Artefact

Arizona State University
Learning Enterprise

Advancing equity in higher education


Technology

Expanding access to education for nontraditional learners

The Challenge:

Leverage Arizona State University’s online learning platforms to support institutions serving nontraditional learners so that they have better access to courses, communities, and opportunities.

The Outcome:

A vision for a customizable platform experience where institutions can access ASU courses, pathways, and degrees, and contextualize them for the unique needs of their learners.

The Impact:


ASU is positioned to offer courses, learning pathways, and degrees to nontraditional institutions across the country, an important step toward reducing barriers to higher education for organizations struggling with digital learning capacity and expanding access to online education in the face of the ongoing pandemic.

“Artefact was a valuable partner in helping us realize our vision to improve equity in higher education. This work will impact so many learners and we are excited for what’s to come.”

Lukas Wenrick

Assistant Director of the Learning Enterprise,
Arizona State University

Transforming traditional models of education

The Arizona State University (ASU) Learning Enterprise is dedicated to expanding the university’s online courses, platforms, and digital learning technology to nontraditional organizations such as high schools, community colleges, minority-serving institutions, and corporate education groups.

As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the existing inequities in higher education, ASU recognized that many nontraditional institutions pushed into digital learning lacked the courseware to provide continued online education and the technology platforms to deliver it to students.

We partnered with ASU to help evolve their existing online learning platform so that a diverse group of institutions can better purchase, adopt and scale ASU courses and degree programs both on their own and through ASU-hosted platforms.

Helping institutions scale courses with ease

We designed ASU’s online learning platform to help prospective partner institutions quickly and easily customize a unique learning offering for their organization.

Potential partners can browse and filter courses and certificates; sign up and procure learning offerings; set up a management dashboard to generate insight reports; and export courses to their existing learning management systems – all in one powerful platform.

Empowering learners to forge their own path

The learner platform helps students achieve their educational goals through ASU partner offerings.

Learners can enroll and select courses, track their progress, and browse new offerings to help develop a unique pathway toward earning a certificate.

Inclusion: the heart of the process


We engaged communities of use in the creative process to understand how ASU’s digital learning offerings would be most useful for nontraditional institutions.

Through conversations with leaders from high schools, nonprofits, and minority-serving institutions, we identified different use cases for educators and learners; how institutions might co-brand digital content alongside ASU; and how to elevate these opportunities to learners.

We continued to adjust strategy and iterate the user experience model to reflect feedback from potential partner institutions.

“Artefact’s fantastic design skills and clear understanding of engineering enabled them to design meaningful solutions that development teams can build. They were a great partner.”

Roger Kohler

Technical Director, Arizona State University

Foolproof tools for engineering

To ensure seamless handoff between design and development, we created an information architecture and user experience flow that engineering teams could easily track to.

This included a set of experience prototypes to convey the ideal platform experience for learners and administrators; a design component library and specifications to help developers build our vision; and a landing page template to guide the creation of new visual styles for prospective institutions.

Lifting barriers to education

ASU’s online learning platform is an innovative new business model poised to advance equity in higher education by reducing barriers to access.

With greater acceptance and adoption of distance learning due to the pandemic, ASU and its partner institutions are well positioned to expand access to courses, pathways, and degrees for all learners, today and tomorrow.

What we delivered

+ Concept envisioning

+ Experience design

Learn more about our expertise





Next project

DreamBox Learning


A dashboard for success in education




Omidyar Network:
The Ethical Explorer Pack

Tools to navigate ethics in technology


Design

Helping technologists chart the future impact of their work

The Challenge

Evolve philanthropic venture capital firm Omidyar Network’s ethical design resource into an impactful and accessible toolkit that encourages teams to question and address the implications of their products on people and society.

The Outcome

The Ethical Explorer Pack: a physical and digital toolkit to pioneer a new standard for building tech that’s safer, healthier, fairer, and more inclusive for all. Its inviting narrative and lightweight physicality keeps it on-hand and front-of-mind during important discussions.

“Artefact was the ideal partner to bring our vision to life in the Ethical Explorer Pack. The team provided thought and care every step of the way, with excellent communication and beautiful final output.”

Sarah Drinkwater

Director, Beneficial Technology, Omidyar Network

An approachable, actionable guide

Omidyar Network works to ensure that technology is a force for good in our communities.

They launched the EthicalOS design resource in collaboration with the Institute for the Future (IFTF) to encourage technologists across the industry to think through the risk areas and consequences of the products they create.

We partnered with Omidyar Network to transform the EthicalOS document into a refined, relevant, and accessible toolkit that technology designers are excited to engage with and promote throughout the product development process.

Who is the Ethical Explorer?

The Ethical Explorer brand represents those in a technology organization who want to serve and support ethical values in design, foster an inquisitive culture, and ignite positive change through dialogue.

Generating awareness and conversation around tech ethics among peers is not easy. It can sometimes feel like an uphill battle, full-time job, and unchartered territory all rolled into one.

Championing this work takes continuous commitment and exploration. Thus, the Ethical Explorer was created.

Mapping the ethical risks in technology

The Ethical Explorer Pack centers around eight Tech Risk Zones such as algorithmic bias, bad actors, and disinformation.

