Design for Change is a four-week UX Design Challenge for university and college students across Canada aimed at shifting social transformation toward greener behaviour and sustainable practices. Human behaviour has been a lead contributor to climate change, but it can also be a lead contributor to resolving it!


Design For Change

Designing a Better World. One Experience at a Time.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
What is Design for Change?
&nbsp;
Global Climate Change is potentially the greatest environmental threat facing humanity today, and it will take a global effort to ease the threat. We know that human behaviour has been a lead contributor to climate change but solving the global climate change crisis is going to rely on changing human behaviour.
&nbsp;
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 102.345%;" border="1">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width: 98.5484%;">
Design for Change, a 4-week UX Design Challenge, brought together hundreds of university and college students from across Canada interested in minimising environmental impact through design.
&nbsp;
Our aim was to create a space to help students get together to share, collaborate, and have fun while creating meaningful solutions that can lead to a greener and more sustainable future. The challenge statement was left as open ended as possible to allow participants the freedom to leverage UX in a way that made sense for their experience level - as this was a learning experience for many.
&nbsp;
The Challenge Statement: How might we create social transformation that shifts users towards greener behaviour and sustainable practices?
</td>
<td style="width: 1.45156%;"><iframe width="500" height="280" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/v7JKwS9RGyI" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
&nbsp;
The Participant Experience
&nbsp;
With this challenge, nearly 400 students were a part of the transformational force that maximized usability and user experience toward greener and more sustainable practices. In addition to developing their design skills, participants also had access to insights and mentorship from industry leaders and attended workshops on climate change, user experience design, and pitching throughout the challenge.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Inspired and supported by leaders and mentors from the design world, environmental impact experts, economists, business and digital subject matter experts, the participants dedicated thousands of hours to imagining and designing solutions that will lessen our environmental impact on the world.
&nbsp;
Out of 52 teams, 10 finalists were chosen to present at the finale where they pitched their idea to a live virtual audience. Independent judges from Wilfrid Laurier University, Scotiabank, IBM and RBC determined the top teams based on design process and research, effectiveness, impact, and innovation.
&nbsp;
77% of participants said that this challenge changed the way they think about their impact on climate change.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;