Write the Perfect Entry – Tips From the Jury

Strong submissions define the problem, explain its significance, and show how design decisions delivered meaningful outcomes. 

This article provides practical advice on writing a stand-out entry, with insights and guidance from past Jury Members for each of the 13 Design Disciplines including:

The top 3 tips across all categories were:

1. Clearly define the problem and why it matters
Start with the brief and the problem your project set out to solve and explain its real-world impact. Help the Jury understand who it affects, why it matters and what makes the problem worth solving.

2. Show the thinking behind the design
Go beyond polished outcomes. Explain the constraints you faced and the trade-offs along the way. Submissions written from the perspective of the design team are often the most compelling.

3. Evidence your outcomes

The Jury want to understand the impact of the project. Where possible, data, evidence and testimonials that reinforce the intended and potential impact of the project are incredibly helpful. 

Start Your Entry Here

Built Environment 

Advice from Good Design Juror: Isabelle Toland – Director, Aileen Sage Architects

  • Give useful context. The Jury want to understand your design decisions. Be sure to explain any historical and cultural context of the project by including archival photographs, maps, drawings or written descriptions, that may be relevant and have influenced the outcome of the project. Good design sits within a broad cultural context, so understanding and explaining what has come before, the current context, and consideration for how it might need to adapt for the future, will help the Jury better understand your design journey.
  • Include varied submission material. Materials such as photos of the finished project, video content and interviews will assist the Jury to fully understand and appreciate the site, the project, the perspectives of others involved (clients, user groups, stakeholders, builders & makers), and the impact it has had for the people and communities it serves.
  • Illustrate environmental integration. Good design in the Built Environment is not just about aesthetics. It’s equally about how the design responds and contributes to the environment around it. Make sure that this is illustrated and clearly communicated in your submission, not just verbally, but visually. This could be through photos or drawings that show how the built form interacts and engages with the landscape and communities around it.

2025 GDA Best In Class Built Environment – Architectural Design Winner: The Allan Border Oval Pavilion. Image: Supplied

Communication Design 

Advice from Good Design Juror: Marcel Wijnen – Creative Director, Hulsbosch

  • Be clear and concise. Award submissions are not case studies, we don’t need a breakdown of all the processes and every single deliverable. Strip out any unnecessary content that doesn’t relate to the ‘idea’ you’re selling – and avoid duplication.
  • Clearly outline the problem being solved. The power in the idea is directly related to the problem that is being solved. Simplifying that problem to its core is critical. Do this in the most straightforward and human way – avoid jargon, and cliché’s. The problem should be the flip side of the idea – connect these two elements for a powerful submission.
  • Tell the design story. Ensure the designer’s voice comes through, rather than marketing-led language. It’s important to get the designer’s perspective. All the marketing-led jargon can overcomplicate a submission, and get in the way of communicating the idea. 

2025 GDA Best In Class Communication Winner: Connections. Image: Supplied

Concept Design

Advice from Good Design Juror: Esther Lekeu – Senior Designer, Defy Design

  • Identify the problem and alignment to SDG’s. Clearly outline the problem and/or need being solved. Demonstrate real users and real world needs, with added value beyond the existing market offering. Past successful applications were also more clearly aligned with the United Nations ‘The 17 Goals’.
  • Demonstrate meaningful innovation. Use radical innovation to solve real problems rather than adding tech for tech’s sake, including novel solutions within design areas. 
  • A picture is worth a thousand words. Entries with clear images/drawings effectively communicated their design over those using low-res images, confusing images, irrelevant images, or no images at all. The addition of videos often helped demonstrate the product’s functionality, its level of realness, and/or user interaction and user feedback (when possible). 

