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WWDC21 Apple Design Awards

WWDC21 Apple Design Awards

EssentialsDesignAccessibilityInnovation
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Highlight

The 2021 Apple Design Awards resumes six design dimensions: inclusivity, pleasure and fun, interaction, social impact, visuals and graphics, and innovation. Each dimension selects an app and a game winner.

Core Content

Design awards can easily turn into a list of winners. The focus of the WWDC21 Apple Design Awards is clearer: Apple breaks down “good design” into six discussable dimensions, allowing developers to see what each dimension looks like in real apps and games.

Let me start with a judgment criterion: software design is difficult because developers need to identify problems first and then simplify the complex experience so that users can understand it immediately. When judges talk about design, they focus not only on appearance, but also on how it works, how it is input, whether users feel cared for, and whether the experience unfolds naturally on the device in their hands.

After resuming category selection in 2021, Apple will select one app and one game per category. This structure makes the contrast more direct. Voice Dream Reader and HoloVista demonstrate inclusivity, CARROT Weather and Bird Alone demonstrate interactivity, and NaadSadhana and League of Legends: Wild Rift demonstrate innovation. What they have in common is that abstract values ​​fall into concrete decisions: number of languages, VoiceOver quality, reduced dynamic effects, daily interaction time, touch cancellation gestures, real-time pitch feedback.

This session has no code snippets and is suitable to be read as a product design checklist. Each reason for winning can be turned into a development task: integrating accessibility features into the first launch process, adding tone choices to information presentation, designing cancellation paths for complex touch operations, or allowing users to feel the personality of the product outside of the interface.

Detailed Content

Six categories make design discussions actionable

(02:12) Apple announced the returning categories for the 2021 Apple Design Awards, which are Inclusivity, Delight and Fun, Interaction, Social Impact, Visuals and Graphics, and Innovation. The judges emphasized that the value of classification lies in isolating some important qualities for discussion.

Key points:

  • Inclusion focuses on “who can enter the experience”, including localization, VoiceOver, Dynamic Type, and Reduced Motion.
  • Delight and fun focus on “why users come back” with an emphasis on unexpected uses of tools and memorable moments.
  • Interaction focuses on “whether the operation disappears behind the intention”, and the input method should fit the device and task. -Social impact focuses on “whether the product improves real life” and must be able to generate sustained value to individuals or communities.
  • Visuals and graphics focus on the “first impression of the experience”, with colors, icons, fonts, 3D models, rendering and frame rate all conveying the product’s character in advance.
  • Innovation focuses on “new solutions to old problems”. The core is to reduce friction and make things that were once laborious become easier.

Inclusiveness: Let more people enter the experience first

(02:43) Apple’s description of inclusivity is very specific: Great apps and games should allow as many people as possible to enter the experience. The path laid out in the verbatim includes extensive language localization, support for VoiceOver and Dynamic Type, and Reduced Motion for motion-sensitive users.

(03:55) App winner Voice Dream Reader makes text-to-speech the core experience. Reviewers mentioned that it has an excellent VoiceOver implementation and offers the ability to customize text: increase or decrease contrast, adjust line and word spacing, highlight specific phrases. These settings help low vision users and users with dyslexia read the material. It is also localized into 26 languages.

(04:33) Game Winner HoloVista is a mixed reality game that uses gyroscopes to capture 3D space. It provides accessibility controls such as text readability, color readability, motion sensitivity, camera control methods, and displays visual warnings related to sensory and cognitive demands before the experience begins.

Key points:

  • Voice Dream Reader focuses on making reading settings adjustable rather than relying solely on default text styles.
  • The focus of HoloVista is to provide auxiliary functions in advance to reduce the cost of users looking for settings.
  • For developers, inclusion can start from three entrances: language coverage, text rendering, and motion and camera control.

Pleasure and fun: Use small moments to create memories

(05:21) The judges described pleasure and fun as “using the tools at hand in unexpected ways.” It can appear in light games or in certain details of serious apps. The key is to make a use really brighten the user’s day.

(06:26) Game winner Little Orpheus relies on music, character stories, and little surprises that pop up to form memorable moments. The judges described it as a Jules Verne novel come to life.

(07:06) App Winner Pok Pok is a sandbox toy app for children. It came from the original intention of a pair of parents who wanted to make something interesting for their children. The reviewer spent more than an hour playing with different small toys when he first used it.

Key points:

  • The pleasure often comes from explorable spaces rather than one-shot animations.
  • The value of sandbox toys is that they allow users to try and make mistakes repeatedly without any fixed pressure to win or lose.
  • Child-oriented experiences also require adult care, as parents are often the first to accompany users.

Interaction: Make the input method fit the user’s intention

(08:00) The interaction category focuses on how users move through the app, get feedback, and complete tasks using input methods such as keyboard, gestures, or Apple Pencil. The judges said that good interaction takes the design away from user intent.

(09:23) App winner CARROT Weather’s highlights are personification and platform touchpoints. Users can put the weather widget on the home screen and add multiple watch faces to Apple Watch. The tone of the weather report can be adjusted from caustic to professional, with personality throughout the experience.

(10:22) The award-winning game Bird Alone immediately tells users where to click and slide after launching. It also limits the amount of interaction per day, allowing players to spend only a short time with the bird each day. This moderation makes the game feel like companionship, rather than a to-do list that constantly demands your attention.

