Yeah. We miss those days, too.

Now that everything seems so simple and so same → type in the prompt // iterate the prompt // project done → we all long for that beautiful, chaotic process of making valuable, thoughtful, strategic (and sustainable!) design with long-term impact.

That’s why we’ve picked some tools and cards from the SUX Resource Collection to help you navigate the messiness of the design process – and have some serious fun while at it.  

Top 3 tools to try with your team

Here are three inspiring tools that you can use to bring the joy of designing back to your people. 

All of these invite you to experiment, try something new, scratch below the surface, involve the whole team, and make it a playful activity that can change how you work and how your work impacts the world. 

Let’s try them out, shall we?

1. Kaleidoscope

Created by the Artefact Group, Kaleidoscope helps you design more inclusive and equitable experiences, ensuring that more people benefit and fewer are overlooked or harmed.

Let this interactive tool serve as your guide as you navigate the phases of planning, kickoff, research, analysis, design, evaluation, and storytelling. You’ll learn how to embrace the complexity of multiple identities, uncover the factors that affect people differently, identify who holds power and who is marginalized, and reflect on how your solution serves the communities.

Why this? Because of the thoughtful approach, the sections covered, the questions asked, the details included, and the communities impacted.

2.  EcoCards

Currently available in French and English, EcoCards help your teams and stakeholders take a step toward a more sustainable web design – in a fun way. 

To guide you through, there are several pre-set workshops for these cards outlined in the Figma file. The game is developed by Digital4Better and licensed under a Creative Commons license, so everyone can adapt, remix, and build upon this work for non-commercial purposes. 

Why this? Because accomplishing important sustainability goals while playing cards feels quite compelling. Who wouldn’t want that?

3. Future Scouting

“Welcome to your multi-future time machine!” 

The author of this tool, Damien Lutz, invites us in. 

“Step into the realm of speculative design, foresight, and design fiction, where imagination meets values as you explore alternate possible futures.”

Needless to say, the Future Scouting toolkit helps you design (for) the future. There’s also an accompanying guidebook with worksheets to help you catch a signal of an emerging change, design a future invention, imagine a key scenario, and shape a future world.

Why this? Because it calls for inspiring brainstorms, joyful explorations, and imaginative scenarios – all while innovating and building future-ready prototypes.   

Have fun along the way 

When we talk about UX design, we talk about research, discovery, strategy, testing, prototypes, and – of course – accessibility, sustainability, ethics, aesthetics, and a responsible approach. 

All super relevant and super important. But let’s not forget to enjoy ourselves along the way, too.

So, choose your favorite tool from above – or browse SUX Resources for more. Gather your people, play with possibilities, make something wonderful together, and have fun! 

Nadja Bozovic is a writer, editor, and strategist with 10+ years of experience across fields and formats. As a UX enthusiast and an advocate for accessible and sustainable web, she’s been immersed in the SUX topics, and she’s always curious for more – more knowledge, more hands-on experience, more impact. That’s why being a SUX Ambassador and a SUX Network Contributor suits her so perfectly ✨

Der Beitrag Make Design Playful Again erschien zuerst auf SUX Network.

Let’s start with the bad side: honestly it seems quite arrogant to produce a video about how you as a company impress Mother Nature, because you over fulfill her expectations. And even more important: the video is quite good in leaving out some important things. Sustainability is more than „just“ carbon emissions. What about all the social aspects? I mean most of the stuff is still produced in places, with weak labor rights. Or, still many parts are not recycled. And most important: Apple does not allow you to easily modify your device to have it last longer. And that is one of the major major issues. An iPhone should easily be usable for 5 years (without the need to accept that many things do not work properly anymore) by upgrading it. THIS would be a real major shift.

Don’t get me wrong: I still like that Apple puts a lot of focus on the whole topic. It is much better than doing nothing. But we all must not forget that there are some major issues Apple „elegantly“ left out…

But, I always try to find positive aspects in things or how to use it for good and I also see another positive aspect here. With this video, one of the biggest corporates introduced a non-human persona to the public. People like me, who work within sustainable design, UX and product building talk about non-human personas for quite some time now (if you want to learn more about it, check out Damien Lutz’ new book „The non-human persona guide“!). And always it is something people tend to smile at — at least a bit. It was always funny to think about a persona for mother mature, a bee, etc.. Because to a bunch people it felt a little weird ala „how can a bee have a persona? it can’t talk to me..“ Having apple using a non-human personas helps us, who try to make digital products and digital product design more sustainable a lot with our narratives. Because now we can just say: „We should create non-human personas of you — like Apple did.“

So, is it a good thing, Apple produced this video with Mother Nature in my opinion? Yes it is. Because it helps a lot in our narratives and it is good to see that a big company like Apple spends a lot of effort in becoming carbon neutral on all layers. But, it is also important not to forget about all the things that do not work well and that Apple left out „elegantly“. A major issue of Apple is that its products cannot be upgraded to last longer — meaning less new products would have to be produced, which would have a huge impact!

And really important not to forget: Sustainability is so much more than carbon emissions. We all together too often fall into this carbon tunnel vision.. But what have we won if we save the world only for those of us who were lucky enough to be born on the rich side of the planet…?

🙏 Thank you for reading all to the bottom.

If you want to read more about making digital products more sustainable and about Sustainable UX and Design, I invite you to follow me here or on LinkedIn, to follow the Sustainable UX Network here or on LinkedIn or to join our Slack.

🌿 My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thorstenjonas/

🌐 SUX Website: https://sustainableuxnetwork.com/

🌐 My Website: https://thorstenjonas.com

Der Beitrag Apple using Mother Nature Persona — Good thing or bad thing? erschien zuerst auf SUX Network.