WUI Design Challenge 2026 – Designing a Sustainable Future with Ethical AI
World Usability Initiative (WUI)
The WUI Design Challenge 2026 is an international design competition organized by the World Usability Initiative (WUI) as part of World Usability Day 2026. The 2026 theme is “Designing a Sustainable Future with Ethical AI,” focusing on how artificial intelligence can be designed and evaluated in ways that support sustainability, human-centered design, ethical responsibility, trust, inclusion, and positive social impact. The challenge invites designers and design teams to submit projects that demonstrate how user research and user evaluation have directly influenced interaction, product, or service design decisions. Projects may address areas such as climate change, healthcare, education, social impact, accessibility, or other domains, but the proposed work should involve AI technologies and address the 2026 theme. A strong submission must provide evidence of contextual or user research, UX or usage-outcome evaluation, and clear connections between research findings, evaluation results, design decisions, and resulting outcomes. Entrants must also explain the ethical AI frameworks or principles used in their work, including how concepts such as ethics, responsibility, trust, human-centeredness, inclusion, and sustainability are reflected in the design. Each submission must include a prototype of the proposed solution and evidence that the prototype was evaluated with representative users. The prototype may be a clickable prototype, interactive mock-up, functional prototype, or another suitable representation, provided that it is sufficiently complete to support meaningful user testing. The submission should explain what was researched and evaluated, why the selected methods were appropriate, what was learned from users, how those findings influenced subsequent design decisions, and what outcomes resulted from the process. Appropriate design representations such as wireframes, workflows, conceptual models, or clickable prototypes may be included to demonstrate the design decisions. Entries are assessed based on the quality of contextual/user research, the quality of UX and outcomes evaluation, the clarity of connections between user-focused work and design decisions, and the strength of evidence connecting research, design decisions, and outcomes. Submissions must include a well-evidenced report of up to 10,000 words, excluding tables and figures. Links to videos or other relevant online materials may also be included. The submission deadline has been extended to October 2, 2026. Winners will be announced on World Usability Day on November 12, 2026. Three awards are offered: Gold Prize of US$1,250, Silver Prize of US$1,000, and Bronze Prize of US$750. Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners will also receive complimentary registration and an invitation to present their work during a special session at the 2027 HCI International Conference. Their work may also be considered for inclusion in the conference proceedings, subject to the applicable submission requirements. The official challenge is open to entries from June 2026. Applicants should review the official submission requirements carefully and ensure that their project, prototype, user research, evaluation evidence, and report meet the requirements before submitting.
