The need to educate and train future generations on sustainability concepts has led to a comprehensive exploration of environmental, ethical, and production aspects. At the School of Design, Politecnico di Milano, teaching has increasingly demonstrated its potential to drive innovation and address pressing global challenges through education. In this academic setting, the opportunity to train future designers has enabled the Laboratorio di Sintesi Finale P2 to refine a design process deeply rooted in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) over the years.

The course, previously presented at INTED2022, is based on three-level course objectives that bring students to design, focusing on awareness-raising, product development, and strategic-systemic design. The course’s aim is to design toys that promote awareness of the challenges outlined in Agenda 2030. Each year, the teaching team updates the course to enhance some content and tools, seeking to provide students with a richer design experience while improving the effectiveness and impact of their outputs, building on previous years’ experience.

In the course, students start looking at big-picture problems in the divergent phase, then converge on a specific solution, drawing on the structure of Design Thinking's double-diamond model by Tim Brown. This process encourages students to explore broad challenges during the initial phases and sharpen their focus to generate specific, actionable solutions. During this process, there was an even more structured focus on the user analysis part in order to reach a more effective design.

Building on this for the 2023/24 academic year, as previously presented at the INTED2024 conference, the research phase included two steps: firstly, a desk-based literature exercise around SDGs, secondly, some fieldwork with children aged 6-10. This double focus allows the mapping of the so-called "touch point" between the SDG main insights and the characteristics associated with the children's behaviour, allowing the development of a design question and brief.

As mentioned, a significant field research component is children's active and passive observation during play activities. Therefore, children are engaged in play activities - themed around a chosen SDG - conducted mainly at an elementary school in Milan. The educational team worked with neurodevelopmental therapists to guide the target user's knowledge and help define the observation activities.

As a result, an observation tool has been developed to analyse social-emotional interactions, motor-sensory behaviours, cognitive-neuropsychological patterns, and approaches to play. During the 2024/25 academic year – in addition to the existing observation definition worksheet - the process has been further refined through an improved observation checklist and a results worksheet to assist students in recognizing key points of interest and producing more pertinent insight.

Integrating field research with theoretical frameworks has significantly enhanced students' ability to create innovative, contextually appropriate solutions. The interdisciplinary approach has received positive feedback from educators and students, highlighting the value of combining theory with hands-on, user-centered research to address complex societal challenges.

Keywords: Educational tool, user research, toy design, product design, fieldwork observation, SDGS.