2025 GDA Best In Class Concept Winner: First Responder, Portable Neurodiagnostic Device. Image: Supplied

Design Research

Advice from Good Design Juror: Vesna Popovic – Professor Emerita/Adjunct Professor of Industrial Design, Queensland University of Technology

  • Define the purpose of the research clearly. Design Research recognises scholarly investigation integrated within the design process. Clearly outline the aims, scope, objectives and research questions, showing how the investigation targets a specific gap and advances knowledge in the design disciplines.
  • Demonstrate rigour, innovation and method. Clearly explain and demonstrate suitable research methods, data collection, analysis and results. Show research rigour, ethical practice, and diversity considerations, and evidence how methods or combinations of methods are used in innovative ways to produce new findings.
  • Show real impact beyond the research itself. Evidence tangible outcomes and impact, including intellectual contribution, commercial potential, and value for the community, with clear economic, social, and environmental benefits resulting from the research.

2025 GDA Best In Class Design Research Winner: Central Station Sydney Metro. Image: Supplied

Design Strategy

Advice from Good Design Juror: James de Vries – Principal, Weft Strategy

  • Make it easy for the Jury to understand. Don’t make it hard work for the Jury. Be clear about what the strategic design is. Show how the design was excellent quality. We need more than just adequate UX, or evidence that stakeholder workshop sessions were held.
  • Use strong images. Show strong visuals that differentiate your work. Not just screen shots of an app or website. 

Show the outcomes. Demonstrate the difference it has made. This may be difficult for some but demonstrating the measurable and/or potential impact is essential to the Jury understanding if the strategy has been, or will be effective.

2025 GDA Best In Class Design Strategy Winner: Wastewood. Image: Supplied

Digital Design

Advice from Good Design Juror: Ben Crothers – Design Strategist, Bright Pilots

  • Provide design insights. The strongest entries are immediately recognisable, not because they’re polished, but because they feel real. Submissions written from inside the design team rather than marketing are often much stronger because they provide a clear line of sight into how decisions were made and how trade-offs shaped the final outcome.
  • Articulate the problem clearly. The strongest entries define the problem with clarity and demonstrate a deep understanding of the impact that problem had on people’s lives.
  • Help us understand the process. Surface level statements like “we used a user-centred design approach” carry little weight without context. What matters is how that process played out in reality, including technical constraints, negotiations within design systems and the decisions that required saying no.
  • Be honest. Tell us what changed along the way. Unexpected findings, pivots, compromises and lessons learned all help the Jury understand the quality behind the design.
  • Show you care. Show us what kept you up until three in the morning and what you argued about. The strongest entries read like a thoughtful handover rather than a highlight reel. They show how the design fits into real constraints, real systems and real lives, and in doing so, make it easier for the Jury to recognise design that truly leads.
  • Use the right imagery. Highly stylised screenshots and portfolio-style mockups do little to help the Jury assess the work. As well as hero shots, show interfaces in use, edge cases, state changes and moments where design thinking solved a specific challenge.

 2025 Best In Class Digital GDA Winner: Ovum. Image: Supplied

Engineering Design 

Advice from Good Design Juror: Professor Amin Heidarpour, Director of Enterprise and Engagement at Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Monash University

  • Define the engineering problem clearly. State the technical challenge upfront, including the constraint, limitation or performance gap being addressed. Explain why the problem mattered and why it was difficult to solve. 
  • Demonstrate measurable impact. Support outcomes with evidence such as performance improvements, efficiency gains, safety metrics, compliance results or testing data. Clear metrics help the Jury assess the significance of the design. 
  • Lead with the engineer’s perspective. Explain decisions, trade-offs and technical differentiation in clear, precise language. A direct account of how and why the solution works carries more weight than marketing language. 

2025 GDA Best In Class Engineering Winner: Allegro Energy – Microemulsion Flow Battery. Image: Supplied.

Fashion and Textiles

Advice from Good Design Juror: Melinda Tually – Director, Ndless: The New Normal

  • Category clarity. Be sure you are entering the right category. If your entry could satisfy more than one category, select the one you have the best prospects for winning.
  • Evidence your claims. Don’t forget to back up any claims with evidence. Sustainability claims need to be verified with measurable data. Entries that have provided this will always come out on top.
  • Demonstrate your why and point of difference. Clearly articulate the problem your entry is trying to solve. The Fashion and Textiles category is looking for entries which address some of the sector’s biggest environmental issues so entries that take time to demonstrate their ‘why’ and how you might be doing things differently from others will stand out.