Each zone features a unique illustration that expresses unforeseen danger and potential challenges Explorers might encounter in the wild. The color of each Risk Zone is intentionally vibrant to represent danger and command attention.

The Risk Zone Cards


The Risk Zone cards provoke thoughtful conversation around responsibility and impact, no matter where you are in a product’s lifecycle.

Each card has three types of questions to help teams figure out where they stand, anticipate risk, or lead the way when it comes to radical change.

The Field Guide


Complementing the Risk Zone cards, the Field Guide suggests five different activities to help both individuals and groups start their journey toward more ethical technology and gain buy-in within their organizations. Explore as a group to build habits moving forward, or reflect and challenge past decisions on your own.

Unique stickers let Explorers show off their passion and advocacy for ethical, inclusive, and safe technology.

Equipping designers for the road ahead

We created the Ethical Explorer Pack as a starting point. Designed to not only help technologists find their “moral compass,” it also encourages them to advocate for a responsible movement in technology – one that’s grounded in asking questions, challenging norms, and creating a future where tech products are built with responsibility at the core.

What we delivered

+ Generative research

+ Foresight

+ Concept envisioning

+ Strategic assessment

+ Capacity building

Learn more about our expertise

In the news

Cool Hunting

Omidyar Network + Artefact’s “The Ethical Explorer Pack” Tech Toolkit





Next project

The Tarot Cards of Tech


Discover the power of predicting impact



Reimagining the
Grocery Shopping
Experience

Safer store experiences. Seamless online shopping.


Technology

Three ways technology might improve food retail following COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic cast a spotlight on an essential service many of us take for granted: the grocery store.

Customers now expect more of their grocery shopping experience: safety and efficiency in-store, a fast and reliable online experience, and the flexibility to choose how and when to make purchases.

We imagined three ways that emerging technology might help customers shop with more confidence, while ensuring businesses efficiently manage guest volume, protect employees, and sustain revenue.

1. Guiding safe behavior

Grocery stores encourage browsing by design, and have struggled to manage traffic and protect essential staff during the pandemic. Wider aisles and static signage alone don’t inspire efficient behavior and are often ignored.

Smart augmented reality way-finding could direct store traffic in real time, helping customers navigate more efficiently and reducing the burden on store employees to monitor and enforce social distancing.

The technology


A combination of vision technology and object-tracking AI in-store could project augmented reality boundaries around customers to encourage proper social distancing. Guided route projections update and re-direct based on real-time data to reduce interaction and optimize routes.

Projections could also act as responsive aisle signage, indicating direction based on real-time store traffic and closing aisles to accommodate workers cleaning or stocking the area.

2. Forecasting risk

Customer movement, proximity, and shopping duration are all factors that increase the risk of virus transmission.

We imagine a system that tracks this data to determine and communicate the risk status of stores.

The technology


Vision technology like in-store object recognition, or crowdsourced GPS data, could gather real-time information on factors such as peak traffic hours, how long shoppers linger, and proximity to others, generating a risk status for each store.

Access to accurate store data on these factors might allow for less-restrictive containment policies, reducing the economic impact of store closures.

An AI assistant might predictively manage this data to help customers identify stores with the lowest risk at the time they want to shop, or find the optimal hours to visit their preferred grocery – all without leaving the house.

3. Bringing the best of in-store, online

Once considered a luxury, online grocery shopping has become a necessity for many. Vulnerable populations in particular have adopted the approach, with seniors comprising the largest new demographic of online shoppers since the pandemic.

We envision an elegant and immersive online shopping experience that introduces the familiarity of in-store shopping. Customers navigate by store sections, allowing them to discover forgotten items or be inspired by new ingredients just as they would in a physical store.

The technology


In-store cameras or robots with embedded vision technology could scan shelves daily, allowing shoppers to see and select available items.

Tools in the platform to compare size, color, and ripeness allow customers to “feel” information akin to shopping in a store.

What’s next for food retail?

While the percentage of grocery sales online is estimated to more than triple as a result of the pandemic, 87% of people still prefer to buy in-person. Customers will continue to visit brick-and-mortar stores to explore the possibilities of food and engage with their community.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced retailers to focus on risk, yet grocery shopping is an inherently tactile experience. Physical stores may transition into smaller showrooms that customers visit to socialize with staff and discover new ingredients and recipes, while staple items and consumer packaged goods are automatically delivered to their homes.

We see the possibility of emerging technology to support such evolving norms around shopping and help craft a future where both brick-and-mortar and online shopping are integrated into one seamless, safe experience.

In the news

Fast Company

How toilet paper and avocados help explain the grocery store of the future





Next project

Hyundai


Exploring the (near) future of driving



Navis

An emergency preparedness concept for a world in flux


Technology

Navis helps people prepare for emergencies and respond effectively.

The Challenge

The effects of climate change and urbanization are increasing the frequency and severity of crises like natural disasters and pandemics, yet less than half of Americans have an emergency plan for their household.

How might we help people better understand risk, take smart steps to becoming prepared, and more effectively leverage the power of community to help each other in times of need?

The Outcome

Navis is a conceptual emergency preparedness system that guides people in planning for, and responding to, crisis scenarios.

