A_What's this?
B_On Digital Design
C_ResDes Framework
D_Principles
E_Methods
F_Who Are We?

Do
Better

An Approach and Ressources to Responsible Design

Our goal is to design technology that authentically addresses human needs and drives meaningful outcomes for communities and individuals. But yet, a lot of technology has turned out harmful for us. How did that happen? We all largely follow a process of User-Centered Design. UCD is a great foundation, but a few extra steps can be helpful to really capture the complexities of the real world and allow us to design things that are less likely to be harmful. There are many great approaches out there. This framework consists of principles and a large tool set of methods to help us design more responsibly.

Who is it for?

State, or: is it finished?

What do you think?

Our framework has three components
Introduction
Problem definition and current approaches
A. B. C.
Principles
General approach for designing more responsibly
D.
Methods
Methods to carry the principles over into your daily design practice.
E.

On Digital Design and designing responsibly

There isn’t just one way of designing. There isn’t even one clear definition of it. But one aspect is relatively clear:
Despite the helpful focus of approaches like User-Centred Design (UCD), we have still witnessed the design of harmful products for users individually and societies globally.
That is, in fact, a good thing. If applied correctly, it forces companies and organisations to focus on their users' needs instead of just their own. This happens through cycles of research, prototyping and validation, seeking direct input from potential users. But is it enough?
Digital products are designed by focusing on users and their needs.

B.

Design frameworks such as the Double Diamond, Design Thinking, User-Centered Design, or Lean UX share several key characteristics. They follow iterative cycles, place users at the center of the process, and incorporate methods of learning through user research. The goal is to gather continuous feedback and validate solutions early with potential users. This claims to ensure that the outcomes truly address user needs and are feasible in real-world application.
200,000 wasted lifetimes. Everyday. "And designers are to blame.” That’s according to Aza Raskin, who developed the “infinite scroll” feature in 2006. What started as a simple interaction scaled up to what is known to us as “doomscrolling”—a behavior amplified to new extremes by social media.Raskin later estimated that his invention, infinite scroll, wastes around 200,000 human lifetimes—every single day. This kind of mindless scrolling is linked to negative psychological effects, such as increased anxiety and attention deficits
close
„Wearables“: Conflicting between security and more fear. Health wearables offer vital data and can save lives—benefiting individuals, patients, and doctors. Yet constant monitoring carries risks: compulsive checking, heightened illness anxiety, or cyberchondria may diminish users’ quality of life. Could these devices also erode trust in our own bodily awareness, making us dependent on external validation? Designers play a crucial role: thoughtful interfaces can mitigate anxiety, while poor design may amplify it. But there’s another, broader concern: could wearables normalize and even encourage a positive habituation to surveillance, reshaping societal attitudes toward constant monitoring—both of ourselves and by others? The line between empowerment and over-reliance is thin.
close
An industry that fosters problematic mindsets and mentality among designers. There is no shortage of books designed to help us better engage users—whether through persuasion or habit formation. Titles like Hooked, which explicitly teach designers how to leverage the mechanics of addiction to “hook” users, have become essential reading for designers. By following such advice, we move from “unintended consequences” to the intentional misleading of users. In everyday life, we’d call this kind of behavior “manipulative.” Yet, when these books are treated as industry standards, it’s clear how this mindset has been normalized among designers.
close
How deceptive design manipulate our online choices. Every day, millions of people fall for subtle design tricks that nudge them into decisions they didn’t intend to make. These deceptive design patterns are intentionally crafted to benefit companies, often at the expense of users. Whether it’s a fake countdown timer (“Only 3 items left!”), hidden fees, or a subscription that’s easy to start but hard to cancel, these tactics exploit human psychology to drive sales, data collection, or engagement.A 2022 European Commission study found that 97% of the EU’s most popular websites and apps use at least one deceptive pattern. Why it matters: Beyond frustration, these practices erode trust and can cause real harm. Yet many designers still treat them as standard practice, not ethical concerns.
close
Children in the attention economy: Beyond screen time. Today’s minors are immersed in digital environments designed to capture attention, monetise engagement, and shape behavior. Algorithms curate emotionally charged, addictive content, pulling children into reward loops and social validation cycles. Yet the consequences cannot be ignored: Studies link frequent social media use of minors to changes in developing brains, impacting impulse control, emotional regulation, and learning. This issue goes beyond screen time; it’s about an architecture that exploits cognitive vulnerabilities. Protecting children online demands a holistic approach—from content creators and platforms to policymakers and families.
https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/social-media-teen-mental-health-a-parents-guide#
close
Tech narrative of innovation meaning progress. Innovation is often framed as inherently progressive—an unstoppable march forward. Tech startups promise to “revolutionize” industries and break things fast. But “progress” is a cultural narrative, not a law. Technology is never neutral; every design choice carries potential for both benefit and harm. As we see technologies can solve problems—or create them. Yet many users and designers alike don’t question this assumption and still believe that newer necessarily means better. Yet true progress requires critical reflection, not blind faith in innovation. Time to reframe this narrative?
close
8 months pregnant and falsly arressted because of facial recognition
close

