors turn-taking, emotional escalation, and strategy use, ensuring both voices are heard and the interaction remains constructive.
Team Members: Zixuan Li (Product Design Lead)
Xuefei Wang (UX Design Lead)
Lydia (Tiansui) Leiwang (UX Motion/Visual Design)
Zilu (Ruby) Wang (UX Design)
Huimeng Lu (UX Design)