The Department of Design at UNIST has once again been recognized for design excellence, worldwide. They announced that four its new communication design concepts were honored with the main awards at this year’s International Forum (iF) Design Award competition, proving the excellence in innovation, ingenuity, and technical achievement in mobile app design.
Among many other outstanding design and innovation achievements, those who have been honored with the iF Design Awards 2022 are Professor Hwang Kim, Professor Seungho Lee, and their design teams within the Department of Design at UNIST.
The four award-winning mobile app design concepts are ‘Findie: Public service platform that help locate missing people with dementia,’ DADLE: Mental health platform for better depression care,’ ‘Volluun: Digital service platform to search, find, and record volunteering activities,’ and ‘Moee: Digital service platform for richer exhibition experience.’ Above design concepts have been awarded the prestigious iF Design Awards 2022 awards in the communication design category.
Findie is a mobile alert app that helps locate missing persons with dementia. The app uses machine learning algorithm layered on top of historical data, collected from the missing person’s movements and personal particulars to make more accurate predictions. Based on the gathered information, the app sends push notifications to families and people in the locality of the incident and nearby areas, seeking the community’s help to provide clues about a missing person. The app also gives users information about dementia and help resources.
Findie is an app that helps search for missing people by using basic information on dementia patients. The part marked in purple is the predicted missing point.
DADLE is a mental health platform that helps users overcome depression through online group therapy and activities. Based on a user’s psychological test results and preferences, the platform recommends groups with similar challenges and a therapist with relevant expertise to increase the efficacy of the therapy. Group therapy sessions are conducted via video chat, but anonymity is maintained by replacing the users’ faces with avatar characters. Various group activities strengthen the known benefits of group therapy, such as empathy, comfort, and bonding. The platform also helps fight the stigma around depression and its treatment, which is still a prevalent attitude in Korea.
DADLE is an app specialized in group psychological counseling, and maximizes the effect of comforting each other while forming a consensus.
Volluun is a digital service platform to search, find, and record volunteering activities. Personalized recommendations of volunteering programs and gamification settings with a metaverse concept encourage users to steadily contribute to society. Volluun villages, which are playful certifications, are decorated with items that represent the results of a user’s activities. Volluun aims to gather individuals willing to help others and spread social impact. By providing a visualized and cumulative volunteering history, volunteers can also share records in their internal networks.
Above is the conceptual diagram of Voluun, an app that helps you volunteer more easily and fun.
Moee is a digital service platform for museum visitors to record their appreciation of artworks and share them with other visitors. Moee offers users a collection of discussions, views on works, and shared tastes to create a richer exhibition experience in collaboration with the host museum. Moee lets users leave thoughts by text and voice with “Moee step icons” on the digital exhibition floor map and share them with others. These public records together with official curatorial notes become a user’s own digital catalog in the Moee mobile application. The app enhances the exhibition experience by promoting communication and discussion among art lovers.
Moee’s conceptual diagram, an app that enriches exhibitors’ viewing experiences.
Both Professor Hwang Kim and Professor Seungho Lee joined the Department of Design at UNIST in 2019. Professor Kim runs his own design research laboratory, namely ‘Of Now Design Lab,’ exploring “Digital/Innovation/Service/Strategy,” part of UNIST. Professor Lee also runs his own design research practice and laboratory, namely ‘New Design Studio,‘ which explores the potential of design for service and policy within the Department of Design at UNIST.
