Can design change the world?
From problem to solution in one semester
Can design change the world? And if so, how? How do we reconcile good UX design, design thinking methods and sustainability in our projects? Aline Barré and Miriam Julius discussed these and other questions with a group of very engaged students in their lecture “Sustainable Design Thinking” at the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar. On August 30, 2022, the students presented their final projects at the Centigrade Office in Saarbrücken, which they developed over the course of the semester, from problem identification to click prototypes. The topics of the projects were diverse: sustainable digital teaching materials in the form of an app with a gamification approach, a senior* checker for senior suitability of places and events, an app for teaching industrial textile waste for creative processing, solution approaches to combat loneliness in old age – there were no limits to how the students wanted to improve people’s lives and bring about meaningful change.
It was an exciting semester with great exchanges from which we all learned and took away a lot. Thank you to everyone involved!
About the lecture
Once a year, our Head of Visual Design Aline Barré and Field Master Concept Design Miriam Julius give a lecture at the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar. This summer it was -as always- about design and user experience, but with a special focus: how do we make digital experiences more sustainable? Oceans full of plastic and oil, species extinction, too high CO2 consumption – can design find solutions for the big problems of our time?
