PUNE, India, Sept. 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — From the day UXplorer’22 was announced, it has been in the news for all the right reasons. Firstly, it garnered global attention and saw registrations and submissions from different parts of the world. Secondly, the event had a jury comprising design stalwarts from India and abroad to bring in a global perspective while judging submissions to address the most pressing issue of our times – Digital Wellness.
YUJ Designs has been consistently pushing the envelope with breakthrough ideas and designs for 13 years now and UXplorer is its way of inculcating best design practices in young designers early on before they step into the real world. Not surprising then, the design challenge has transcended global boundaries.
Scooping up the coveted Gold award was the designer duo Rishikesh Aryan Choudhary and Harsh Potphode from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati for their digital wellness app Minus. It focuses on helping users strike the right balance between their digital and physical life based on their device usage.
Akanksha Bhatt and Siddharth Darapuri, students of National Institute of Design, R & D Campus, Bengaluru, won the Silver for their ecosystem called Minus that promotes Digital Wellness. It actively controls unproductive or simulated exposure to screens and restricts the unfair exchange of personal data that aggravates it.
Ruchira Borhade and Suchir Sharma from the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing, Jabalpur won the Bronze for their Digital Wellness app OUTT. It aims to reduce digital load and motivates users to adhere to healthy habits.
Standing out from the crowd, however, were Trinh Thien Ngan and Nguyen Thanh Binh from Osaka University, Japan who won the Special Mention Award for their exemplary UNDO app. The app informs users of their break time every 25 minutes and provides a fun puzzle for them to relax with low-impact and light exercises.
YUJ Designs is successfully tapping into the creative talent of young designers from different countries through UXplorer and fostering a culture of innovation globally.
The number of registrations had doubled this year and submissions were meticulously handpicked for the design challenge. These were reviewed and judged by a 5-member jury comprising Samir Chabukswar, Founder & CEO at YUJ Designs, Prasadd Bartakke, Co-Founder & Chief Mentor at YUJ Designs, Lourd Nathan, Chief Design Officer at YUJ Designs, Elizabeth Benker, Head of Design, Trifacta at Alteryx, and Jason Holmes, UX Design Manager at Schlumberger.
The judges have been mighty impressed by the sheer demonstration of design excellence. Explains Prasadd, “It was not easy to pick winners considering the diverse range of design solutions these young minds had come up with that too putting sustainability at the core. We are proud to see them adopt such inspirational approaches to solve the digital wellness puzzle. I’m confident UXplorer will continue to ignite the minds of young designers with new and exciting challenges every year.”
Samir concludes, “For the ninth year in a row, we are celebrating the transformative power of design. I am overwhelmed to see creative talent from different countries come together to address an important issue such as Digital Wellness. As we celebrate our 13th Anniversary, we are grateful for our incredible journey and the difference we’ve been able to make in people’s lives through UX design.”
Apart from winning cash prizes, the winners will also get a platform to present their projects in front of the jury during a one on one session at the UXplorer Design Con 2022, a virtual design conference to be held on 15th September 2022.
UXplorer aims to bring out the best in design thinking and strategy to solve real-world problems. But it’s just one of the many initiatives that YUJ Designs has introduced since 2009. YUJ Designs will be celebrating 13 glorious years of extraordinary design thinking on 9th September 2022. As a brand that is 13 years wiser, it is ready to set sail for greater transformations in the design landscape.
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