Novamondo

Berghof Foundation
2020—2023

User Experience
Strategie
Design
UX-/UI-Design
Information graphics
scientific

communication

Conspiracy theories, ‘alternative facts’ and disinformation supposedly offer orientation in our complex and often difficult to understand world: ‘guilty parties’ are named, ‘good and evil’ are identified, complicated things are simplified. This appeals to many. Above all, however, it appeals to young people who are looking for answers and striving for identification in a phase of life characterised by uncertainty.

The Berghof Foundation’s pilot project ‘#vrschwrng – An interactive toolkit against conspiracy theories’ helps young people to deal with conspiracy theories. The website was designed by Novamondo and expanded in 2023 to include the follow-up project ‘Digitale.Wahrheiten’.

VRSCHWRNG Website

1/ 5

The challenge

The project of the Berghof Foundation, an independent and non-profit non-governmental organisation, is aimed at young people between the ages of 16 and 20. In workshops, they are shown the dangers of conspiracy theory narratives for society, democracy and their own lives and how they can recognise them.

The website addresses two target groups: In addition to young people, it is also aimed at teachers – instructors, trainers and teachers, who can download a toolkit from the site. A design and structure therefore had to be found that would appeal to both user groups equally. Another challenge was the nature of the dialogue with the clients: It was the time of the pandemic – and we were holding our first digital workshops.

Approach

In these digital workshops, we worked out the needs of the young people and teachers and then developed the structure and design of the website with a target group-orientated, contemporary design. For example, we deliberately chose a relatively wide font on a black background. The illustrations used with the simple line drawing are roughly based on tattoo trends.

Continuation

‘Digital.truths’ is the name of the follow-up project, which is aimed at adults and aims to strengthen their resilience to conspiracy theories and misinformation. The big challenge here was to locate the new project in the design cosmos of #vrschwrrng and integrate it into the existing structure of the website, while at the same time creating something recognisably new. We developed the logo as a word mark and counterweight to #vrschwrng. The dot from the project title was staged in such a way that it can also be read as an abstract eye. The design elements were derived from #vrschwrng and adapted for the new target group. The illustrations play with surfaces and clear lines and visualise the content of the workshops in a simple and stringent way.

Why we love this project

We are always particularly pleased when our design helps to make relevant topics understandable and accessible and to support educational work. By the way: Both the pilot project ‘#vrschwrng – An interactive toolkit against conspiracy theories’ and the follow-up project ‘Digitale.Wahrheiten – Ein Workshop-Angebot für Erwachsene’ will run until December 2024.