SELF-PACED ONLINE COURSE
Non-human Personas Course
Give nature and vulnerable humans a voice in design and decision-making
Course details
$250 – 25% DISCOUNT
AUD$185
No added taxes
Pay in full or in 4 interest-free payments
About the course
What are non-human personas?
Product designers and marketing people often create ‘user personas’—fictional character documents, based on interviews and contextual enquiry with real customers, that summarise different types of customers with similar needs.
Just like personas for human target users, non-human personas enable designers and decision-makers to keep the needs of more-than-human life in mind as they make design and business decisions.
But personas are not just a decision-making tool.
As a process, creating non-human personas connects designers and decision-makers with the more-than-human world by establishing empathy for more-than-human needs. And as the tool that is produced, the non-human persona helps perpetuate that empathy through innovation and decision-making projects.
What you will learn
At your own pace, you’ll learn how to:
- Create a non-human persona
- Create a multi-media persona (audio, video, etc.)
- Innovate regeneratively with non-human personas
By finishing the course, you’ll be able to:
- Represent the needs of all life in decision-making
- Connect design and business with nature and community
- Discover new business opportunities
- Help mitigate climate change and social injustice
What's included
What’s included:
- 9 Modules + 6 Instructional Videos
- Toolkit and Resources
- Certificate on Submitted Completion
- 12 Month Access
What you’ll need:
- An online whiteboard like Miro or Mural
- Approx. 5-6 hours to complete the course
Who the course is for
About the course project
Through instructional video lessons watched at your own pace, you will create a non-human persona to use to innovate a subject of your choice—whether it’s a design project, a website, a product, or even a human-made space like a park or city.
A non-human persona for trees
A non-human persona for Nature
An audio non-human persona for rivers
Hear from past students
“I highly recommend it to learn about non-human personas and how to use them in your daily work”
—Thorsten Jonas, Founder of Sustainable UX Network (SUX)
“By breaking the persona-creation process down into simple steps, the course is really generous in its provision of tools, templates and canvasses”
—Colin Jowell, Principal at Good Behaviour
“The approach brilliantly adopts language that marketers and service designers already use”
—Colin Jowell, Principal at Good Behaviour
Meet your teacher, Damien Lutz
Founder of the Life-centred Design Lab
Author of The Life-Centred Design Guide, The Non-human Persona Guide, and Future Scouting
After over a decade in UX/UI Design & Research, Damien began scouting the fringes of design to develop ways to fully realise design as a superpower for good. He has taught life-centred design in Portugal, Italy, and Australia, and has produced three design guides, along with two online hubs, various toolkits, courses, and workshops to empower designers and decision-makers to be more sustainable, regenerative, inclusive, and future-skilled.
Join Damien to learn new ways to design a thriving existence for all life.
Course Outline
| Module | Description | Lessons |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome | A warm welcome and introduction to the course. | 2 Lessons |
| About Non-human Personas | An introduction to non-human and non-user personas and their Indigenous history. | 3 Lessons |
| Prepare for your journey | An introduction to the course’s non-human persona method and activities to set up your tools for your course project. | 2 Lessons (2 Activities) |
| Immerse in their world | How to research evidence-based information about non-humans and non-users and connect through empathy. | 2 Lessons (2 Activities) |
| Create a Multi-media Non-human Persona | Using your research to create an engaging multi-media persona for greater engagement and influence. | 1 Lesson (1 Activity) |
| Innovate with Non-human Personas | An introduction to innovating with non-human and non-user personas using regenerative strategies. | 4 Lessons (2 Activities) |
| Introduce Non-human Personas to others | An introduction to Non-human Persona Principles and strategies to introducing them to teams, clients, and students.. | 5 Lessons (2 Activities) |
| Summary and reflection | Reflecting on your journey and learnings, and what’s next. | 1 Lesson |
FAQs
This course is for industrial and digital designers, creative professionals, product and business owners, futurists, and anyone else who wants to learn how to take action and start conversations about positively impacting the planet and society with design.
The course is best for anyone with some basic design or business knowledge, but all our welcome and will be inspired.
The minimum time to complete this course properly is about 5-6 hours. The videos total about 1 hour of viewing, time spent on the 3 key activities is recommended 1 hour each. How much time you put in is up to you, but the more you put in the more you will get out of it.
You can access the course material for up to 12 months after the purchase date.
The course teaches the key steps through tasks using the tools provided, with instructional videos. You will get to choose your subject and non-human or non-user to work with. Your subject may be a design project you are working on, a website, a product, or a human-made environment like a park or a city.
Yes! The course is completely online at at your own pace from any time zone.
To ensure the integrity of this course, certificates are only given to those who submit their work for review.
Step 1: Send me an email
Send an email to info@lifecentred.design to let me know you want to start the certification process. Include copies of (or links to) the following
-
- One non-human or non-user Persona
- One multi-media Persona
- Your innovation ideas for your course subject
- Any questions you have
Step 2: I will review your materials
Step 3: I’ll send you your certificate!
Please note: To receive your certificate with your correct name on completion of the course, please ensure your name is correct in your account.
The course instructor is the Sydney-based designer, researcher, and writer, Damien Lutz, founder of lifecentred.design and futurescouting.com.au, and author The Life-centred Design Guide, The Non-human Persona Guide, and Future Scouting.
Damien created the first framework for life-centred design and published the first guide on life-centred and non-human persona design based on project work, interviews with other practitioners and experts, and research.
Yes, we also offer customised training for creating and using non-human personas as in-house training. Contact us for more details at info@lifecentred.design.
Bring more empathy for life into your projects
At your own pace, learn how to:
- Create a non-human persona
- Create a multi-media persona
- Innovate regenratively with non-human personas
After the course, you’ll be able to:
- Represent the needs of all life in decision-making
- Connect design and business with nature and community
- Discover new business opportunities
- Help mitigate climate change and social injustice
Course includes:
- 9 modules/6 instruction videos
- Toolkit and resources
- Certificate
- 12 month access
$250 – 25% DISCOUNT
AUD$185
No added taxes
Pay in full or in 4 interest-free payments