The app uses conversational UI and augmented reality to help people create a personalized emergency plan on their preferred devices. The durable polycarbonate home hub helps people stay connected during an emergency and translate plans into action.

Combining behavior change research with the possibilities of emerging technology, Navis reduces barriers to emergency planning and helps people better assist their communities
during a crisis.

A simple, personalized
way to prepare

According to cognitive psychology research, decision-making biases like short-termism and underestimating scale deter people from assessing their risks or preparing an emergency plan. The Navis concept makes emergency planning easy and intuitive.

A guided onboarding experience reduces barriers to getting started. The app’s “preparation mode” uses calming colors and clear directives to communicate stability and encourage engagement. It provides positive reinforcement and helpful tips as users progress on their preparedness journey.

Convenient and conversational


Most of the necessary information for your plan is collected through conversation with the app. Every question answered adjusts what additional details are gathered about your household. The app syncs across all smart devices, allowing people to work on their plan at their convenience, on the devices they prefer.

Visualizing risks
in the home

It’s hard to imagine how your home will be affected by an emergency such as an earthquake or fire. We envision using the power of augmented reality to make risks tangible and help people see the unseen.

Augmented-reality scans throughout the home identify risks based on emergencies that might occur in your specific location. The app could detect dangerous items or exits that may become blocked, and generate insights such as suggested places to shelter.

A tailored plan

The app guides households through a series of bite-sized modules that gather essential information such as geographic location, discretionary income, individual age and ability, and household medical and dietary considerations.

Navis would automatically generate a personalized plan and curated emergency kit unique to each household’s needs and the risks relevant to where they live.

A dependable
guide when infrastructure is disrupted

The Navis concept transforms your preparedness plan into concrete action for any type of crisis – whether your smartphone is working, or standard technology and infrastructure is unavailable.

The heat, flame, and water-resistant polycarbonate home hub is designed to withstand force. It remains synced with your preparedness plan at all times.

In an emergency, the app and home hub alert you of a crisis occurring and prompt through voice and screen to set a status as safe or needing help. Once marked safe, it directs you to begin your personalized emergency plan.

Consistent connectivity

As a mesh network node, we envisioned the home hub to help you communicate with neighbors and loved ones by connecting to other home hubs or smartphones nearby, creating a resilient local network across neighborhoods.

This network range has the potential to provide communication capabilities when standard networks are unavailable.

A robust hub


The e-ink display screen and triple-power LED lights indicate status while providing options for ambient and directional lighting. The low energy draw of e-ink and LEDs allow the hub to function for weeks without a charge. In addition to USB and USB-C charging ports, it features a solar panel for back-up charging.

In a crisis, we reach for familiar technology first. The “emergency mode” on the Navis app and home hub helps people communicate and act on their emergency plan from any device.

Put plans
into action


In a disaster situation, the Navis app shifts into “emergency mode,” using high-contrast color and typography to provide clear directions. Contextualized actions displayed on both the home hub and your mobile device help you take quick action based on your unique preparedness plan.

Locate family
and friends


Navis automatically syncs your family’s statuses to your app and home hub, helping you check on loved ones and identify who needs help in your community. Colors communicate status at a glance, displaying neighbors who have requested assistance.

Empowering neighbors as first responders

Communities cannot rely on institutions alone for support in times of crisis. It can take days for emergency services to arrive after a disaster, and neighbors are often the first to respond to those in need. Helping communities help themselves is the key to keeping people safe in an emergency.

Navis imagines how communities can share resources and skills during and after an emergency. Through the skill-matching feature, users can request assistance in the app or identify neighbors that need help. The portable home hub also allows people to easily transport it to those nearby who may not have connectivity or power.

Connecting people to a local community of prepared homes deters reactive behavior like panic buying and helps communities more effectively coordinate among themselves in times of crisis.

“You want to take as much pressure off of first responders as possible so they can triage effectively…What matters in terms of disaster response and recovery is community connection and social cohesion.”

Anita Chandra

Disaster Researcher, RAND
Speaking to WIRED

Fostering resilient, inclusive communities

Disasters disproportionately affect vulnerable populations. We envision the Navis system to expand beyond individual preparedness alone to better equip and inform communities at large. Just one Navis system in a community center or shelter, for example, could aid a wider population in need.

By helping people build an interconnected network of prepared households, communities can better support their vulnerable neighbors and build broader resilience. Concepts like Navis demonstrate opportunity for responsible design to deliver more equitable experiences and drive positive community impact.





Next project

AIM


Healthcare in the age of AI




Kagi

A personal data advocate for an expanding digital universe


Technology

A concept for the future of personal data ownership

Is privacy dead? From our homes to our heartbeats, the devices, apps, and appliances that surround us constantly collect data from almost every action we take – awake or asleep.

This data is growing exponentially. Quintillions of bytes of data are generated each day, with the entire digital universe doubling every two years. As facial recognition and ubiquitous sensors become commonplace, the system that comprises our personal data will increasingly monetize our attention at every turn. It is clear that not all companies – or even governments – share the same approach to data privacy, leaving our personal information vulnerable to neglect, misuse, or even weaponization.