200,000 wasted lifetimes. Everyday.

„Wearables“: Conflicting between security and more fear

An industry that fosters problematic mindsets and mentality among designers.

How deceptive design manipulate our online choices

Tech narrative of innovation meaning progress

Children in the attention economy: Beyond screen time

How are we designing currently?

We identified three main issues with commonly-used approaches to digital design, like UCD.

Intentions & Mindset

Narrow slice of reality

Pain points addressed = happy future

Where does this leave us?

We need to build and expand upon approaches that compliment or move beyond UCD to design more responsibly. This process requires new methods and processes.
The design of technology has wide-ranging societal impacts. We use our criticisms to build on its foundations to workshop our framework for responsible design. There are myriad alternate methods out there which we draw upon and incorporate. In addition, we workshop our own methods based on our fields of study and collective knowledge.
Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is a design approach that integrates human values systematically throughout the design process of technology, aiming to ensure that ethical considerations and stakeholder values are considered from the beginning.
Systemic Design is an approach that combines systems thinking and design practices to address complex, interconnected problems by understanding relationships, patterns, and structures within whole systems.
Futuring methods are techniques used to explore, imagine, and plan for possible, probable, and preferable futures. They help individuals or organizations anticipate change, understand emerging trends, and make informed strategic decisions.
Calm Technology (or Calm Tech) is a design philosophy where technology communicates information without demanding constant attention, allowing users to stay focused on their primary tasks.
Responsible Design Principles are guiding values that help designers create products and systems that are ethical, inclusive, sustainable, and socially responsible. They ensure that design decisions consider long-term impacts on people, society, and the environment.
Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is a design approach that integrates human values systematically throughout the design process of technology, aiming to ensure that ethical considerations and stakeholder values are considered from the beginning.
Systemic Design is an approach that combines systems thinking and design practices to address complex, interconnected problems by understanding relationships, patterns, and structures within whole systems.
Futuring methods are techniques used to explore, imagine, and plan for possible, probable, and preferable futures. They help individuals or organizations anticipate change, understand emerging trends, and make informed strategic decisions.
Calm Technology (or Calm Tech) is a design philosophy where technology communicates information without demanding constant attention, allowing users to stay focused on their primary tasks.
Responsible Design Principles are guiding values that help designers create products and systems that are ethical, inclusive, sustainable, and socially responsible. They ensure that design decisions consider long-term impacts on people, society, and the environment.
Inclusive Design ensures products and environments are usable by everyone, regardless of ability or background. It focuses on removing barriers and creating solutions that empower all users.

C.