 2025 GDA Best In Class Fashion Winner: The Refashioning Circular Design Guide. Image: Supplied

Next Gen (under 30s)

Advice from Good Design Juror: Ian Muir – Professor, Faculty of Design Architecture and Building, University Technology Sydney

  • Prove the problem. Make sure “solutions” are for problems that actually exist for people. Don’t assume you are the user, and there are lots of people that think the same as you. There may be, but prove it. Don’t just say “people struggle with X.” Provide qualitative quotes from interviews and quantitative data from surveys. Is it a problem for 5 people or 5 million? Desk research can help develop a theory, getting input from potential users will validate and formulate a deeper understanding of the problem. A simple everyday problem can be as valid as a wicked problem.
  • Evidence your findings and research. Deriving a simple, impactful solution is hard work and requires innovative thinking, objective distance from being the “expert,” and a clear journey from problem to validated solution. Listen and observe to understand. Evidence how you achieved this objective. It needs to be clear you’ve done the legwork.
  • Clearly communicate the outcomes to the Jury.  What matters is positive human impact, commercial viability, feasible production and a thorough, empathetic understanding of the problem space, supported by diverse user input.

2025 GDA Best In Class Next Gen Winner: Sooze Modular Eye Care Device. Image: Supplied

Policy Design 

Advice from Good Design Juror: Jane MacMaster – Global Engineering Integrity Director, Babcock International Group

  • Provide impact data where possible. Try to quantify the impact if you can, and provide evidence if that’s possible. 
  • Avoid repetition. Long-winded applications are harder to read, especially if there is a lot of repetition. Aim for shorter, succinct sentences that are easy to read, understand and remember.
  • Give clear examples. Be as specific as possible and provide concrete examples. Vague or general statements and ambiguous claims are less effective and resonate less.

2025 GDA Best In Class Policy Design Winner: Evidence for Impact. Image: Supplied

Product Design

Advice from Good Design Juror: Sam Lanyon – Co-Founder and Director, Planet Innovation

  • Write like the people who did the work. Not like someone marketing it. Once an entry is written two or three layers away from the design team, it shows – the insight disappears. The language skims the surface and it becomes harder for the Jury to assess the quality of decision making behind the product.
  • Do not trivialise the problem solution space. Great products do not win because they are declared great. They win because they are proven, used and valued over time. 
  • Focus on the core technology. When it comes to technical detail, focus on the engine that delivers the value proposition and supports safety and efficacy. Features can help, but too many bells and whistles distract unless they clearly strengthen the case.
  • Show impact and outcomes. A strong entry proves itself through tangible outcomes, third party validation and credible case studies. Hullbot was a standout example where this was done well, because the application didn’t just describe what it was – it used specific real world case studies to show why it mattered and what it changed, including impacts that were not obvious at first glance.
  • Aim for clarity. The strongest entries invite understanding, build confidence and help the Jury advocate for the work because it’s grounded in evidence, shaped by insight and proven through use.

Advice from Good Design Juror: Nila Rezaei – Co-Founder and Lead Designer, RK Collective

  • Use your voice. We can immediately tell when an entry has been copied and pasted from ChatGPT or similar AI tools. By all means, use AI to help structure your thinking or frame your response, but the final submission must be in your own voice. 
  • Be clear, concise and strategic. Start with a systematic approach: map out all the criteria questions in Miro or a similar tool, answer each one directly, then think about your narrative: What’s the one critical thing the Jury needs to understand? Build your storyboard around that. The Jury assesses against specific criteria, so answer those questions clearly rather than burying them in flowery prose.
  • Define and prove. Define both the human challenge and the technical needs you’re addressing. What emotional need does this solve alongside the functional requirements? Think about your theory of change, how did you get from problem to solution, and how do you prove it worked? This is where metrics matter: show us the X% reduction in waste or footprint, the community testimonials, the measurable before-and-after impact, not vague claims about “significant improvement.”

