COCO, a personal AI-powered health assistant platform created by product designers Zhiqi Lin and Hanhui Li, has been honored with the prestigious Red Dot Design Award, one of the design industry's highest accolades often dubbed the "Oscars of design". This international recognition highlights COCO's excellence in user-centric design and cements its status as a standout innovation in digital health. The project has also been recognized as a Finalist in the International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) and clinched a Silver Award in the globally renowned A' Design Award competition, underscoring its impact and quality across multiple top design forums.
The Red Dot Design Award is one of the world’s most influential international design competitions, with origins dating back to the mid-1950s. Founded in Germany and now spanning three distinct disciplines—Product Design, Brands & Communication Design, and Design Concept—the award recognizes outstanding work across industries and media. Each year, an independent, international jury of experts convenes to assess submissions from around the globe, making Red Dot not only a barometer of contemporary design quality but also one of the largest competitions of its kind
At the heart of the program is the Red Dot label, an internationally established mark of excellence that winners may use to signal superior design quality in the market. Recognition extends beyond the certificate: award-winning projects are showcased through yearbooks, online profiles, and exhibitions in the Red Dot Design Museums in Essen, Singapore, and Xiamen, ensuring global visibility for designers and brands alike. This ecosystem, rigorous adjudication, a respected quality seal, and enduring public presentation have helped Red Dot to establish what “good design” means in practice.
Over seven decades, Red Dot has evolved into a cultural institution that both reflects and propels the state of the art in design. By uniting diverse perspectives on its juries and by spotlighting innovation through its museums and media channels, the award shapes discourse across sectors, from consumer electronics and healthcare to mobility, packaging, and digital experiences, while giving designers a globally recognized platform to demonstrate impact.
Launched as a personal health assistant for adults aged 50 and above, COCO leverages an AI-driven conversational platform to help users manage daily health-related tasks with ease. The design integrates a range of senior-friendly features, from daily health check-ins and medication reminders to vital sign tracking via connected devices, and even allows secure sharing of health data with family members or doctors for coordinated care. By consolidating personalized medical data, condition-specific insights, and vetted advice into one intuitive app, COCO empowers older adults to take control of their well-being proactively. The platform balances cutting-edge technology with accessibility and simplicity, effectively reducing information overload while enhancing users' quality of life.
COCO's inclusive, user-centered design philosophy was a key factor in earning these accolades. From the outset, the development team prioritized accessibility and clarity for its senior audience, conducting extensive user research and iterative usability testing to refine the experience. Unlike generic health apps, COCO's interface is carefully tailored to older users, employing large, legible typography, voice-interactive features, and friendly illustrations, ensuring that even non-tech-savvy individuals find the app approachable and trustworthy. This empathetic design approach, blending advanced AI with human-centric usability, not only helps older adults engage with their health more confidently but also impressed expert juries in competitions around the world. COCO is increasingly seen as a benchmark for inclusive healthtech design, demonstrating how technology can be harnessed to serve all users, regardless of age or ability, without sacrificing sophistication or effectiveness.
Zhiqi Lin is a Principal Product Designer at Ingram Micro and a University of Washington alumna, recognized as one of the top emerging talents in product design. She has led AI-driven product recommendation initiatives in the B2B tech sector, orchestrating user experience strategies that have generated over $82 million in revenue as of late 2024. Zhiqi's portfolio spans innovative projects that merge data, AI, and design – notably Desky, a hybrid-work desk booking platform that earned multiple design awards, and Poemify, an experimental AI-powered art experience that personalizes poetry and visuals from music data. Her work's consistent focus on impactful, user-friendly solutions and its collection of accolades (including honors from competitions like Red Dot, iF, and A' Design Awards) have firmly established her reputation among the leading young product designers in the industry.
Hanhui Li is a Product Designer II at HealthStream and a fellow University of Washington graduate with a strong background in human-centered design for healthcare technology. At HealthStream, she plays a pivotal role in designing the CredentialStream platform – a comprehensive software suite for managing healthcare provider credentialing, privileging, and enrollment. Hanhui has spearheaded the creation of scalable design systems and led in-depth user research initiatives to inform product improvements, directly addressing real user pain points in clinical credentialing workflows. Her expertise in crafting intuitive, user-centric interfaces for complex medical processes, combined with her passion for improving healthcare experiences, has made her a rising star in digital health design. Hanhui's contributions to projects like COCO reflect a dedication to inclusive design and innovation that is increasingly being recognized on an international stage.
The growing recognition of COCO, from Red Dot's coveted seal of excellence to honors across IDEA and A' Design Award, signals a broader shift toward designing technology that genuinely serves underserved demographics. Together, Zhiqi Lin and Hanhui Li are showcasing the power of user-centered, AI-enhanced product experiences, and their success with COCO is inspiring a new generation to design tools that empower everyone. Their story is a powerful reminder that innovation in design is not just about cutting-edge technology, but about ensuring those innovations meaningfully improve people's daily lives.
This article was written in cooperation with Zhiqi Lin and Hanhui Li