Continuing down this path risks a future where data privacy and anonymity is a luxury for the wealthy, powerful, and digitally literate. Without the right tools working in conjunction with the right regulatory policy, we will lose the capacity to manage this intimate picture of our lives.

At Artefact, we are exploring a future with a radically different paradigm for personal data collection and ownership. A future where our data works for us, on our terms. A future with Kagi to help.


Rather than trading data for services, we imagine a future where people control and leverage personal data to improve their lives.

Secure, reliable, empowered data ownership

Kagi (pronounced “kah-ghee”) is a conceptual intelligent agent that stores and manages personal data on an individual’s behalf. Named after the Japanese word for “key,” Kagi is both a secure data repository and an intermediary between our experiences and the data they generate.

Kagi uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to recognize a person’s data privacy preferences and, over time, earn the ability to make increasingly important decisions for them. Kagi is invisible and automatic, eliminating the need to spend time mired in personal data management. It gives people the power to fully own their data and control its use.

Returning data ownership to the individual

Even the most routine digital services incentivize users to continually share personal data with no visibility around how it is utilized. People may inadvertently grant an e-mail provider permission to scan private messages for tailored advertising, or allow a ride-hailing service to record their location data even after closing an app.

Kagi makes it simple for anyone to secure their personal data and understand how it might be used. It stores a person’s entire personal data footprint, acting as an intermediary between the platforms that collect it and brokering deals with the services that want to use it. Unlike today, Kagi prioritizes the interests of people over platforms.

Quarantine, store, and secure


Kagi controls the flow of data between a person’s devices and services and their central servers. Using a distributed network like blockchain, Kagi acts as a trusted single repository for personal data to ensure that it is protected from unsanctioned collection or use.

Of course, companies already own scores of people’s personal data. Where possible, Kagi cleans up and deletes existing data and “digital exhaust” that already exist on a device or service.

A trusted assistant


Each person trains Kagi’s machine learning AI with their data privacy preferences, interacting with the agent less and less over time as it earns trust in making data decisions.

Eventually, Kagi will automatically recognize a person’s privacy preferences based on past behaviors and settings, and automatically monitor and manage the entirety of their personal data on their behalf.

Automatic, scaled privacy preferences


Kagi ensures data privacy outcomes are consistent with each person’s preferences. If someone is concerned about sharing their family’s health data, for example, Kagi can apply their specific privacy preferences across platforms that engage with healthcare information.

Kagi also manages the nuances between complex data privacy frameworks that may vary from service to service. In a future where people may be bound to hundreds – if not thousands – of data privacy policies, Kagi consistently manages the entirety of a person’s data preferences.

An advocate in the public domain

Imagine entering a pharmacy of the future. Biometric scanners track your identity, facial recognition senses your mood, AI cross-references your past buying patterns to influence your behavior, and a mixed-reality interface directs you toward certain products – all before you’ve even picked up a shopping basket.

Kagi acts as a real-time data advocate amidst a world of connected technology and predictive personalization, helping people control the impact this surveillance has on their lives.

Control how you connect


Enjoy the conveniences of a connected digital world without personal data being consistently collected or used to tailor experiences at every turn. Kagi helps people make the most of useful technology like facial recognition where appropriate, while helping automatically opt out of algorithmic personalization, mixed-reality intrusions, and other forms of targeting and manipulation.

Flag sensitive data requests


Kagi identifies unprecedented data requests that may require on-the-spot decision making. Like a credit card company flagging unusual spending, Kagi only alerts people when they need to handle a unique data request.

Monetizing data – on our terms

We envision a future where we not only protect and control our personal data but unlock new ways of creating real value. Kagi gives people ownership and control over how their data is sold, giving rise to a marketplace where people harness their data in the ways that work best for them.

Kagi shifts data-driven business models so that individuals are in the seller’s seat and decide how to leverage their personal data. When people protect their personal data from automatic access, we expect new services to emerge that allow them to monetize or extract value from their data in new ways.

From data-driven medical research to policymaking and planning smart cities, there are several ways society could benefit from a voluntary exchange of connected and integrated data where people are fairly compensated.

Confidence in an accelerating data landscape

We envision a future where individual choice defines personal data ownership. Intelligent assistants like Kagi are just one piece in a future paradigm of empowered data ownership. There is ample opportunity for technology to help align all data stakeholders – from individuals to businesses to policymakers – in navigating our ever-expanding digital data universe.





Next project

Systems Thinking 101


Can social media be saved?




Tangerine Forward
Banking Experience

Reimagining online banking for 2.2 million people


Technology

Transforming the
banking experience at scale

The Challenge:

Transform Tangerine’s banking experience into a powerful, sophisticated, and friendly digital financial ecosystem to help Canadians make smart decisions with their money and meet their banking goals.

The Outcome:

A complete design system and roadmap to reflect Tangerine’s Forward Banking philosophy across a new suite of digital banking features, including a refreshed brand, responsive website and new mobile app.

The Impact:


A 50-percent increase in new clients with more than one product when they onboard. Canada’s highest overall client satisfaction rating among mid-sized banks and second-highest satisfaction rate for credit card mobile apps, according to J.D. Power.

“I was very impressed by Artefact’s creativity, open-mindedness, and ability to think in abstract ways. Your work was much appreciated and valued in helping us develop the client-centric Forward Banking experience we are pleased to provide today.”

