Press Release
Negotiabbles Tablet App by Negotiabbles Is Granted the A' Design Award in Education, Teaching Aid and Training Content Design
Negotiabbles acknowledged for education, teaching aid and training content design by the international grand jury of the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 24, 2026 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has confirmed the A' Design Award in the Education, Teaching Aid and Training Content Design category for Negotiabbles Tablet App by Negotiabbles. The recognition forms part of the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition and was determined through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who evaluated anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
About the A' Design Award
The Iron A' Design Award is awarded to good designs that meet the rigorous professional and industrial standards set by the A' Design Awards. This recognition is reserved for works that demonstrate a solid understanding of design principles and show creativity within their execution. Recipients of the Iron A' Design Award are acknowledged for their practical innovations and contributions to their respective fields, providing solutions that improve quality of life and foster positive change. These designs are a testament to the skill and dedication of their creators, showcasing their ability to address real-world challenges through thoughtful design.
Regarding Negotiabbles Tablet App
Negotiabbles is an educational tablet application that helps children in grades K-8 practice negotiation skills. The app presents common peer situations, such as sharing a resource or resolving a disagreement, as illustrated story chapters. Children speak with artificial intelligence characters and are guided through stating needs, giving reasons, listening, and reaching agreement. Emotion bubbles above each character change in color, size, and shape to show emotional states in real time. A summary screen records the strategies used and progress across sessions.
About Negotiabbles
Xuefei Wang is a product designer working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, interaction design, and human-centered systems. She focuses on translating complex technologies into accessible, meaningful user experiences. Her work spans AI-driven products and emerging digital tools, with projects recognized by international design awards including Red Dot and iF Design Award. She has also served as a jury member for global design competitions. Through her practice, she contributes to advancing more inclusive, transparent, and human-centered applications of intelligent technologies.
Award Record
This recognition makes Negotiabbles a winner of 1 A' Design Award.
About the A' Education, Teaching Aid and Training Content Design Award
The A' Education Design Award is an international competition recognizing good education products and projects by leading designers and brands worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to education designers, teaching aid designers, training content creators and curriculum developers from all countries. Typical entries include textbooks, e-learning platforms, educational games, training manuals, instructional videos and interactive whiteboards. The awarded education designs are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/education
About A' Design Award & Competition
Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://dezigners.org/182529
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/182529
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!182529
- Laureate Profile: https://dezigners.org/d/378121
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Negotiabbles Tablet App
- Function
- Tablet App
- Category
- Education, Teaching Aid and Training Content Design
- Discipline
- Service Design
- Industry
- Education
- Colors
- Pink, Linen, Lavender, Black and Gainsboro
- Images
- 5
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Negotiabbles
- Country
- United States of America
- Recognition
- A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2025 - 2026
- Design ID
- #182529
Credits
- Team
- Zixuan Li (Product Design Lead), Xuefei Wang (UX Design Lead), Lydia (Tiansui) Leiwang (UX Motion/Visual Design), Zilu (Ruby) Wang (UX Design) and Huimeng Lu (UX Design)
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- Negotiabbles is an educational app that helps children in grades K-8 build essential negotiation skills in a safe, playful, and story-driven environment. Many kids struggle to express needs or resolve conflicts and only 28% of children ages 6 to 8 can do so clearly. Our design transforms complex negotiation principles into age-appropriate role-play with AI characters, real-time feedback, and emotion-visualized interfaces. By turning peer conflicts into engaging learning opportunities, Negotiabbles empowers kids to grow confidence, empathy, and lifelong communication skills.
- Inspiration
- Negotiabbles came from research on social-emotional learning, revealing a gap between children's need for conflict resolution skills and available tools. Research shows that children with weak negotiation skills at age 8 are 2.5 times more likely to face peer rejection. Existing tools focus on emotions but not the full negotiation cycle. Inspired by storybook visuals and color-emotion psychology, the bubble interface makes abstract emotional dynamics visible through responsive shapes and colors.
- Research
- This project investigates how interactive, AI-mediated role-play can support the development of negotiation skills in children aged 5-13 (grades K-8). Drawing on social-emotional learning (SEL) theory and child negotiation research, the study identifies a critical gap: while negotiation is a foundational interpersonal skill, it is largely absent from early education curricula. Existing data indicates that only 28% of children aged 6-8 can clearly articulate their needs in peer disputes, and that children with underdeveloped negotiation abilities face significantly higher rates of peer rejection by adolescence.
- Challenge
- The central creative and research challenge was to make the invisible visible: negotiation is fundamentally a psychological process involving shifting emotions, competing needs, and evolving positions - none of which have an inherent visual form. The team needed to develop a visual language that could represent these dynamics in a way that is immediately intuitive to children as young as five, while remaining scientifically grounded and systematically scalable. The solution was the development of an "Emotional Periodic Table" - a structured visual vocabulary that combines two psychological frameworks into a unified motion-design system.
- Realization and Technology
- User-centered iterative design process. Voice interaction via speech processing APIs, AI-driven role-play via NLP, real-time emotion visualization through a custom animation system built on color and shape psychology frameworks. Prototyping and usability testing with target-age children refined scaffolding and interaction patterns. Digital-first, cloud-based architecture.
- Operation and Interaction
- The user flow begins with story selection, where the child chooses a scenario drawn from common peer situations such as sharing a resource, resolving a disagreement, or joining a group activity. Each scenario is framed as a storybook chapter with illustrated AI characters. Upon entering a scenario, the child engages in voice-based dialogue with the AI character, who presents a negotiation challenge. The interface displays dynamic emotion bubbles above each character. These bubbles shift in color, size, and shape in response to the tone and content of the conversation, providing real-time visual feedback on emotional states.
- Project Duration and Location
- The project started in December 2024 and finished in June 2025 in the United States.
- Specifications
- Digital application for tablets (10-inch, 2160 x 1620 px). Voice input with real-time AI response. Adaptive difficulty across K-8 stages. Cloud-based architecture supporting single-player, guided, and multiplayer modes. Emotion-visualized bubble interface rendered at 60 fps. Secure data handling for child users (COPPA-aligned).
- Keywords
- Educational App, Children, Negotiation Skills, Social-Emotional Learning, AI Role-Play, Voice Interaction, Color Psychology, Emotion Visualization, Game-Based Learning, Conflict Resolution, K–8 Education, Interactive Storytelling, Child Development, Shape Psychology, Empathy Training
