Short description 

“Well-Use of Values” sets out to develop a game-like instrument that supports ecosocial initiatives to design and communicate the activities, benefits and eventually values of their ventures successfully. The project collaborates with eco-social initiatives, focusing especially on the Euregio Tirol- Südtirol-Trentino.

The project’s approach

In the project Well-Use of Values (previously called Eco-Social Design Toolkits – ESDT) a game-like instrument was developed that supports socially, ecologically and/or politically engaged initiatives and organisations in identifying and articulating on which values they build their activities and which benefits they generate in turn (beyond the financial). The eventual goal is not only to initiate the discussion on core values within the organisations but also to facilitate the successful communication of those – internally as well as externally. 

The project provides designerly approaches to the two interconnected questions:

1. How to visualise and communicate the benefits of eco-social work?

2. How to identify generated values in organisations, initiatives or collaborative networks, in particular such ones which are heterogeneous and striving to work in non-hierarchical ways?

Central to the research has been to gain an understanding of theoretical and practical work that is based on ideals and value generation frameworks of transformative economies. 

In line with the Research Through Design approach and exploring Participatory Design processes, expert interviews and participatory workshops with three initiatives were conducted, synthesised through mappings and wrapped up by feedback sessions in focus groups. Thereby a digital workshop concept based on an explorative digital whiteboard was developed.

In a second project phase, the gathered contents and results were systematised and used to create a further elaborated analogue version of the game-like instrument named VALUE MATTERS.