Active8 Planet.(2021-2022)
NOTE! Because some parts of the project are under strict NDA agreement, some details, pictures, and processes are left out of my portfolio to not violate the agreement. Everything that is mentioned or presented in my portfolio has been approved by all interested parties.
Active8 Planet is an international research project run jointly between Halmstad University and representatives from the EU and Volvo Cars. The Swedish team focused on how companies in the mobility industry can work more sustainably. The project was carried out to answer the question: How can the perspective of "the planet as the user "support organizations' awareness of ecological sustainability in consumer mobility? Areas explored during the project were mobility, ownership, and sustainability, where co-creation and critical design were used to explore and question these areas. My role in the Swedish team was core designer together with three other students, the rest of the team consisted of representatives from Volvo, researchers, and teachers from Halmstad University, which was a total of 8 group members. As the project had a strong focus on research and collaboration between academia and industry, we worked a lot with an exploratory approach where we constantly went back and forth between collected empirical data and previous research.
The project resulted in the game TELLUS how u feel, a card game based on players in a group taking a stand on different sustainability scenarios by making a series of choices. Each choice will have an impact on a digital avatar representing a small planet. The avatar who possesses emotions and a personality will be negatively affected by bad choices and eventually become sad and sick if enough bad choices are made. In the same way, the avatar will feel better if good choices are made. To make a choice, the group needs to figure out what impact their choice may have and thus determine whether the choice will have a negative or positive impact. The purpose of the game is to raise discussion and reflection between action and environmental impact to make it easier for employees in companies to raise discussions about what environmental impact their choices may have before the choices are made and thus lead to a greater understanding of companies' impact on the environment. The game was adapted specifically to the mobility industry in that scenarios and choices could be linked to the sustainability dilemmas that already exist in the mobility industry.
Presentation image on the game
Me with a copy of the game
Design concept for playing cards
Game box with playing cards
The project began by examining value creation in mobility companies' internal and external structures to understand what creates value for companies operating in the mobility industry. The purpose was to investigate whether value could be created for these companies through more sustainable approaches. First, five interviews were conducted with employees at Volvo Cars, the interviews were analyzed through a thematic analysis to examine what created value. The results of the analysis were used to create a future workshop. The purpose of the workshop is to understand how mobility companies can act in future scenarios linked to sustainability and mobility. Each scenario took place in the future and contained different mobility problems, through discussion the participants were able to identify problem areas, create concepts for solutions and then answer questions. The workshop lasted four hours and carried out three different scenarios with a total of seven participants.
The results from the workshop were used to expand the problem area that we investigated. After identifying several points that were considered problematic in order to achieve more sustainable action, the project continued to explore how critical design could be used to highlight and draw attention to these points.
Team photo at Volvo
Future workshop at Volvo
​The project, therefore entered a phase where we put a lot of focus on idea creation. During this phase, the focus was on sketching out ideas and investigating whether they could be used in the problem area we were working on. It was during this phase that we developed the concept "planet as the user" which meant that the design shifts focus from the user to the planet, in other words, the design will result in positive effects on the climate and our planet. Based on this concept, we changed the focus from how mobility companies can act more sustainably to how we can draw the attention of mobility companies that their actions are not sustainable. From the new focus, we began to explore how critical design can be used to elevate discussions about sustainable action within corporate structures. We therefore developed a concept for a card game that could be used during meetings and workshops to motivate critical reflection and discussion linked to sustainable action and environmental impact.
The development of the game started with us running a shorter design sprint where we developed different concepts on how the game would work. We then took the best ideas and started evaluating the different elements in each idea to see what worked, then we combined the best elements into one concept. To evaluate the concept, we developed a paper prototype that we used in a workshop to collect feedback. A mote hi-fi prototype was developed later on by adding a digital avatar that was controlled via Figma, we also developed the scenarios that were included in the game and developed an overall visual profile for the game.
The game was evaluated in total in two workshops held at Volvo Cars in Torslanda, where we together with employees at Volvo tested the game and collected feedback. The digital avatar was created through WoZ (Wizard of Oz) and controlled in Figma. The feedback from the first workshop was used to iterate the game which was then used in the second workshop. Each workshop took three hours and had seven to eight participants. The game is based on critical design in that it does not aim to solve any problem but rather serves as a basis for discussion to facilitate critical reflection among the employees within a company. By discussing different consequences of choices made in the game, employees can also draw parallels to their own company and thus make it easier to reflect on choices that their own company makes.
The project was presented at the Active8 Planet conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia in May 2022. There, the project received much praise for its innovative approach to a common problem in sustainability. Representatives from Volvo and Halmstad University also expressed great inspiration from the project, where the game we developed will be used as a basis for next year's project for Active8 Planet.​
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For more information, please visit the project's website: https://active8-planet.eu/
Picture from Active8 office
Workshop at Volvo
Pilot workshop
Team photo last workshop at Volvo