The SBAM Card Deck as a Design Tool for Sustainability: An Assessment with Mobile App Designers

Design cards are widely used in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and design practice to support ideation, reflection, and col- laboration. Among them, the SBAM cards were developed to assist in the design of mobile applications that promote sustainable be- haviors by translating behavioral principles into actionable design prompts. This study evaluates the effectiveness of the SBAM cards in an advanced educational context involving participants from a professional training program in mobile app development. An experimental group using the cards was compared with a control group using theoretical documentation, focusing on four key user experience dimensions—perceived self-efficacy, creativity support, usability, and usefulness—as well as on the theoretical grounding and creativity of the app concepts produced. Participants with spe- cific design expertise reported significant improvements across all user experience dimensions when using the SBAM cards. In ad- dition, their project outcomes showed higher levels of theoretical integration and originality. These findings not only confirm the pos- itive effects previously observed with novice designers in previous research, but also demonstrate the perceived value and adaptabil- ity of the SBAM cards in expert-level mobile app design settings, thus supporting their integration into design-driven sustainabil- ity initiatives across educational, institutional, and professional domains.