PollenNav app routes users away from pollen, wins design awards
Bay Area product designer Yani Shi created PollenNav, a navigation app that maps lower-pollen routes by merging National Weather Service data with user symptom reports. The app, developed with Yawen Zheng, Ziqi Li, and Chang Mou, personalizes pollen risk based on individual allergies and uses flower characters to convey levels playfully. It integrates with Apple Watch for sneeze logging and rewards user reports. PollenNav has won the iF Design Award 2026, Red Dot Award: Brands & Communication Design, Silver at New York Product Design Award, and European Product Design Award. Shi, a product designer at Lyft, studied at UC Berkeley and previously worked at AKQA and Baidu.
Key facts
- PollenNav is a navigation app that optimizes routes based on pollen exposure.
- Designed by Yani Shi with Yawen Zheng, Ziqi Li, and Chang Mou.
- Merges National Weather Service data with user-submitted symptom reports.
- Personalizes pollen risk via an onboarding questionnaire for specific allergens.
- Uses flower characters with shifting expressions to indicate pollen levels.
- Integrates with Apple Watch to log sneezes and feed community map.
- Awards include iF Design Award 2026, Red Dot Award, NY Product Design Award Silver, European Product Design Award.
- Yani Shi is a product designer at Lyft, studied at UC Berkeley, worked at AKQA and Baidu.
Entities
Artists
- Yani Shi
- Yawen Zheng
- Ziqi Li
- Chang Mou
Institutions
- National Weather Service
- Lyft
- UC Berkeley
- AKQA
- Baidu
- iF Design Award
- Red Dot Award
- New York Product Design Award
- European Product Design Award
Locations
- Bay Area
- New York