Balance: A Gamified Toolkit for Sustainability‐Oriented Design Thinking

Abstract Integrating design for sustainability (DfS) strategies into innovation is challenging and presents a complex learning curve. Tools like the Cambridge sustainable design strategy cards and the Sustainability Centred Ideation toolkit are designed to guide the ideation process. These tools aim to improve and guide product development towards environmentally responsible solutions. Despite the attempt at the gap, the precautionary approach hinders creativity among the designers. Additionally, at the product service system level, employing DfS strategies becomes a complex and wicked design problem for design students, demanding cross‐disciplinary and trans‐disciplinary knowledge. This issue requires a pedagogy that can aid novice designers in perceiving the relevance of various factors in locating interconnections. Taking inspiration from prior research presenting creative DfS pedagogy, this paper addresses the issue by proposing ‘Balance’, a card‐based team gamified tool designed to teach sustainable design strategies. The game uses the existing DfS frameworks and uses their content to develop an engaging game. This paper describes the game design, development and evaluation and discusses its potential to broaden the accessibility of sustainable design principles. The game caters to educational settings by engaging students in simulated design challenges.