Befungi

The digital world, our devices, networks, and data systems are hidden yet significant contributors to global carbon emissions. Many junior digital designers are unaware of this impact or how their can make better design decisions to reduce it. This growing knowledge gap calls for tools that make sustainable design understandable and actionable.

The environmental impact of digital products is growing rapidly, with every website visit contributing to carbon emissions. Despite this, many digital designers lack awareness of how their decisions affect the planet or how to measure sustainability within user experience design. This gap often leads to a disruption of workflow when attempting to implement sustainable choices. Understanding our climate footprint is crucial for reducing digital waste and encouraging sustainable user behaviours. Befungi addresses this by helping designers understand their environmental impact and discover ways to reduce it.

Befungi is a gamified educational platform designed to help junior digital designers integrate sustainability into their practice without compromising their creative freedom. The platform facilitates digital ecoliteracy through curated, engaging content. It teaches designers to apply sustainable practices by first helping them understand their digital impact.

A key challenge was balancing education with positive motivation. We hoped to guide users toward sustainable solutions without making the process feel like a time-consuming burden.

The platform works through two main pages: MyFungi and the Ecosystem. Using a fungi-inspired metaphor grounded in biomimicry, each sustainable design topic is represented as a root growing into an interconnected network. This illustrates how individual design decisions are linked to a larger ecosytem of impact. In the "My Ecosystem" page, users explore curated articles, podcasts, and videos in a playful, non-linear way.

To maintain motivation, the MyFungi page allows users to track their progress by growing a unique mushroom for every completed topic. Additionally, a global map feature helps users visualize the global Befungi community, ensuring junior designers feel connected rather than isolated in their learning journey.

Befungi is an educational platform that has introduced a new way of discovering and visualizing educational content through its fungi-inspired growth system. Future developments will focus on accessibility by adding a conventional content discovery mode alongside the gamified version to encourage long-term engagement. Ultimately, we hope to build a more collaborative space where designers can share sustainable design tips and evolve together for a greener digital future.