Key points:

  • Interaction design should cover feedback on “what was done” and “what didn’t happen”.
  • CARROT Weather’s approach shows that information-based apps can also form a continuous experience through tone, widget, and watch touch points.
  • The daily limit of Bird Alone is suitable for companionship, meditation, learning, and health products.

Social Impact: Connecting Product Capabilities to Community Value

(11:15) The social impact category focuses on whether the technology helps people improve their lives and creates lasting value to the community. The judges related it to “amplifying sounds that are not often heard.”

(12:04) App winner Be My Eyes lets volunteers help visually impaired people identify surrounding objects through video. The reason for the award is straightforward: the help it provides is clear and concrete, and it generates a large number of stories of people supporting each other.

(12:43) Game winner Alba: a Wildlife Adventure tells the story of an 11-year-old girl protecting a nature reserve. Players pick up trash, launch petitions, photograph wildlife, and repair signage, gradually getting the community to care about this natural space again.

Key points:

  • Social impact products need to clearly state “who they help” and avoid staying on value slogans.
  • The tasks in Be My Eyes are very granular: identify an object, solve an immediate difficulty.
  • Alba breaks down environmental issues into playable actions, allowing players to understand community changes through continuous small tasks.

Visuals and Graphics: Convey quality of experience at first glance

(13:28) The judges called vision and graphics the front door of experience. Color, icon style, font selection, 3D model quality, rendering method and frame rate are already conveying information before the user has read the text or actually interacted with it.

(14:11) App winner LoĂłna helps users slow down, calm down, and prepare for sleep by coloring 3D models and listening to stories narrated by professional voice-overs.

(14:45) Game award-winner Genshin Impact has established a strong visual identity relying on vast vistas, temple interiors, magic and combat special effects, and anime-textured character styles.

Key points:

  • Visual quality is not a problem with a single screenshot, it will affect users’ judgment of the rhythm and credibility of the product.
  • LoĂłna ties together 3D coloring, audio narration, and bedtime scenes to visually serve relaxation goals.
  • The value of Genshin Impact is that the world, characters, and special effects maintain the same style system.

Innovation: reducing friction in old problems

(15:25) The judges explained innovation as combining distant ideas to solve old problems in new ways. The criterion is whether friction is reduced and whether things become easier.

(16:20) App Winner NaadSadhana is geared toward Indian classical music practice and improvisation. It can provide real-time feedback on whether the singer is singing the correct pitch, and it can also adjust the accompaniment rhythm according to the sound timbre and intensity. The more involved you sing, the stronger the rhythm becomes.

(17:10) Game winner League of Legends: Wild Rift brings complex MOBA experiences to iPhone and iPad. Reviewers specifically mentioned its custom touch controls, such as sliding skills up to the corners of the screen to cancel the release during combat, allowing players to retain delicate operations on the touch screen.

Key points:

  • NaadSadhana’s innovation comes from real-time feedback and accompaniment adaptation, so practitioners don’t have to stop and wait for results.
  • Wild Rift’s innovation comes from redesigning the input model, rather than copying PC controls.
  • When porting complex software to touch devices, priority should be given to cancellation, fault tolerance, feedback, and reachability.

Core Takeaways

  1. Make accessibility first startup page: What to do: Display options such as text size, contrast, reduced motion effects, camera control methods, etc. at first startup. Why it’s worth it: HoloVista’s citation emphasizes front-facing presentation and visual warnings so users don’t have to dive into deep settings first to find help. How to get started: Add a page of “experience preferences” to onboarding, provide live previews, and sync selections to in-app reading, animation, and camera control modules.

  2. Make an information interface with adjustable tone: What to do: Make weather, accounting, to-do, health reminder and other information-based apps provide professional, relaxed, humorous and other copywriting tones. Why it’s worth doing: CARROT Weather proves that the same message can form brand memories through personification. How to start: First extract the core prompt copy into a tone dictionary, and then provide segmented control on the settings page. All Widget and Watch displays reuse the same set of tone selections.

  3. Company mode with daily limit: What to do: Design interactive windows with a fixed number of times or a fixed duration per day for meditation, learning, pet raising, and diary apps. Why it’s worth doing: Bird Alone creates anticipation through short interactions, preventing the product from constantly consuming attention. How to start: Record the number of interactions on the day and the last completion time. When the limit is exceeded, show the next step for tomorrow instead of continuing to pile up tasks.

  4. Make real-time practice feedback: What it does: Provide real-time pitch, rhythm or intensity feedback for singing, reading aloud, language learning, and speech practice. Why it’s worth it: NaadSadhana turns Indian classical music practice into perceptible, instant loops, so users don’t have to wait until the end of practice to know where adjustments need to be made. How to start: Collect microphone input, first make the smallest available real-time waveform and pitch cues, and then map the feedback results to practice rhythm or accompaniment intensity.

  5. Cancel path for complex touch operations: What to do: Design clear cancel gestures and visual feedback for operations such as dragging, aiming, batch editing, map annotation, etc. Why it’s worth doing: Wild Rift cancels skills by sliding them up toward the corner, eliminating the stress of accidental touches and precise releases on small screens. How to get started: List all touch actions that cannot be easily undone, and add a visible cancel area, haptic feedback, and pre-release preview for each action.

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