Thorsten Jonas: Beyond User-Centricity - Designing sustainable digital Products

"Does what we create justify what we destroy?" Tony Fry once said. As designers and creators of digital products and services, we often take pride in crafting beautiful, seamless, and convenient experiences. Yet, behind these creations lies a hidden cost: carbon emissions, water consumption or harmful societal impacts - to name just a few.

In our pursuit of user convenience and excellence, we too often overlook the broader consequences—on both ecological and social systems. This imbalance reveals a critical flaw in our approach: placing the user at the center of everything we do, without considering the surrounding eco-systems.

In this talk, I’ll explore how we can shift our mindset and design sustainable digital products and services by default. You’ll see that integrating sustainability into design isn’t just necessary—but also much easier achievable than you might think.

Thorsten Jonas is a digital Sustainability Activist, responsible AI advocate and Sustainable UX Trailblazer. He is the founder of the non-profit initiative and global community SUX Network and of the SUX Academy, co-leads the UX chapter of the W3C Sustainable Web Design Guidelines and is the host of the SUX Podcast.

Thorsten is guiding, advising and teaching designers and product-managers as well as design- and product-teams or entire organisations in crafting sustainable, responsible and ethical digital products while using tech and AI in a responsible way. His passion for the outdoors and mountaineering drives his commitment to making sustainability and responsibility a fundamental aspect of digital design and the digital world in general.