Kudoz was a big winner at the Vancouver User Experience Awards on November 29, with their innovative online experience platform taking home 2 awards – including the overall award for Best User Experience!
The Awards recognized the joy, elegance, clarity, innovation, and impact in the local user experience community, and encouraged participation from those who share a common thread as user experience advocates, regardless of industry.
Kudoz was thrilled to win the top award in the Design for Good category, recognizing excellence in user experience design at charities and foundations, social campaigns, professional associations, and public sector enterprises. They were later humbled to win the grand-prize category, selected from finalists across all categories and representing some of the best in user experience design the Lower Mainland has to offer.
Kudoz brings novelty into the everyday lives of adults with cognitive disabilities. Volunteers share their know-how through an online catalogue, then host thoughtful and exciting, in-person experiences – from kick-boxing to quantum computing to song-recording. Adults with a cognitive disability use the Kudoz app to navigate experiences and break out of their everyday lives to connect, learn, and grow.
Kudoz is about gaining new skills, independence, confidence, and discovering new parts of yourself. It’s about leveraging strengths and a growing network, all while shattering the stigma around disability. At its core, it’s about embodying a growth mindset – the idea that the mind can grow and stretch at any age, no matter what ability!
Sarah Schulman, Kudoz’s Chief Strategist, appreciates others recognizing how intentionally and rigorously they have used design to create a product and service with social impact. “Kudoz is a homegrown Vancouver innovation, and it’s so thrilling that the Vancouver design community recognized the value of good design within the social sector. Kudoz started four years ago, when our team moved into a social housing complex to understand the lived experience of people living with a developmental disability. Today, hundreds of adults and community members are breaking down social barriers thanks to Kudoz, and advancing neurodiversity.”
Anyone interested in learning more about Kudoz is invited to attend their Open House on November 30, from 6-8 pm at 4924 Imperial Street in Burnaby.
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Kudoz is powered by a collaboration of 4 organizations: 3 local non-profits supporting people with developmental disabilities – The Burnaby Association for Community Inclusion, Kinsight and posAbilities – and InWithForward, a social enterprise specializing in social design. www.kudoz.ca
The Vancouver User Experience Awards were presented at a gala event at The Imperial and included professionals from throughout the Lower Mainland, as well as a keynote presentation from Markus Grupp, director of digital experience at Indigo. JP Holecka, a VanUE co-organizer and founder and CEO of POWERSHiFTER, emceed the awards gala. Awards sponsors included Finger Food Studios, Domain7, Niiu Digital, RED Academy, TELUS Digital, Samsung, Clio, Metalab, Noravera, and Microsoft.