2025 Australian Good Design Award of the Year: Hullbot. Image: Supplied

Service Design

  • Define the problem and the full service journey. Clearly explain the issue the service was designed to solve. Judges need to understand where friction existed and how the service redesign addressed it across the entire system. 
  • Show how the service works in practice. Outline the people, processes, platforms and touchpoints that deliver the service. Strong entries demonstrate how these elements connect into a clear, efficient system rather than existing as isolated features.
  • Prove the value with evidence. Support your claims with measurable outcomes such as improved satisfaction, efficiency gains or cost reductions. Quantified results help the Jury understand the real-world impact of the project.

2025 GDA Best In Class Service Design Winner: Aftercare Service for LGBTQIA+SB Community Members Experiencing Suicidal Distress. Image: Supplied 

Social Impact

Advice from Good Design Juror: James Toomey – CEO, Social Ventures Australia

  • Define the problem and the social outcome. As a Jury the first question we ask is always, what’s the problem you’re trying to solve. Is it a design problem or an actual person’s experience problem? Strong entries begin with a clearly defined human problem and demonstrate a deep understanding of how that problem shows up in everyday life for the people affected. We look for work that produces measurable improvement in people’s lived experience.
  • Document the designer’s insights. The Jury really values entries written by the designer because they reveal intent, judgement, and decision-making. Designer-led submissions better explain how they took account of the lived experience of the people the project was meant to serve. Deadly Democracy was a great benchmark. The project clearly articulated its aim, embedded human-centred design, and showed measurable shifts in engagement and participation.
  • Language carries weight. Clear, respectful language signals proximity to the community and care in the design process. Strong entries communicate with precision and openness.
  • Demonstrate dignity. The most effective Social Impact entries show how design affirms value, builds trust and creates lasting change. Puntukurnu AMS Healthcare Hub was a great example where the team combined community collaboration, locally sourced materials and architectural quality. The building clearly communicated respect and belonging through its design.

2021 Good Design Award Winner For Sustainability: Puntukurnu AMS Healthcare Hub. Image: Supplied

Good Design Award for Sustainability 

Advice from Good Design Juror: John Gertsakis – Director, Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence / Adjunct Professor, UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures

  • Don’t rely on AI. Do not use generative AI tools like ChatGPT to draft entry content. Use them to refine but we need to hear from you. 
  • Prove your claims. Only use general terms like ‘sustainable’ or ‘circular economy’ or ‘circular design’ if you back them up with specific detail, data and evidence that clearly demonstrate the noteworthy features embodied in the design.
  • Evidence your outcomes. Include and highlight evidence that demonstrates that the ‘sustainability’ features communicated in the entry have successfully addressed the intended environmental objectives.

Are you ready to enter?

Across all categories, Jurors emphasised that strong entries come from clarity, care and proximity to the work.

Keep these insights in mind as you prepare your submission, and focus on articulating the problem, the decisions made and the impact achieved.

Start Your Entry Now

Designing Better Healthcare

Healthcare technology has accelerated rapidly in recent years, bringing genuine innovation to a category that carries uniquely high stakes. Designing for health demands ethical restraint, deep empathy and an acute awareness that these products sit alongside people at their most vulnerable. The responsibility placed on designers is significant.

To explore what thoughtful, human-centred healthcare design looks like in practice, we spoke with two 2025 Australian Good Design Award Winners approaching this responsibility from different perspectives. 

We sat down with the team at Nakatomi, the venture studio behind Ovum, an award-winning intelligent health journal for women, and Industrial Designer Maoxin Yuan, creator of Sooze, a modular eye care system designed for people living with Keratoconus.

Ovum: Interview with Nakatomi 

A lot of health apps are built to measure bodies. Ovum was designed to help people listen to their bodies more intently.

Created with Founder Dr. Ariella Heffernan Marks, Ovum is an intelligent health journey for women. It combines symptom logging, cycle tracking and health data storage with conversational AI, so users can track patterns over time and advocate for better care.