Mark Nicholson

Vice President Digital + Innovation, Tangerine

Simplifying everyday
banking

Tangerine sees money differently. The Scotiabank subsidiary is an online-only direct bank with innovation at its core. Tangerine was previously known primarily as a savings and investment institution, but through this work has evolved to become a preferred everyday bank for Canadians. Beyond their mission of simplifying daily banking, Tangerine is dedicated to helping people make better financial decisions that increase their long-term wealth.

We joined forces with Tangerine to help evolve their platforms, elevate and expand their brand, and develop a suite of innovative digital banking features that set Tangerine apart as the bank that empowers you to take charge of your financial future, every day.

Transforming how clients engage with banks

Forward Banking reimagines and personalizes the client’s complete financial journey, from initial onboarding and everyday bill paying, to long-term goal setting and adopting additional banking products.

We turned Tangerine’s vision and strategy for the future of banking into features that their team could ship, develop, and use to rebuild Tangerine’s entire banking experience.

48 features.
1,600 screen designs.
1 Forward Banking experience.


Empowered, educated clients are central to Tangerine’s philosophy. All 48 features developed for the Forward Banking experience are designed to help people make smart decisions with their money every day through personalized insights, better budgeting tools, and easy-to-use transactional features.

Insights


Insights provides actionable notifications about accounts delivered in a timely and contextual manner. From low balance alerts and task reminders to helpful hints on improving spending habits and achievement milestones, Insights tailors the banking experience to clients’ specific needs.


Left to Spend


Create a personalized budget and stay on track with real-time data. Forward Banking uses a client’s transaction history to generate a bespoke daily, weekly, or monthly budget. Clients can see if they’re on track at a glance, and how much they have left to spend to continue meeting their goals.


Goals + Progress


Easily set financial goals, track progress, and explore impact. We applied principles of behavioral economics to the goal-setting feature, such as a sliding scale that helps clients easily visualize trade-offs and impact, encouraging better financial habits.


Transaction categorization


Transactions are categorized and displayed in clear visualizations to help clients understand their financial habits and behaviors. Whether clients want to dive into spending on a particular day or see an overview of top spending categories, the controls are at their fingertips.

Onboarding + Basket Page


A familiar, e-commerce-style shopping cart experience for signing up for new products and accounts. In contrast to traditional banks, where each new account requires a separate sign-up, Forward Banking offers a streamlined and digestible enrollment experience.

A confident, unified experience

Trust is fundamental to banking. We helped Tangerine communicate their credibility and maturity with a refined design system of brand, visual guidelines and user interface patterns. From icons and typography to navigation, modals, charts and tables, the result was a clean, modern, and radically simplified banking experience.

We then integrated their online banking platforms – the visitor’s site, secure site, and mobile app – into one consistent, seamless experience across all products, platforms and devices.

Setting the stage for future growth

Artefact worked closely with more than 150 members of Tangerine’s team across our three-year partnership, strengthening internal design capabilities to ensure Tangerine has the design processes, methods, and tools to build on their success.

We helped Tangerine cultivate a design team, organize around a cohesive design system, and understand the latest design process innovations. Together, we created guidelines for implementing new features, products, and components within the design system to support more efficient team collaboration and future platform scalability and expansion.

We couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve achieved together and what lies ahead for Tangerine Forward Banking.

What we delivered

+ Generative research

+ Foresight

+ Concept envisioning

+ Strategic assessment

+ Experience design

+ Evaluative research

Learn more about our expertise





Next project

PRISM


Helping young patients manage stress and build resilience




Global Online Academy

Helping teachers empower students in the classroom and beyond


Design

Inspiring educators to reimagine how students learn

For classrooms on the cutting edge, gone are the days of rote memorization and time-based instruction. The world of education is evolving. Today’s teachers are looking for student-centered methods that empower young people with the skills to become the next generation of problem solvers.

Global Online Academy (GOA) is a non-profit organization that equips educators with tools to help students face an ever-changing world. Their approach? Competency-based learning (CBL): a teaching method that mirrors how people learn, work, and succeed in the real world. Rather than evaluate students based on seat time or standardized tests, students are challenged to master specific skills, or competencies, in a flexible, personalized way.

GOA came to Artefact with an idea for a collaborative toolkit that teaches educators how to implement CBL in their schools and classrooms. We worked together to concept, research, and prototype a family of resources that articulate what CBL is, why it matters, and how to use it. The result is an engaging, tactile toolkit perfect for teams.

“I felt very taken care of and truly felt that Artefact was my partner in this work. We needed not just a design partner but a thought partner. That’s what you’ve been to us.”

Eric Hudson

Director of Learning and Design, GOA

Beyond the box:
Defining the CBL offering


CBL is built on a wealth of educational theory and philosophy. Our first step was to define and clarify GOA’s CBL offering from this body of ideas. What would teachers learn from the toolkit and how would they use it in the classroom?

We worked with GOA to distill CBL to its core principles and surfaced practical tools teachers can use to apply CBL in their schools. The final toolkit contains an explanatory handbook, an activities guide, a set of interactive reflection and experience cards; and a community poster.

