Welcome to this edition of the SUX Newsletter. This month I am reflecting about the importance of hope and confidence - especially in challenging times like this. We also have an update about the SUX Playbook and a re-release of existing SUX Tools including ready to use templates for you. And we are announcing a new Masterclass, focussing on the negative impacts of Gen AI and how we can make sure to use AI in a sustainable and responsible way.
So, what can you expect in this newsletter at a glance:
- My Thought of the Month - this time about Hope and why it is a superpower 🌿
- An update about the SUX Playbook with new templates 📚
- Latest episode of the SUX Podcast with Maria Giudice 🎙️
- New online Masterclass “Sustainability and Ethics in Gen AI” coming in June 🎓
- Masterclass "Become a sustainable UX Designer" on May 7th - few tickets left 🎓
- Upcoming SUX Events or conference appearances 📆
- And as always we round up with a little “Did you know”, this time about the difference of what people really want and do, because the believe to be in a minority 💡
🌿 Thought of the Month: Hope as Superpower
Last month Maria Giudice was my guest at the SUX Podcast and while we spoke about change-making and how we all could be change makers we moved further to the challenging times we live in at the moment: The environmental and social crisis is already super challenging and on top of this we see the political crises with extreme people and parties taking over political power in democracies all over the world.
Maria said something very memorable in the second half of the podcast: „We have to shift our own internal narrative from being scared to being hopeful“. And this week the German satirist Jan Böhmermann said something really interesting regarding how we too often project the worst possible futures instead of seeing better outcomes as probable as the worst possible outcomes.
Both points made me think a lot. Because in the first place my reflex was that hope and manifestation will not solve the challenges we face at the moment. But, there is a different point of view: Hope is not about being hopeful that everything will be good in the end without doing anything. Instead it is the base layer for actions we take. If we do not believe a better future is possible, our actions will only be half-powered, or - even worse - we will project bad futures and subconsciously point and work towards them.
We have many reasons to believe in a bad future when we look at what is happening in the world these days. But the future is not there yet and we are shaping it with every action we take. The problem is, it is the negative news and stories that are dominating our daily horizon. We only see and read bad news and we project this to the possible futures, while we forget that these are just possibilities but not realities yet. We forget that positive futures are as likely as negative ones.
The solution is not to believe in a better future and with that everything is done. It needs the action we take. It needs every little thing we do. There will not be any change without action. But without hope and belief the action will not have the maximum impact.
In the podcast Maria said so many wonderful things, full of hope for a better future accompanied with actions we can - and should - take. And I want to mention two more quotes from her: “Better leaders will arise from the ashes, because they always do” and “I have this one time on earth, I am gonna to make it count. I am gonna try to be as good as possible. And I am gonna fight back for the values that I have as a human being”. Hope and belief compared with concrete action, that is the key point.
The german philosopher Ernst Bloch once said: “It is a question of learning hope. Its work does not renounce, it is in love with success rather than failure.” I do not agree with all of his ideas, but this is a powerful thought. Hope is in love with success, not failure. So, in fact hope is the basis for success.
I am a really hopeful person. Otherwise I would not do the work I do. I believe that we all can make a difference and I believe that we can influence the future with our actions, no matter how small they seem. I believe in a better future where hope is my driver.
But hope is not a stand-alone item that requires no action. Instead it is the fuel for our actions and the vision for what we want to achieve. And therefore I am convinced it is a key super power, especially in dark times.
📚 SUX Playbook and SUX Resource Database
The SUX Playbook is the making and we hope to release a first version for free in the next few weeks. Meanwhile we have already re-released existing public SUX-Tools with descriptions and PDF- as well as Miro-Templates, ready to use. Find the following tools all here SUX Playbook Tools or here in detail:
✏️ Needs to Consequences Mapping - Link
Understand the negative consequences of your product or services and create a basis for evaluating your user- and business needs in the context of its negative impacts. Also understand how negative consequences and user-/business-goals are directly connected.
