Designing for Impact — AI, User Behavior, and the Climate Cost of Design Choices

​Snackable Skills: Designing for Impact -- AI, User Behavior, and the Climate Cost of Design Choices

​​Every design choice—layout, defaults, feedback loops—influences what your users do. But what if those choices are unintentionally promoting high-emissions behavior? In this interactive session, we’ll explore how product design subtly drives user actions and how those actions stack up environmentally.

​Using AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity as live case studies, we’ll use the E-A-R-T-H framework to ask:

• ​What behaviors are these tools promoting?

• ​What’s the emissions impact of those behaviors?

• ​How might we redesign the experience to guide users toward lower-impact outcomes—without sacrificing satisfaction?

​If time allows, we’ll also analyze the design of popular “vibe coding” tools to examine their environmental footprint through a user-behavior lens.

​Whether you’re a PM, designer, or just curious, come ready to look at your product's influence in a new (climate-conscious) light—and leave with actionable design ideas that grow both value and responsibility.