The CBL toolkit is both a straightforward guide for educators new to CBL, as well as a standard set of materials that creates a shared understanding of the methodology across not only departments within a school, but also schools within a nationwide community of CBL practitioners.

Three educators in a brightly lit window room working with the CBL toolkit.

Collaboration is the heart of the toolkit


We envisioned the toolkit experience through both the eyes of educators discovering CBL and GOA’s expert CBL workshop facilitators.

The gamified arrangement with a playful yet professional visual direction encourages engagement and interaction between teachers. Clear wayfinding helps educators navigate the materials in sequence – first understanding the theory behind CBL in the explanatory handbook, before moving on to activities and actionable plans.

We put educators first throughout the ideation and design process, helping them understand the “nuts and bolts” process of applying CBL in the classroom – from how to write a competency to designing a learning experience and measuring its outcomes. Our team interviewed teachers across the country and workshopped the toolkit prototype at GOA’s annual conference to ensure their feedback was incorporated into the design iterations.


Designed to inspire and engage


An activities guide gives teachers step-by-step guidance on lesson planning around CBL. The interactive exercises help educators work together to brainstorm ideas and think about how to introduce and apply CBL to their particular school or classroom. For added inspiration, a set of reflection and experience cards offer prompts and practical ideas to provoke thought and group discussion.

Empowering students to succeed in the real world

Through its student programs, professional learning partnerships, and educator courses, GOA aims to build a community of engaged educators dedicated to improving the future of education, one student at a time.

The CBL toolkit open on a meeting room table, with two educators chatting while using activity cards in the background.

What we delivered

+ Generative research

+ Foresight

+ Concept envisioning

+ Experience design

+ Capacity building

Learn more about our expertise





Next project

Systems Thinking 101


Can social media be saved?



Splash

Encouraging healthy hygiene habits in children around the world


Two children filling up water bottles.


Design

Behavior-changing water stations for children in need

Wash, rinse, drink: we do it several times a day without a second thought. But for many children living in urban poverty, personal care practices like handwashing are far from routine.

Children who lack access to water and soap are less likely to learn healthy hygiene habits and more at risk of contracting life-threatening illnesses. Unsafe drinking water and a lack of water or soap for washing are responsible for 2.2 million deaths each year, 90 percent of whom are children.

Seattle-based, international development organization Splash designs child-focused water, sanitation, hygiene (WASH) and menstrual health solutions for governments in some of the world’s largest, low-resource cities. With a focus on reaching children at schools, Splash is passionate about changing behaviors and encouraging healthy hygiene habits.

Artefact and Splash turned years of local behavior change research into smart and scalable drinking and handwashing stations that can be mass-manufactured in plastic. Splash plans to roll out the newly designed drinking and handwashing stations to nearly 1,600 schools in India and Ethiopia as part of their major initiative, Project WISE (WASH in Schools for Everyone). This project will reach every government school in Addis Ababa and Kolkata, benefiting one million children by 2023.

“Artefact was the ideal partner to bring our vision for drinking and handwashing stations to scale. The new design will benefit some one million children through Splash projects over the next five years by enabling access to clean water for drinking and water and soap for handwashing.”

Eric Stowe

Founder and CEO, Splash

Kid tested. Community approved.

Successful drinking and handwashing stations require more than just a child-friendly design. They need to be easy to manufacture, transport, install, and maintain.

We sat down with Splash’s team of behavior change and engineering experts to design stations that fit the community context. We explored not only who uses the stations and the cultural norms around drinking and handwashing, but also where and how the stations are fabricated, installed, and maintained.

After brainstorming, creating, and vetting more than 100 different ideas, we aligned on a design direction.

“Artefact’s thoughtful ideation and quick and iterative process pushed us to think in a more expansive way. We are proud to launch a product that can empower many more children than our previous designs could reach.”

Nick Ellington

WASH Infrastructure Manager, Splash

Schoolchildren playing, Tensae Birhan Primary School, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Reinforcing positive habits

Research from UNICEF suggests that face-to-face handwashing promotes better hygiene. Yet the plumbing of most schools and orphanages requires drinking and handwashing stations to be built against a wall rather than a stand-alone station that children can access from both sides. We developed an innovative triangular design that allows children to more easily have eye contact and interact with each other while washing their hands side-by-side. A small and cost-efficient pedestal option can be installed to raise the station height to better suit older children as well.

Orange and blue colors clearly differentiate drinking and handwashing stations. Handwashing stations have shallow basins to discourage children from accidentally drinking non-potable water, while deeper basins at drinking stations comfortably allow you to fill up to 1.5 liter water bottles. Water fountains are included on the drinking stations to accommodate children who have forgotten their water bottle.  These are situated specifically on the right side of drinking stations to respect cultures that require eating and drinking with the right hand.

Kidist’s Story

For Kidist, a fifth-grader in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, drinking water is precious. With no access to water in their home, her family sources water from the neighborhood tap. Kidist, 11, and her brothers are each allowed just one half-liter bottle of water to last the entire school day. If her brothers finished their water before her, she would often share her own bottle with them. 
 
With the new Splash drinking and handwashing stations installed at Kidist’s school, she and her classmates now have better access to clean drinking water and can even bring it home in re-usable water bottles. Kidist is thrilled with the improvements made at her school, and especially loves the stations’ bright colors.

