Sustainable Catalyst Strategic Design Environment
Catalyst Canvas
Catalyst Canvas is a connected strategic-design workspace for turning
ambiguous problems into structured research, testable concepts,
governed experiments, reviewable decisions, and portable design records.
The platform combines persistent projects, stakeholder and journey research,
evidence and assumption ledgers, ideation frameworks, prioritization,
prototype and experiment management, collaboration, publication,
and typed exchanges with the wider Sustainable Catalyst ecosystem.
v2.0.0 — Connected Strategic Design Platform.
Canonical exchange contract:
catalyst-canvas/2.0.AI-assisted drafting and analysis remain advisory; evidence,
review, approval, and publication remain human-controlled.
Platform overview
From problem framing to connected strategic design
Catalyst Canvas began as a focused problem-framing demo.
It now supports the full design lifecycle: project persistence,
stakeholder research, evidence governance, structured ideation,
prioritization, experiments, review, publication, and cross-product exchange.
Frame
Define the problem and its boundaries
Clarify the challenge, audience, context, constraints, point of view, “How might we” questions, and unresolved assumptions.
Research
Ground the work in people and evidence
Connect stakeholders, personas, journeys, quotations, sources, claims, observations, and evidence gaps.
Test
Convert concepts into learning cycles
Build hypotheses, prototypes, experiment plans, success and stop signals, observations, results, and iterations.
Connect
Exchange work without losing context
Preserve product identity, version, evidence, method, review state, visibility, and transformation history.
Live workspace
Use Catalyst Canvas in the browser
The WordPress workspace supports structured project work, persistent records, revision-aware editing, research and design studios, experiment planning, collaboration, exports, and connected platform records.
do not enter confidential, proprietary, regulated, or sensitive personal information.
Treat generated suggestions and summaries as draft material requiring human review.
Interactive demo
Catalyst Canvas Demo
Turn a messy problem into a structured design-thinking brief.
This demo runs in the browser. It does not submit form inputs to Sustainable Catalyst. Export contract: catalyst-canvas/2.0.
Private browser workspace
Projects and revisions stay in this browser.
Generated brief
Canvas draft
Enter a challenge, audience, goal, and constraint. Then generate a draft canvas.
Primary user
A draft persona will appear here.
Point of view
A point-of-view statement will appear here.
How might we?
Concept card
A prototype concept will appear here.
Research readiness
Hypothesis
0 mapped
0 mapped
0 hints
0 recorded
0 visible
not assessed
none recorded
Stakeholder engagement
Journey stages
Decision readiness
Needs review
0 options
0 input gaps
No ranked option
Baseline ranking
Rankings reflect recorded values and weights. They do not establish certainty, approval, or objective quality.
Saved research comparison
Compare the primary persona and journey coverage across active browser projects.
Prototype and experiment readiness
Planning
0 prototypes
0 plans
0 completed
0 decisions
0 iterations
What evidence would show whether this idea is working?
What small test could be run next?
What could be overclaimed or misunderstood?
Experiment plans
Runs
Learning decisions
No run recorded.
No learning decision recorded.
Collaboration and publication readiness
Draft collaboration state
0 open
0 pending
0 releases
Publication records
Publication readiness is blocked when required reviews, approvals, or public redaction checks remain unresolved.
Connected-platform readiness
Platform draft
0 recorded
0 verified
0 links
0 exchanges
0 events
Product connections
Readiness describes recorded contracts and verification state. It does not prove delivery, authorization, security, or institutional acceptance.
Ideas
Current capabilities
Eight connected studios across the strategic-design lifecycle
Catalyst Canvas v2.0.0 joins the capabilities developed across the v1.3.0–v1.9.0 release sequence into one governed product.
01 · Workspace
Persistent projects and revisions
Create projects and workspaces, preserve immutable revisions, search, duplicate, archive, restore, migrate, and maintain current-state pointers.
02 · Research
Persona, stakeholder, and journey studio
Build grounded stakeholder records, personas, journeys, decision moments, frictions, needs, evidence quality, and research questions.
03 · Evidence
Research, evidence, and assumption ledger
Separate sources, quotations, claims, observations, assumptions, confidence, contradictions, gaps, and review status.
04 · Ideation
Framework and ideation studio
Use reusable strategic frameworks, idea-generation methods, alternatives, combinations, constraints, rationale, and selection records.
05 · Prioritization
Decision readiness and criteria
Compare alternatives using explicit criteria, weights, evidence, confidence, unresolved questions, effort, impact, and readiness.
06 · Experiments
Prototype and experiment management
Track prototype scope, hypotheses, methods, participants, success, failure and stop signals, runs, observations, results, and next decisions.
07 · Collaboration
Review, approval, and publication
Use roles, comments, assignments, review requests, revision comparisons, sign-off records, visibility classes, redaction, and public exports.
08 · Platform
Connected product exchange
Register product connections, interoperability profiles, workflow links, exchange records, platform events, and readiness summaries.
Strategic-design workflow
From ambiguity to tested and reviewable work
The workflow preserves the path from the original problem through research, alternatives, tests, decisions, publication, and later revision.
- 01Frame
Define the challenge, audience, boundaries, constraints, and questions.
- 02Research
Map stakeholders, journeys, sources, observations, and evidence gaps.
