Our technical culture is characterized by the development of increasingly complex artifacts. In this article, we introduce low-techs (sometimes termed “appropriate technologies”), which are alternative technologies designed to use fewer resources, target priority needs, and aim for a positive social and environmental impact. We describe their relevance for user experience researchers and practitioners interested in tackling environmental crises, and we discuss what actions can be conducted to improve low-techs’ design and dissemination. Finally, from a survey of 396 participants, we derived 14 general user experience problems for low-techs to propose seven corresponding design principles: identify priority needs to derive necessary functionality, strike the right balance between empowerment and assistance, pay attention to non-functional features, facilitate discoverability, make artifacts and operation transparent, develop users’ technical knowledge and skills, and compensate increased material loads and deficits. Practitioners can use these design principles to guide their development of low-techs.