Community-friendly design

Before children can use the drinking and handwashing stations, they need to be installed and maintained by the organizations that use them. We designed a smooth, more hygienic form for simple cleaning and an easy-to-remove front access panel for installation and plumbing repair. Additionally, the stations are shipped pre-plumbed with all internal piping and taps attached and leak-tested, making for easier installation on site.

Schools and other child-serving institutions often receive funding for drinking and handwashing stations from sponsors. We included a customizable backsplash so that organizations could credit their sponsors directly on the stations and encourage future funding. Alternatively, the backsplash can also be used as a messaging space to promote hygiene behavior change.

Animated cross-section render showing the simple plumbing within Artefact and Splash's orange handwashing stations.

Efficient local manufacturing

Before making the switch to plastic, Splash manufactured stations from a variety of materials, including concrete, tile, and fiberglass. These manufacturing processes were time and labor intensive. The new stations designed by Splash and Artefact are manufactured using rotational molding, which allows for production of the stations at scale, with less labor needed and consistent quality.

Reaching one million children in five years

Inspired by the stations’ success in schools and orphanages, Splash’s larger goal is generational behavior change. Splash will provide some 1,600 schools with the new drinking and handwashing stations, reaching one million children by 2023. They have also launched a wholly owned social enterprise that will sell them to other non-profit organizations and governments. The stations will help consistently reinforce good hygiene habits throughout the community for both children and adults.

Splash in the news

The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design

Good Design Award 2019

Engineering for Change

Rooted in Research, Handwashing Stations Designed to Encourage Kids to Wash Their Hands






Next project

VR 2020


A more inclusive vision for virtual reality



AIM

Healthcare in the age of AI

   Mobility

A concept for delivering better care


Technology has changed the way we work, shop, bank, meet others, and even order coffee. Personalized services and intelligent assistants help us navigate choices and make informed decisions in the office, in the car and at home. But despite how advancements like machine learning, big data, ubiquitous computing, and universal connectivity have forever changed these everyday interactions, our experiences with healthcare remains stuck in a disconnected, opaque and rigid past.


In healthcare today, patients are forced into the same service structures, whether they are managing a chronic condition or have encountered an undiagnosed issue. Clinicians often don’t have access to useful patient data, which remains siloed within disparate sources. And as a society, we allocate healthcare resources without being able to evaluate their impact because we don’t link actions to outcomes.


Aim is a concept of a service platform that sets the foundation for positive health outcomes by delivering better care experiences and new, flexible models of discovery, understanding, and intervention. We called the concept Aim as a play on artificial intelligence and medicine, augmented interactions and mobility, but it is also a goal we should aspire to as we imagine, design and build a more integrated, effective and efficient healthcare.

A systems approach to healthcare innovation

Our focus on quantity and cost of care rather than its value has resulted in an inflexible, rigid system full of gaps, tensions, and friction for patients, care organizations and society. Innovations get bolted on to the complex, inflexible system, solving one problem, yet often creating a myriad of other, even more complicated ones. Just look at electronic health records.

To solve the interconnected problems in healthcare, we needed a system level approach. What is unique about the concept is less the individual components: a data platform, an autonomous vehicle, AI-powered diagnostics, some of which already exist, but how they connect and interact with each other in a system and experience that allows us to maximize value at the patient, provider and social level.

Deeper patient understanding and informed actions

Despite proliferation of connected devices and health apps, health data today is siloed and far from actionable. Aim is built on an integrated, multi-source data platform that facilitates action and eliminates blind spots for clinicians and care providers.




Ambient sensing for rich and meaningful data


The service platform collects ambient data from an array of at-home, passive monitoring devices, without requiring patient action.







Open platform for interoperability


Aim’s open APIs allow a broad range of current and future healthcare-centered IoT devices to be integrated into the platform, addressing the core challenge of monitoring device interoperability and creating a unified, patient-owned health record.







Conversational health commentary for easier sharing


A dedicated home health hub and mobile app prompts and collects important qualitative data about how the person is feeling. Aim uses a conversational UI to include these patient comments, and registers changes in voice attributes to create a critical part of the physiological and emotional health data set.




Augmented, automated, accessible assessment


Healthcare today is structured to address all patient workflows in the exact same way despite the variability of care trajectories. Aim uses advances in artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles to deliver more precise assessments, and address specific healthcare needs as they come up.

Immersive diagnostic environment for fuller picture


Aim’s self-driving clinic is optimized for self assessment with bridge diagnostics like thermography, imaging and breath analysis. The unit features a built-in, pressure-sensitive scale to measure weight, BMI, balance, and posture; a seat providing an acoustic analysis of respiration and cardiac rhythm; and controlled lighting that facilitates assessment via image recognition. Surround displays provide AI-driven, real-time instructions to the patient.

Augmented interactions for clear communication


Aim allows patients to use simple interactions to share details about how they feel and interface with the bridge diagnostics. Motion sensors paired with “on-body” projections and augmented reality help the user call attention to symptoms.

