Original
Viable
Sustainable
Ethical
Start with the problem
Design for market:
Start with the problem
Environmentally sustainable:
Optimise your ideas to care for the environment.
Socially responsible:
Forecast your idea’s impact on people.
The Design Compass is an essential tool
for anyone driving innovation and best
practice in product development.
Learn
Generate
Benchmark
Expert chat
Projects
Discuss your project in detail with our
Design Planning AI.
Share multiple projects.
Switch between segments and discussions.
Generate a scoping document.
The Design Planning AI will guide you through the compass questions, offer information sourced from the compass, and highlight risks.
Upload information and discuss multiple projects, each with their own compass showing their progress.
Projects will automatically create and update a document containing everything you need to communicate your idea to a 3rd party such as an investor or a designer. This includes a summary of your idea, risks and opportunities, brief, and sustainable and ethical potential.
Our AI explained
Delivering detailed on-topic answers, even if you aren’t sure of the right questions to ask.
Our AI is not sycophantic, it is sympathetic but it will not hesitate to list the risks, keeping you fully informed.
Trained on our curated knowledge database.
Powered by multiple LLM models with the ability to switch between them as needed so that you can be sure you are getting the best answer.
Unlike many AI-powered platforms we do not use your conversations as training data.
We always strive to use the most eco-friendly technology available, providing you with an approximation of the AI’s energy use and carbon emissions as you chat.
The Design Compass incorporates the Design Council’s Skills for Planet Blueprint. Embedded throughout the Compass, these skills strengthen and support professional development in sustainable design practice.
Data security
The Design Compass
was built with privacy
as a foundational
principle, not an
afterthought.
All AI conversations are protected using AES–256-CBC encryption, trusted by governments and financial institutions worldwide.
There are no master keys, no support access modes, and no exceptions.
There are no master keys, no support access modes, and no exceptions.
There are no master keys, no support access modes, and no exceptions.
Rebecca Falcon, Course Leader at Chester University
Basic
- Evaluate
- Generate
- Benchmark
For individuals or teams starting out in product design who want to explore the basics of marketable, sustainable, and responsible design without financial commitment.
Advanced
- Evaluate
- Generate
- Benchmark
- +Expert chat
Learn
For designers or teams who need more in-depth guidance on balancing commercial viability with sustainability and social responsibility in their product designs.
Pro
- Evaluate
- Generate
- Benchmark
- +Expert chat
- +Projects
For businesses or startups looking to develop new products that are commercially viable while minimising negative impacts on people and planet.
Ultra
- Evaluate
- Generate
- Benchmark
- +Expert chat
- +Projects
- +…
For larger organisations or enterprises aiming to integrate sustainability-focused practices into their business operations and product development processes at scale.
Our sustainability explained
It is important to us that we acknowledge our own impact. This online tool uses energy to run: the servers it is hosted on require power and cooling. Whilst we have tried to be efficient with our resources and seek sustainable options wherever possible, this still has a negative impact on the planet.
Product development and production is highly resource intensive. Whilst the exact numbers are hard to verify, the manufacturing sector is predicted to account for around one-fifth of global carbon emissions and 54% of the world’s energy usage. It uses not only energy, but materials, many non-renewable, that can end up polluting our water and filling our landfills.
If the knowledge and guidance provided by this tool allows even one product to be produced more sustainably, we will be producing a net positive for people and planet.
We have added a carbon tracker, which calculates approximately how much energy and carbon dioxide has been produced by your use of the Design Compass. It will also show you equivalents so you can understand what that means in real terms.
Collaborators