- 03Ledger
Separate evidence, claims, assumptions, contradictions, and uncertainty.
- 04Ideate
Generate alternatives through explicit frameworks and rationale.
- 05Prioritize
Compare options with criteria, weights, confidence, effort, and impact.
- 06Experiment
Prototype, test, observe, interpret, and preserve inconclusive results.
- 07Review
Collaborate, compare revisions, approve, redact, and prepare publication.
- 08Exchange
Send governed records into research, analysis, decisions, or implementation.
Platform connections
How Catalyst Canvas connects to Sustainable Catalyst
Canvas remains a distinct strategic-design product while exchanging structured records with the platform’s research, evidence, analysis, experimentation, decision, support, and engagement systems.
Research routing
Research Librarian
Route open questions, source needs, related titles, research paths, methods, and unresolved evidence gaps.
Sources and evidence
Knowledge Library
Exchange source, quotation, citation, document, relationship, collection, and evidence records.
Public context
Site Intelligence
Add country, indicator, geospatial, temporal, live-event, source, and public-system context to the design record.
Calculation and validation
Workbench
Handoff assumptions, variables, calculations, models, graphs, constraints, technical tests, and validation needs.
Experiment execution
Research Lab
Move scientific or engineering experiment plans into reproducible notebooks, instruments, datasets, runs, and validation records.
Decision governance
Decision Studio
Exchange alternatives, criteria, assumptions, evidence, unresolved questions, scenarios, readiness, approvals, and decision handoffs.
Participation and improvement
Product Support and Feedback
Connect product gaps, workflow friction, documentation needs, feature suggestions, known issues, and release intelligence.
Private implementation
Contact and Engagement
Move approved private context into controlled inquiries, documents, proposals, collaboration, and implementation workflows.
Shared infrastructure
Platform Core
Preserve product identity, contracts, APIs, artifact envelopes, provenance, access boundaries, events, compatibility, and trust metadata.
Outputs and interoperability
Portable records for review, publication, and exchange
Catalyst Canvas can produce independently useful records while preserving the metadata required for later import, verification, transformation, or public release.
Canonical
Canvas Contract 2.0 JSON
The complete machine-readable strategic-design record, including project, research, evidence, ideation, prioritization, experiments, collaboration, and platform fields.
Public
Public-safe JSON
A governed export that omits restricted notes, private evidence, confidential records, and non-public collaboration details.
Human-readable
Markdown and print reports
Design briefs, research summaries, experiment reports, journey maps, decision handoffs, and review-ready documentation.
Connected
Deterministic exchange packages
Target-specific exports with source product, version, artifact type, identifiers, method, references, status, and transformation history.
Collaboration and governance
Reviewable work with explicit visibility and authority
Canvas supports collaboration without treating every note, comment, score, or AI suggestion as approved strategy.
Roles
Controlled participation
Owner, editor, contributor, reviewer, and viewer roles define who may change, review, approve, or view the work.
History
Revisions and immutable review events
Compare revisions, restore prior states, preserve comments, assignments, approvals, and review events.
Visibility
Private, internal, partner, and public records
Apply visibility classes, redaction rules, public-export controls, and bounded information sharing.
Authority
Human review remains decisive
Automated summaries, framework suggestions, rankings, confidence estimates, and readiness signals remain advisory.
Implementation
Open-source strategic-design infrastructure
Catalyst Canvas is implemented as a versioned Python application, browser workspace, WordPress plugin, canonical contract, persistent storage layer, export system, and connected platform API.
Contract
Versioned data model
JSON Schema, canonical fixtures, migration paths, validation, and cross-surface contract conformance.
Persistence
Projects, workspaces, and revisions
SQLite-backed storage, browser persistence, migration, archive and restore, revision history, and backups.
Interfaces
WordPress and standalone surfaces
Embedded public workspace, production authoring, Flask views, APIs, exports, and portable deployment profiles.
Reliability
Validation and compatibility
Release tests, browser contract tests, prioritization, experiment, collaboration, platform, syntax, migration, and package checks.
Boundaries
Structure for better design work, not automatic authority
Catalyst Canvas improves clarity, evidence discipline, experimentation, collaboration, and exchange. It does not guarantee outcomes or replace qualified judgment.
No guarantee
Design structure cannot guarantee success
Canvas cannot guarantee adoption, funding, consensus, policy outcomes, product-market fit, safety, or implementation performance.
No fabricated evidence
Personas and journeys require grounding
Generated or assumed human records should be labeled, tested, corrected, and never presented as verified research without evidence.
No automatic decision
Scores do not make the choice
Prioritization and readiness outputs expose inputs, rationale, evidence, confidence, and uncertainty but remain advisory.
No hidden publication
Restricted records require controlled export
Public outputs should omit private notes, restricted evidence, confidential discussion, and sensitive participant information.
No professional substitution
Qualified review may be required
Legal, medical, financial, engineering, safety-critical, regulated, and assurance work requires appropriate professional review.
No AI authority
AI remains in the toolkit
AI may assist drafting, synthesis, comparison, classification, or exploration but does not approve or own the final record.
Next step
Frame the problem, test the work, and carry the record forward
Begin in the Canvas workspace, connect research and evidence, design and run experiments, review the record, and exchange approved outputs with the wider platform.