Crisis communication, healthcare at home and future mobility

UID26 explores what design leaves behind: in materials, systems, and people’s lives.

ImageDavid Dahlberg

This year’s student-chosen theme, TRACES, explores what design leaves behind: in materials, systems, and people’s lives. It reflects the journey behind each project, from early research and fieldwork to tangible proposals, and invites discussion about the long-term impact of design on society and the planet.

Design proposals grounded in real-world challenges

UID26 presents design proposals that respond to current challenges across healthcare, mobility, sustainability, and everyday life. The projects move beyond concepts to address how systems work in practice, from hospital workflows and infrastructure to domestic routines and public spaces.

The exhibition brings together work that explores:

·      how care is moving from hospitals into the home

·      how cities adapt to changing mobility needs and climate conditions

·      how everyday products can support independence, dignity, and inclusion

·      how design can strengthen resilience in uncertain or fragile systems

Highlights from the Class of 2026

In MFA Advanced Product Design, Cosima Pauli explores how people can stay connected when digital infrastructure fails, proposing a discreet communication device designed for censorship, shutdowns, and crisis situations.

Also in Advanced Product Design, Pierre Brand develops a multisensory learning system that supports children with dyslexia through haptic feedback, translating reading into tactile cues that reduce cognitive overload and build confidence.

In the same programme, projects also address healthcare systems directly, from a next-generation anaesthesia platform that reduces complexity and material waste in operating rooms, to concepts that make long-term treatment in the home more manageable and less intrusive in everyday life. At the same time, other projects shift focus to everyday rituals, including a tactile music system designed to counter digital fatigue and restore a sense of presence at home.

In MFA Interaction Design, Ece Günesen questions how women’s health technologies represent the body, proposing more open and interpretative ways of engaging with health data that prioritise lived experience over constant optimisation.

“I would love to explore women’s health data as something that is to be lived with, and not something to be fixed,” says Günesen.

Across the Interaction Design programme, projects also explore how design can support attention, inclusion, and participation in everyday life, from gaze-aware interfaces in cars to tools that help people feel more confident navigating unfamiliar public spaces.

In MFA Transportation Design, David Dahlberg explores how long-distance rail travel could become more attractive by improving the social and emotional experience of night trains, balancing privacy with safe and optional interaction.

Other mobility projects in the programme address urgent challenges such as emergency response in remote terrain, climate adaptation in extreme heat, and how shared mobility can support more inclusive and service-oriented travel experiences.

In the BFA Programme in Industrial Design, students focus on everyday systems and lived experience, developing tangible solutions for areas such as home-based healthcare, food storage and preparedness, workplace safety, and access to nature. These projects show how design can make systemic challenges more manageable in daily life, without requiring large-scale change to existing infrastructure.

A platform for critical conversation

UID26 is both a public showcase and a moment to reflect on the responsibilities behind design decisions.

For Demian Horst, Head of Institute at Umeå Institute of Design, the theme highlights process as well as impact.

“TRACES reminds us that design is never only what we make, but also what we change through the act of making. At UID26, our students show how careful research, collaboration, and craft can lead to work that is inclusive, sustainability-minded, and honest about the imprint design leaves on the world,” says Horst.