To unpack the thinking behind Ovum, we spoke with Benjamin Bray, Founding Partner, and Jasmine Subrata, Creative Strategy Lead at Nakatomi, the venture studio behind the app. Ovum received the 2025 Australian Good Design Best in Class Award in Digital Design – Apps and Software, recognising Nakatomi’s approach to building bold, purpose-led ventures from day dot.

The impressive interface of Ovum. Image: Supplied 

GDA: Women’s healthcare has historically been fragmented and male-centred. From a design perspective, what did “better healthcare” actually need to look and feel like for Ovum to genuinely challenge that status quo?

Nakatomi: The first thing we did was research every health product out there. The one thing that stood out was there were a lot of cycle tracking apps, a lot of pregnancy tracking apps, a lot of menopause apps. But they treated women as just a uterus and only focused on their reproductive health. We wanted to create a tool that supports women as a whole human, not just their individual parts.

It was also important for Dr. Ariella to fight for change without a brand and product that’s angry or noisy for the sake of it. ‘Quietly defiant’ is our brand essence and was a helpful phrase for us through the design process. We wanted to make an app that serves its purpose and provides real value to the audience in a way that’s better than what’s out there, but with solutions not complaints.

GDA: Ovum isn’t designed as a diagnostic tool, but as a companion that helps women be heard and believed. How did that philosophy translate into concrete design decisions across the interface and user journey?

Nakatomi: Making it chat-first. We made the decision to have chat live on top of the entire experience rather than it just being one page or section of the app; so at all times we’re reinforcing our mission for women to feel heard and believed. We’re trying to encourage people to provide their perspective on their health rather than displaying it to them at all times, which is quite a different way to visualise information. In testing we found that women loved the fact that they recorded and received their information through the conversational aspect. 

Making the experience feel a little more free-flowing, a little less rigid, was super important.

GDA: Healthcare apps often overwhelm users with data. How did your team approach clarity, restraint and emotional safety when designing Ovum’s daily health overview and longitudinal tracking?

Nakatomi: One of the initial design rules we had was that graphs were illegal, to challenge us to find more imaginative and unique ways to show data. Which is hard, because graphs take something complex and simplify it into something that’s easy to see. But we wanted to show women that they’re more than a number, percentage or statistic. So, how do you display complex information without graphs? That was a constant challenge that provided the opportunity to create an interface that’s very unique and highly visual.

We would debate small details for days to find that balance between being official and being personal, acknowledging the seriousness of certain topics without over-indexing in a way that creates anxiety.

GDA: Trust is critical in digital health. What role did design play in communicating privacy, consent and data ownership?

Nakatomi: Being a health app, Ovum operates with the highest standards of privacy and security. But beyond that, the ways we really build trust are by being very transparent about what is used and what isn’t, not forcing any information to be shared, and giving users agency over what they share. One of the things that’s always been really important to Dr. Ariella is allowing women to opt into sharing some of their insights to help further research and improve care for women in the official healthcare system. 

GDA: Ovum integrates memory, history and pattern recognition over time. How did you design for “intelligent recall” in a way that feels supportive rather than intrusive?

Nakatomi: It is easily the hardest part from a technical perspective. The longer you talk to an LLM (Large Language Models) such as ChatGPT, the more it starts to go off track, start making things up, or start forgetting things, because its context is full and it starts to drop stuff off in order to respond.

When you’re building a longitudinal health app, we have to build a custom memory. If you talked about a medication you were on six months ago and now you bring up a symptom, we need to know that it could be linked to that medication. Balancing that constantly is a massive technical challenge, but it’s what makes it feel personal and intelligent, and more valuable than just googling your symptoms.

GDA: Many femtech products are narrowly focused on reproductive health. What design challenges emerged when creating a whole-body health system?

Nakatomi: The challenge with shifting from cycle to whole body is that health is so broad, and different women put more importance on different things. Good user experience and good design is personalised, it feels like it’s made for you. 