✏️ Sustainable User Journey Mapping - Link
Map the negative impacts of a digital product to a user journey and develop ideas to tackle them. With the Sustainable User Journey Map you can break down negative impacts to a tangible and actionable level and develop single ideas based on single user journey steps. By doing this on a user journey level you get very concrete and actionable ideas that are tangible and compact enough to fit project and product process realities.
✏️ Carbon Brainstorming - Link
Identify potential drivers of carbon impacts of a digital product and brainstorm ideas to challenge these.
✏️ Excluded Users Mapping - Link
With this canvas we want to understand which people cannot use our product and why. And we want to reflect why we as the designers of this product should change this.
We also released our versions of Actor Mapping and Non-Human-/Non-User Personas. These are based on the wonderful work Monika Sznel and Damien Lutz and have been modified by us according to our learnings from the past years:
✏️ SUX Actor Mapping - Link
Identify all actors that are related to your product / app / website / service / experience. Our Actor Mapping Canvas is highly inspired by the work of Monica Sznel, as she is the first person where I read about this concept. We modified the canvas according to the experiences and learnings from 4 years of workshops and classes.
✏️ SUX Non-Human/Non-User Personas - Link
Our Non-Human/Non-User Persona Canvas is highly inspired by the work of Damien Lutz on Non-Human Personas. We modified the canvas according to the experiences and learnings of our workshops with the goal to more directly connect the Persona to the product or service.
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In addition to the work on the SUX Playbook we are updating the Resource Database at the moment: all resources will get descriptions and their own pages to make browsing through resources a more comfortable experience and provide all relevant information about a resource at a glance. Stay tuned. More to come on weekly basis. 🌿
🎙 Latest episode of the SUX Podcast: Maria Giudice
This time I had the honor to be joined by Maria Giudice. You probably know Maria for her books “Changemakers - How Leaders can Design Change” or “Rise of the DEO: Leadership by Design”. Maria and me met at the World Usability Congress in Graz last October and I am really happy to welcome her in the podcast now.. In our conversation we speak about how Design can and must actively drive change, but also why all leaders should have design skills. From there we dive deeper into what is good, into Narratives and why fear-based stories stick so much more to people than the positive narratives. And we speak about how the good will arise from the dark times we see at the moment and how we all can help driving this. As a little side note: We recorded this episode right before the election in Germany in February and we spoke briefly about this as well, just so that you do not wonder.
SUX Podcast Episode 19: Changemakers with Maria Giudice
🎓 Online Masterclass "Sustainability and Ethics in Gen AI” coming in June
We have designed a new Masterclass that focuses on the Sustainability and Ethics perspective on Gen AI. Why? When we speak about tech, design and sustainability, we need to speak about (Gen) AI. Because it is everywhere. And we see a discussion that too often does not consider sustainability and ethical aspects in the use of Gen AI.
We think the real price for using it is much higher and paid on many ends. And when the use of Gen AI is discussed we need to consider these negative impacts as well.
I did a lot of work, gave talks and facilitated workshops about Sustainability, Ethics and Responsibility in AI. From that we created this Masterclass to discuss the negative impacts of Gen AI, to compare these to its positive outcomes, to be able to understand the real price of an AI use case and in the end to evaluate if an AI use case should be done from a responsibility point of view (which is also a long term business aspect by the way).
The first Masterclass will take place in June and I will be your lecturer. We are finalizing the date at the moment. If you want to get informed once we have set the final date, you can sign up the waitlist here: https://forms.gle/9r3CwazdNFrxGdsj8
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Here is a first glance about what to expect:
What are the negative Impacts of Gen AI? What is the real price for it? What could be the consequences for me personally? And is there a way to use Gen AI responsibly and sustainably?
This interactive Masterclass consists of lecture parts and an interactive workshop part. At the workshop part you learn to use the Responsible AI Canvas to evaluate and compare the negative and positive impacts of AI use cases.
