Are you also overwhelmed with the vast array of circular design tools? You are not alone. Many companies struggle to identify tools that align with their needs.

In our latest paper, we describe the landscape of circular design tools based on an analysis of 65 tools for circular design. The tools are categorized into five families to make it easier for companies and others to navigate the tool landscape and identify tools for their specific needs. The landscape includes: Circular activators, Circular prompters, Circular analysts & advisors, Circular flow visualisers, and Circular design enrichers. The families are positioned in relation to two main axes, which differentiate the families in terms of their main target group – For who? – and the type of design activity they support – For what?. The tool family Circular activators, and partly Circular prompters and Circular analysts and advisors, cover tools that are oriented toward aiding a wide range of circular agents seeking to explore design opportunities in a broad sense, while the others can be seen as more oriented toward supporting designers exploring circular opportunities in more detail. The Circular activators, Circular design enrichers, Circular prompters, and partly Circular flow visualisers are oriented towards aiding creative and divergent design work, while the family Circular analysts and advisors gathers tools that focus more on aiding analytical and convergent design work.

If you are looking for a specific tool to use in your work, check out the paper and especially Appendix A that provides a detailed description of each of the 65 tools and information on how to access them.

In the paper, we also discuss implications and provide 12 recommendations for tool developers and practitioners. For example, we argue for more effective utilization of existing tools and alignment of future tool development with circular design practices.