One of the ways we did that was we didn’t want to have distinct pages in the app for each section. Since it’s a holistic health partner, we didn’t want you to open the app and be just a cycle tracker, or diet trainer, in different pages. We wanted it to feel connected. Conversation is a massive part of that. The challenge was not making it five apps stitched together, while still feeling like it does a good job at each of those things in one cohesive experience.

GDA: The app supports women across multiple life stages. How did you design a system that could adapt as users’ bodies, priorities and health contexts change over time?

Nakatomi: One of the challenges with building something that is personal and AI-driven is how fluid it is. It adapts entirely to you, but it doesn’t move into a different mode. If you report you’re going through pregnancy, we thought about how best to serve more relevant information and insights based on your needs now without turning it into “pregnant mode.” We try to make the transition so fluid it doesn’t feel like anything’s changed other than how Ovum responds to you.

GDA: Healthcare design often prioritises efficiency over empathy. Where did you consciously slow things down in Ovum and make users feel seen, and why was that important to the experience?

Nakatomi: One thing that was super important was no matter what is said, there’s immediate visual feedback showcasing that you’ve been heard. If you report something as significant as a major diagnosis, or a stubbed toe, or a diet change, or a tough day at the office, you get immediate gratification that it has been captured. 

GDA: Looking beyond Ovum, what responsibility do designers have when working in healthcare? What do you hope this project signals to the wider design industry?

Nakatomi: This was certainly a product design challenge, because of how significant a role it plays in women’s lives and how diverse and nuanced those experiences are.

Strategy was huge for us. We spent a lot of time researching, experimenting, and testing before we moved on to building anything. Strategy sessions on individual features could see us in a room for three days straight challenging and trying everything. Every design decision ladders up to the product strategy and positioning.  This way, the entire team is working with the same shared vision and every aspect of the user experience reinforces Ovum’s mission.

Ovum App. Image: Supplied

Sooze Modular Eye Care Device For Keratoconus Patients: Interview with Maoxin Yuan 

Maoxin Yuan is an emerging Australian Industrial Designer working at the intersection of healthcare, technology and lived experience, drawing directly from his own challenges living with Keratoconus – a progressive eye condition that fundamentally changes how you see and move through the world.

Keratoconus causes the cornea to thin and distort, leading to impaired vision, light sensitivity and visual distortion. For many, daily life revolves around rigid contact lenses, ongoing discomfort and the loss of visual independence once those lenses come off. While treatments can slow progression, there is often no simple or comfortable solution.

Sooze emerged to solve this. The modular eye care system combines virtual retinal projection, neurostimulation and light therapy to support comfort, independence and dignity throughout the day and night. This human-centred approach to future healthcare earned Maoxin the 2025 Australian Good Design Best in Class Award in the Next Gen category.

Meet the Sooze Modular Eye Care Device. Image: Supplied

GDA: What first drew you to designing for healthcare and why did you choose Keratoconus as a focus?

Maoxin: Everybody had to pick a topic for our capstone project. I took quite a bit of time and it was challenging thinking about what I wanted to do and the impact I wanted coming out of the project. 

I have this condition, Keratoconus, myself. I wanted to do something about it. It’s a rather rare condition that not a lot of people know about. It was a way for me to understand what other people with this condition are experiencing, across different stages of the disease and how it affects their life.

GDA: How did patient research shape both the problem definition and the design direction?

Maoxin: Me being a patient myself was a starting point, but actually talking to people was important. Being a patient is an enabler during those conversations because people can open up more. I talked to patients and also practitioners, optometrists and doctors. You hear stories about how the condition affects daily life. People hit corners of the bed when they get up, wear their shirts inside out because of their impaired vision without their rigid contact lenses.

One patient I interviewed wanted to become a pilot, and because of this she couldn’t. Later she did a surgery and came back and gained her commercial pilot license. That stuck with me. It changed people’s life trajectory, not just everyday life.

I also understood what hacks or products they use to deal with the challenges. A lot of people suffer from dry eyes and constantly use eye drops. They have to stop what they’re doing because their eyes are dry. They couldn’t sleep very well because of eye pain at night. Once they take off their rigid contact lenses, they don’t have a consistent, reliable, comfortable way to do activities they love, like reading or watching TV before bed. That became the focus area. Bringing vision support after their rigid contact lens session, plus eye care for dry eye and eye pain.