Modules of the Masterclass:
- Environmental Impacts
- Societal Impacts
- Impacts on ourselves
- Creative work and Gen AI
- Calculating the true price of Gen AI
- Responsible use of AI
- Balancing negative and positive impacts
- Exercise: Responsible AI Canvas
If you want to get informed once we once the final date and tickets you can sign up the waitlist here: https://forms.gle/9r3CwazdNFrxGdsj8
🎓 Few tickets left for Masterclass "Become a sustainable UX Designer" on May 7th
We have a few seats left for our Masterclass this Wednesday and with the code “SUX_Friend” you can get a 15% discount.
What’s new: while the Masterclass takes 4 hours, we now offer an extra 30 minutes at the end to have more time for questions and conversation with Thorsten. So overall the Masterclass now takes 4,5 hours.
7th May 2025, 5:30pm-10:00pm CEST, Online, Tickets and all Infos
You are looking for a tailored Masterclass for your design- or product-team? We offer team Masterclasses in a 4- or 8-hour format. On demand we can adapt the practical exercises to one of your projects. Find all information about our Team-Masterclass for Design- or Product-Teams here: https://sustainableuxnetwork.com/academy/masterclass-sustainable-ux
📆 All upcoming Events:
Find below a list of upcoming local and online events of the SUX Network as well as conferences we visit. If you are at one of the conferences, drop me a message and let's have a coffee together.
May:
- Online: SUX Masterclass “Become a Sustainable UX Designer", May 7, All Infos
- Online: SUX Monthly, shifted to May 15, invite will be shared in the SUX Slack
- Munich: DDX Conference, Panel about Sustainable UX and Design, May 10, Munich, All Infos
- Paris: FLUPA UX Days, Keynote "Each Design is a Manifesto for the Future, May 23, All Infos
June:
- Hamburg, Germany: SUX Hamburg joined event with the Design Zentrum Hamburg as part of the Sustainability Week, June 4, more infos soon
- Aarhus, Denmark: UX Connect, Opening Panel, June 10+11, All Infos
- Espelkamp, Germany: Head in the Cloud by Mittwald, Panel "Sustainability and AI" and Workshop "Digital Sustainability, All Infos
- Hamburg, Germany: SUX Hamburg Meetup and Workshop together with Damien Lutz and Sandy Dähnert, June 18, more infos info
- Online: SUX Masterclass "Sustainability and Ethics in Gen AI", Sign up waitlist
July:
- Munich: Green IO Munich, Talk + you can meet us the whole day at our SUX Booth, July 3, All Infos
Events later this year:
- Copenhagen, Denmark: Workshop "Sustainability, Ethics and Creativity in the Convergence of AI and Design" at Future Product Days in September - Infos and Tickets
- Pyrenees, Spain: Talk at the Life-centred Design Festival - All Infos
- Graz, Austria: Workshop "Applying Sustainable UX: From Strategy to Design Tactics" at World Usability Congress - Infos and Tickets
- Berlin, Germany: Talk at Beyond Tellerrand Conference - More infos soon
🌿 SUX Keynotes, Workshops or Trainings for your organization:
Are you looking for a keynote, a workshop or a training session about Sustainable UX or Responsible AI? We offer these for any kind of organization. In fact this helps to finance the SUX Network and all of its non-profit work. If you want to learn more, please get in touch: info@sustainableuxnetwork.com
💡 Did you know:
A huge 89% majority of the world’s people want stronger action to fight the climate crisis but feel they are trapped in a self-fulfilling “spiral of silence” because they mistakenly believe they are in a minority, research suggests.”
Thank you for reading all the way down here. If you have any feedback, thoughts, want to share something, please reach out to me on Slack or on LinkedIn. 🙏
See you,
👋 Thorsten
Founder of the SUX Network & Co-Author of the Web Sustainability Guidelines, Keynote Speaker, Sustainable UX Trainer, Digital Sustainability Trailblazer and Responsible AI Advocate. Get in touch if you want to work with me or book me for a talk, workshop or training. And follow me on LinkedIn, where I share frequently tipps, resources and thoughts about Digital Sustainability, Responsible AI and Sustainable UX.
🌏 SUX Community Count:
🌐 SUX Website: https://sustainableuxnetwork.com/
🎓 SUX Academy: https://sustainableuxnetwork.com/academy
📧 Get in touch: info@sustainableuxnetwork.com
