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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Visito by Ventra

By Aabha Kale | Eileen López | James Ha | Smrti Ganesan | Vidhul Sikka

May 26, 2023

Travel Like a Tourist, Navigate Like a Native

Public travel should be easy and accessible to all, and accurate transit information is crucial to instill confidence in users. To empower users, we designed Visito in Ventra, an integrated and personalized mode for travelers within the CTA ecosystem app. Visito streamlines the public travel experience by providing customized attraction lists, accurate transit information, and walkthroughs to non-residents and tourists. With Visito in Ventra, we aim to create a smoother and more convenient public travel experience for all. By employing various frameworks, such as ecosystem maps and journey maps, we synthesized data from primary and secondary sources. This solution provides customized attraction lists, accurate transit information, and detailed walkthroughs for travelers, both residents and visitors.

Project Details

  • Class: Analysis & Synthesis
  • Instructor: Peter Zapf