This is an editorial pick, not a submission — Talmyn’s own research into a design that solved a specific, well-defined problem, published as part of our ongoing Talmyn Designer of the Year coverage. Note: the James Dyson Award’s 2026 international winners haven’t been announced as of this writing — this feature covers the most recent confirmed global winner, from 2025.
Alessandra Galli, an Italian product designer, won the James Dyson Award’s global Medical category for OnCue, a smart keyboard designed for people with Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s affects fine motor control in ways that make standard typing — a task most keyboard design takes for granted — genuinely difficult, producing frequent errors and slower, more frustrating input.
Why she made this list
The specific mechanism worth explaining is how OnCue addresses the problem: it uses haptic (touch-based) and visual cues to help manage the motor symptoms that disrupt typing, rather than simply making keys larger or more forgiving of mistyping after the fact. That’s a meaningfully different design approach — intervening at the point of the motor symptom itself, timed to a person’s actual typing rhythm, instead of just building a more error-tolerant interface around an unaddressed problem.
The James Dyson Award specifically selects for designs that solve a genuine, well-defined problem rather than rewarding aesthetics alone, and Galli’s winning entry is a clear example of that standard — a design decision grounded in the specific mechanics of a medical condition, not a general accessibility gesture.
Talmyn’s Designer of the Year coverage looks for a design that addresses the actual mechanism of a real problem. OnCue’s cue-based approach to a specific motor-control challenge is exactly that kind of decision.