Visualized data summary for easy prioritization


A highly visual summary of the Aim session helps the patient easily understand and act on the diagnosis. These insights stay with the patient via the Aim mobile app for a new level of continuity of care

Healthcare service that scales

The mission of Aim is to close the data, experience and logistical gaps between home and clinical environments. Our vision for a scalable, holistic concept of healthcare service delivery gives patients autonomy, while helping care organizations successfully triage cases, manage the burden on the system and allocate resources effectively.

Self-driving clinic for increased, more consistent engagement


Aim delivers on-demand healthcare via a self-driving clinic. This minimizes the logistical burden on the patients and makes them more likely to engage in their care, before conditions and costs escalate. At the same time, Aim helps clinicians focus on the more complex cases, where higher-value expertise is needed.

On-board pharmacy for better medication adherence


Aim dispenses the most frequently needed pharmaceuticals, like prescription analgesics, antibiotics, or contraceptives. Maintaining a small inventory of the most common drugs removes the logistical burden of picking up new medication from the pharmacy.

Telemedicine consults for clarity


If the self-guided assessment indicates the patient needs to consult a specialist, the Aim platform connects the user to one of the on-call specialists from participating fleet partners. The Aim clinic can also provide immediate transport to the emergency room, reducing the critical time to get the patient into a clinical environment.


Aim: a vision within reach


The healthcare system is complicated, and a huge part of that complexity is caused by incremental, one-dimensional improvements that over time become a burden to the system in terms of effectiveness, experience and cost. Evolving technology, new business models and, above all, people’s growing engagement in their health give us a unique opportunity to aim higher and design a healthcare system that takes into account the intertwined needs and co-dependencies of patients, caregivers and society.








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Vizable by Tableau


A mobile app for data exploration



PRISM

Helping young patients build resilience

  Health

Maintaining hope is crucial to patient care

Most teenagers and young adults worry about finishing homework, finding the right college or landing that first post-grad gig. But for young people diagnosed with a serious illness like cancer or a chronic condition like Type 1 diabetes, life takes on an entirely new dimension of difficult emotions. The doctors at Seattle Children’s Hospital have seen firsthand the toll a serious medical diagnosis can take on the young people they treat, and they know maintaining hope can be crucial to their patient’s care. That’s why Dr. Abby R. Rosenberg and Dr. Joyce Yi-Frazier developed PRISM, an emotional wellbeing program that helps young patients build resilience and manage stress in the face of serious conditions.

Seattle Children’s Hospital is at the forefront of treating the physical and emotional health of patients holistically as well as in harnessing the potential of digital health interventions. When Seattle Children’s recognized the potential of PRISM as an app for patients, they turned to Artefact to design a convenient and trustworthy digital version of the PRISM program.

Animated GIF of a breathing exercise from the PRISM wellness app being used on a mobile phone.

Designing a companion for a difficult journey

Working collaboratively with the Seattle Children’s Hospital Digital Health team and General UI, we transformed the in-person, all-paper PRISM program into a self-guided experience on the patient’s smartphone. The framework for the app was informed by Seattle Children’s medical research and expertise in helping young patients develop skills in four areas: stress management and mindfulness, goal setting and problem solving, positive reappraisals, and finding meaning in adversity. The app is a portal into these skills, providing a place where adolescents and young adults can be open and forthright about their stress, worries, hopes and goals as they manage the challenges of serious illness.

An engaging user experience was paramount because the PRISM app is designed for teenagers and young adults and deals with difficult emotions. PRISM welcomes users with thoughtful interactions, a rich tactical and interactive navigation experience, a conversational tone, a youthful aesthetic, and none of the clinical, sterile feel found in many digital health solutions. Because the app allows for the patient to serve as their own facilitator, we designed prompts throughout the experience to inspire self-reflection and the honest expression of emotions, as well as space for patients to reflect on goals and moments of gratitude. Altogether, the PRISM app provides young patients a listening ear and a moment of calm when they need it most.

Animated GIF of a gratitude exercise from the PRISM wellness app being used on a mobile phone.

A new frontier in digital health

The PRISM intervention is a powerful example of healthcare viewed not just through a medical and physical lens, but by recognizing the personal and emotional journey of patients. And in app form, PRISM demonstrates the huge potential of digital healthcare solutions, thanks to its scalability, portability, and prospective application across many types of patients and conditions. As Seattle Children’s pilots the PRISM app, we remain inspired by the incredible work of all the practitioners and patients who made PRISM a reality with their perseverance, optimism and hope.

“With Artefact’s elite design skills, General UI’s architecture and Dr. Rosenberg’s fastidious research, we have a marriage of unique skills that allow us to leverage the PRISM program to reduce suffering not just here in Seattle but for teens and families experiencing stress and illness elsewhere, too. The partnership affords us a chance to reduce suffering at scale and we’re thankful to begin the work and iteration process to understand how to support even more children and their families.” 

What we delivered

+ Generative research

+ Concept envisioning

+ Strategic assessment

+ Experience design

Learn more about our expertise

PRISM in the news

Fast Company

The Most Innovative Health Projects of 2020

mHealth Intelligence

Seattle Children’s Scales Out its PRISM Connected Health Platform

Fast Company

An app for teaching kids to cope with chronic illness





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Magic Leap One Creator Edition


Reimagining reality with Magic Leap