Experimental tools to align speculative and futures design with core values and life-centred thinking. — Values-driven futures Speculative design took form in the early 1990s as designers questioned their role in consumerism’s impact on the planet. They began to consider how to align design with core values. With interest in designing for the future on the increase, this is an exciting time for designers. But with the…

Supporting Women’s History Month, I celebrate these 4 women whose work made a massive impact on me and the world by redirecting design thinking to be more planet-friendly and socially just While many modern design innovations of industrialised nations have raised parts of the world out of recurring human famines…

Insights from interviews and experimentation from designers around the world are synthesised into practical steps for applying non-human and non-user personas in digital design As discussed in my previous articles, more designers are using personas to represent non-humans (environments, animals, etc.) and non-users (factory workers, farmers, impacted communities, etc.) …

Interviews with practitioners show how digital designers can use non-human personas to design more planet-friendly experiences — Over the last few years, the discussion has grown about non-human personas — personas representing natural environments and animals for designers to consider their needs as well as humans. But how can digital designers actually use the needs of a plant, animal, or environment to inform their design decisions to…

Non-human personas represent the lifeforms indireimpacted by a product’s lifecycle, but how might a solo UX designer use them with little budget or access to experts? — Non-human personas represent the lifeforms impacted by a product’s lifecycle, but how might a solo UX designer use them, with little time or budget for expert involvement, to inform UX decisions to reduce the negative environmental and social impacts of digital products?

Humans have long prided themselves on their creativity and its resilience to AI, but combinations of AI tools suggest a future where human creativity is rebranded as redundant. — When I first came across the Uncreative website, I thought it was design fiction, a fun exploration of the future of AI and creativity where a design agency doesn’t need humans. “Uncreative — the world’s first fully automated creative agency, powered by AI”

Sustainable, accessible, diverse, and ethical design can make digital better for all life—let’s embed them into our style guides to accelerate their full adoption. — Tom Greenwood, author of Sustainable Web Design, recently gave a keynote talk at the first International Green Digital Accessibility conference in Barcelona about ‘how essential it is that the fields of sustainability and accessibility come together to create a better world for all’.

How might we enable sustainable grocery shopping choices using behavioural UX? For truly sustainable living, which also regenerates the planet, we need a revolution of the entire way we make, use, and reuse goods. But that change may be a long way off. So, what can UX designers do now…

A review and summary of 7 behavioural UX approaches used to inform, enable, and encourage users to purchase planet-friendlier products — Changing behaviours is not easy. But with the wasteful cycles of consumer products being responsible for 60% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and the global population estimated to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, we need to address our runaway consumption. While the big changes we need—like government actions—are taking a…