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.

institute
of desiGn
Search
Faculty

ID-Developed Patient Education Materials Reach Medical Professionals in 140 Countries

Cancer Treatment Guides Included in Global RadOnc App

May 20, 2025

World map with pinpoints across all continents
ID students prototyping the CEBRE guides

ID students prototyping the CEBRE guides

The CEBRE (Communicating the External Beam Radiotherapy Experience) education guides for cancer patients, developed through a collaboration between ID Associate Professor of Visual Communication Tomoko Ichikawa, ID students, and radiation oncologist Dr. Daniel Golden, have been integrated into the  RadOnc Toolbox app.

Developed by the Radiation Oncology Institute (ROI), the RadOnc Toolbox is currently used by 4,000 medical professionals across 140 countries, with over 1,300 active users each month. This integration provides radiation oncologists worldwide with convenient access to these patient education materials.

“
Having the CEBRE guides available through the RadOnc Toolbox app is a significant milestone. With radiation oncologists across the globe having these materials at hand—both in English and Spanish—more patients can receive critical support at a challenging point in their lives.
—Tomoko Ichikawa, ID Associate Professor of Visual Communication

Open-access guide illustration

Open-access guides demystify cancer treatment

Demystifying Radiation Therapy for Patients

The CEBRE guides use graphic narratives and sixth-grade reading level content to help demystify radiation therapy for cancer patients. Launched in 2017, the project now includes ten guides: seven that are included the RadOnc app—a general guide suitable for all disease sites, along with site-specific versions for Lung, Breast, Prostate, Head and Neck, Central Nervous System, and GI tumors—and three additional guides for Communicating the Gynecological Brachytherapy Experience, or CoGBE.

These guides aim to reduce patient anxiety by providing clear, accessible information about the radiation therapy process. Their simplified communication of complex topics was previously recognized with a ClearMark award for excellence in plain language communication.

The recent addition of Spanish translations on both the website and app has significantly expanded their global reach.

“
These discussion guides now provide wider access to marginalized communities that experience pronounced health inequities.
—Tomoko Ichikawa, ID Associate Professor of Visual Communication
World map with pinpoints across all continents

A map from the CEBRE site that shows global downloads of the guides.

Logo: ROI. Radiology Oncology Institute. The ASTRO Foundation

The guides are supported by the Radiation Oncology Institute (ROI), the charitable arm of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO)—an organization spanning 100 countries with over 10,000 members including physicians, nurses, biologists, physicists, radiation therapists, and dosimetrists.

All CEBRE guides are licensed under Creative Commons, making them open access so anyone can download, print, and use the materials without restriction.

Learn more and download the guides by request at the CEBRE website.

Related

Three New Guides Now Available for Cancer Patients

How Design is Demystifying Cancer Treatment

Communicating Radiation Treatment to Patients at the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center