GDA: How did you balance clinical function with comfort and wearability?

Maoxin: I wanted the least invasive product that supports them without them really needing to take care of it, or having to remind themselves to use it. It needed to blend into their lifestyle better. You’re still asking a lot from the patient to wear something in the house and during sleep. That’s a lot of hours and commitment.

Form and design language mattered. I wanted something softer, more inviting, so people could easily accept it. Function is one thing. If this looks horrible, or if it looks uncomfortable, people are not going to wear it. Balancing function and visual aesthetics was really important.

GDA: Why was a modular system the right solution for supporting patients across day and night?

Maoxin: Patients wear their rigid contact lenses during the day. Once they get off work and their usual routine, they’re tired and their eyes are dry because of keratoconus or because of the lens. They take off their lens and before this solution, they wouldn’t have any reliable way to see.

Now they put on Sooze with the visor and the headband. They go about their activities, watching TV and reading books. When they’re about to sleep, they take off the module and put it into the case. They still wear the headband and turn on the red light therapy and sleep. The next day they take off the headband, put it on the charging dock, and start wearing their rigid contact lenses. If they need vision support in the morning, they can pop the visor back in, get ready, then take it off and put it back into the case.

Modularity helps get rid of non-necessary functions when there isn’t a need for it. Vision support is not needed when you’re sleeping, and it’s better not to wear more things during sleep. It also allows flexibility and future-proofing. You could do another module, like an eye mask to block out light for better sleep.

GDA: How do Virtual Retinal Projection, neurostimulation and light therapy work together to restore independence?

Maoxin: Virtual retinal projection is aiming at vision support. Neurostimulation is aiming at dry eye and eye discomfort.

Virtual retina display is like shooting a safe level laser into your eyes. Because it’s condensed, it can deliver the image without being too distorted by your cornea, bypassing imperfections and delivering a sharper image. You could wear this and see the world captured by the camera but delivered more clearly into your eyes.

Neurostimulation has research around pain relief. There’s also research about neurostimulation stimulating the nerves around your forehead areas or upper eye areas for tear stimulation, so you have more tears coming out and that helps with dry eye issues.

Light therapy is part of the system. The light engine that does the virtual retina display is only needed when you’re awake. Once you’re ready to sleep, you take off the vision support module, the visor and the camera module. Then the light engine is available for other purposes. Because they have sleep issues, the light engine can be used for red light therapy during sleep to help with sleep quality. It’s an add on function after they take off the visor.

The Sooze device being used during sleep. Image: Supplied

GDA: As a young person, what edge or insight do you have that sets you apart from more experienced designers?

Maoxin: Because you’re new to the industry, you have a lot of ideas. People can have a certain understanding of the industry that wouldn’t have wild ideas you could bring to the table. Being the youngest team member also means you’re exposed to new technology and new trends, and directions and angles that people might not have thought about. Experience builds up, but the level of curiosity and your new way of thinking can contribute to the project.

GDA: What did winning the 2025 Australian Good Design Best in Class Award mean to you?

Maoxin: It’s huge. I was really grateful and really excited. You dream of winning something like this. It’s a nod to my hard work. It’s also an inspiration and encouragement for me to do more.

GDA: What responsibility do designers have when shaping future healthcare tools?

Maoxin: Designers are ultimately the advocates for humans. That is one of the most important things in designing for future healthcare, or for the future in general. Always thinking back to the user. Always thinking about what we could do better to help a certain group of people have a better quality of life.

Maoxin Yuan. Image: Supplied

Designing with, not for.

Through the work of Nakatomi and Maoxin Yuan, we see what becomes possible when design is led by care, lived experience and deep respect for the people it serves.

Good Design Australia acknowledges and celebrates the designers, founders, patients, collaborators and communities whose voices shape projects like Ovum and Sooze. Together, these works set a benchmark for designing better healthcare.