In 2026, after nearly 90 years, the Institute of Design was folded into Illinois Tech's School of Design & Society.
This website is an archive of the impactful and inspirational work produced by the ID community before that transition.

László Moholy-Nagy opened the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937, treating design as a discipline that was teachable, testable, and consequential. Nine decades on, its scope had widened from the things people use to the systems they depend on: hospitals, government agencies, classrooms, supply chains, digital platforms. Along the way, ID community members developed the published research, methods, and frameworks that designers rely on every day.

Chief among them is human-centered design: close attention to how people actually live, and advocacy for what that research reveals. It shaped designers who are comfortable with complexity and ambiguity: curious, rigorous, inclusive, and stubbornly optimistic about design's ability to change the systems that shape our lives.

To every one of them, who taught, studied, built, critiqued, and stayed late in the studio: thank you, and keep designing.

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Moxi

By Bhairavi Ruparel | Will Rutter | Tianrui Sun | Pitchaya Thaveesakvilai

May 10, 2024

Rethinking Everyday Food Prep With Human-Centered Design

Mom was right...cleaning your vegetables before you eat them is vital

Exploring how Aquamox’s innovative technology can revolutionize residential cleaning, our project journey starts with in-depth secondary research, delving into market demands and competitive analysis. We then proceeded to conduct primary research, gathering insights from users of different demographics. Guided by client input and research insights, we refined preliminary concepts which culminated into physical prototype testing for usability. With meticulous prototyping and user testing, we developed a concept that is tailored to meet stakeholder and user needs.

Project Details

  • Class: Product Design Workshop
  • Instructor: Martin Thaler
  • Project Partner: Aquamox, Inc.
Bhairavi Ruparel

Bhairavi Ruparel

MDes 2025

William Rutter

MDes + MBA 2024

Tianrui Sun

Tianrui Sun

MDes 2023

Pitchaya Thaveesakvilai

Pitchaya Thaveesakvilai

MDes + MBA 2024

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