Based on our conclusions above, our deep dive into researching design methods out there and combining our collective knowledge from design, psychology and anthropology, we have come up with our Studio Llama approach that aims to translate theories and possible methods into actual action. We hope to address some of the short comings that have been witnessed in the design world and “do good” (or at least better). As a studio, we continuously monitor new developments, remain open to inputs and stay connected. As a result, this approach will be updated as we go.

ResDes framework & overview

Process & Framework
We set out to define a set of methods that could be neatly packaged into a “ResDes Process” which we could implement across design projects. That became difficult to do: project realities and foci are too different for an all-encompassing process. The “process” we can parse out is fairly bare-bones (to the right side).
Hover or click on the graphics to learn more about the steps
User needs still form the basis for our design work. Just not alone. We need to explore more diversely e.g. by researching values, taking a systemic view or research on what inclusive design means.
We need to be clearer about our intentions and challenge what we do, for who, and why.
We need to take responsibility for the impact and directly engage with potential futures in the design process.
intention
research, frame,
model, decide, ...
impact
design
We believe the attitude and mindset need to be established at the outset so that we go into a project with more responsible intentions. Subsequently, the whole design process adapts to become more holistic and grounded (more on this in our principles). Finally, we incorporate future and impact-oriented thinking to take responsibility for outcomes and externalities.

D.

Principles

Since coming up with a preset set of methods for every design project is not possible, we developed principles that directly address the three shortcomings of colloquial design approaches today. The principles create a design ecosystem that strengthens responsible design beliefs, reasoning and decisions. The principles also guided our search for and development of methods that can be incorporated into design projects. As a result, we are able to focus on specific methods that directly link to our principles and should therefore address the shortcoming we see in common design approaches.

1

Attitude & Mindset

“We want to extend our design goals and intentions.”

Bias Awareness: We avoid to act upon our biases and assumptions (1.2)

Facilitation: Designers are also facilitators (1.1)

UCD teaches us to understand our target users and design fitting solutions for them. Responsible design means to also co-create — and embed potential users and affected people directly into the process.

Details

UCD relies on understanding users and creating designs for them. We believe responsible design requires a shift in this approach: users and stakeholders should be integrated more closely into the design process itself.
‍
We see ourselves as facilitators of information rather than creators of knowledge. The insights we incorporate into projects come from a wide range: potential users, internal stakeholders, indirectly affected people and many others. Through methods like participatory design and co-creation, we move beyond simply designing for users to designing with them.

This collaborative approach ensures that diverse perspectives directly shape the solutions we create, rather than being filtered solely through our interpretation.

Values: Values guide what we do (1.3)

Ethics: We try to make ethically-informed decisions (1.4)

2

Holistic & Grounded

"We redefine users & needs across stakeholders and societal levels."

Beyond User Needs: We go beyond user needs (2.2)

Stakeholders: We go beyond target users and design with more perspectives in mind (2.1)

Systems Thinking: We adopt a networked perspective (2.3)

Inclusive, Calm & Pro-Social Design: We design interfaces that encourage and allow everyone to interact (2.4)

Balance: We design for balance (2.5)

3
‍

Future & Impact

"We take responsibility for the impact and actively explore futures."

Metrics shape design: We carefully choose the metrics for what we design (3.2)

Future Responsibility: We anticipate the future and monitor outcomes (3.1)

Unintended Consequences: We explore negative outcomes and try to break what we designed — rigorously (3.3)

E.

Methods

Based on our conclusions above, our deep dive into researching design methods out there and combining our collective knowledge from design, psychology and anthropology, we have come up with our Studio Llama approach that aims to translate theories and possible methods into actual action. We hope to address some of the short comings that have been witnessed in the design world and “do better”.
We are a research and design studio from Zurich, Switzerland. We combine our knowledge from the fields of psychology, human computer interaction (HCI), neuroscience and anthropology to enact user experience design that puts people and broader societal perspectives at the center. As a studio, we reflect on our discipline and are advocates of responsibility in digital design.

How to get involved

Resources & Bibliography