Brief / A school project with the aim of creating a digital software and a physical artefact that motivates people to make lifestyle changes with a positive impact on the environment. The product is not limited by current technology and focus should be on application of participatory design methods and universal design.
Created / March, 2022
Client / Linneuniversitet (Linnaeus University)
Created / March, 2022
Client / Linneuniversitet (Linnaeus University)
Team / Amanda Ohlson & Freja Senke
Role / Logo design, Graphic design, Participate in UX research & UI design
Tools / Figma
Methods / Participatory design, Universal design, future workshop, brainstorming, sketching, Love & Hate, ITK, Personas, Scenario, Paper Prototyping, Wireframing, Mockups
A tool for everyday life that makes environmental thinking easy and motivating. Set goals, keep track of the climate footprint of your consumption, food and transport habits & get personalized improvement points while learning about the impact of different habits and products through clear overviews. Completely automatic and individualized the application gives you complete transparency without requiring any manual input and offering a gradual increase in challenge to maintain interest and a discount reward system.
PURPOSE OF PROJECT
Despite the abundance of information about the climate threat and and awareness of the human impact, most people are reluctant to make changes to their everyday habits. The purpose of this project was first to identify why people aren't doing more. Followed by developing a universal design solution using participatory design methods that motivate people to make a difference.
TARGET GROUP
The primary target group are people over 55 years of age living in urban areas. And the secondary target group are people aged 18-55 living in urban areas. The project was limited to the swedish market. We decided to choose an older target group partly because there is a lot of potential with engaging this target group in the environmental topic since there is still a lack of awareness and willingness to change within this age group. Studies have also shown that designing for an older target group with technical difficulties also leads to increased user friendliness and satisfaction for younger target groups which is fitting from a universal design point of view.
SCENARIO 1
Anneli, 53 is going to the store and uses the application to look for transportation alternatives
SCENARIO 2
Henrik, 65 is going to the store to shop for food, he wants to know the footprint of his favourite tomatoes and which tomatoes are the most environmentally friendly
DESIGN PROCESS
User Needs
- Understand the impact of certain habits
- Understand impact of effort made to change
- Understand how they can change without feeling too guilty or feel like the situation is hopeless which inhibits action
- That information is presented in relatable way
- Tools for making better choices related to consumption
- Tools for making better choices related to transport
- User friendly interface that can be used by everyone
- Appropriate level of difficulty
- Gradual increase in difficulty
- Inspiration & motivation to make effort
- Minimum effort to use to application to increase
- Reward system to increase engagement
Features needed
- Clear overviews of habit impact from unbiased source
- Clear overview of product impact from unbiased source
- Transport function to quickly see quickest and most environmentally friendly way to go to a destination
- Scanning function to see climate footprint of products
- Suggestions of better choices in the food store
- Guides to sustainability of different habits and products
- Relevant individualized suggestions for improvement + clear display of potential effect
- Relatable & understandable point system
- System for goal setting
- Automatization of habit tracking through connections to bank cards, grocery store cards & location services
- Earn discounts by being more environmentally friendly
CHANGES TO FUNCTIONALITY
During the user tests of the wireframes several design flaws and improvement areas was discovered. The main functions were hard to locate, which was solved by putting three action buttons at the top of the home screen. The circular graph on the front page was hard for people to understand and could be updated into a more relatable graph. The test found that the point system was hard to understand and relate too, this was compensated for with an explanation of the point system and information about how the points compare to the average Swedish citizen and the user's set environmental goal. A few functions changed appearance or location to improve flow and user friendliness. Some inconsistencies in the flow and ambiguous phrasings were discovered and cleared up.
RESULTS, INSIGHTS & FUTURE PROSPECTS
The result is an application that both serves as a tool, motivator and guide. It is automatic and individualised which we deem important factors for the users to keep using the app. If the app were to be released it has the potential to decrease the individual behavioural impact. It could potentially also have a ripple effect were companies become more environmentally friendly for competitive benefit as a result of the transparency the application brings consumers.
Trying to motivate people to change their behaviour related to the climate crisis is truly an example of a so called "wicked problem". Due to the many factors the problem appeared wider and more complex the further it was investigated. This project was created with a short time limit and with a low number of participants, which means there is limited validity & reliability. It was however interesting to work on a solution that could add value to people's life. It would be interesting to see the potential development of the project with more iterations and a bigger sample of test participants.
LOGO DESIGN & GRAPHICS
Klimatvalen means "Climate Choice" in swedish. The whale stems from the fact that "val" means both "choice" and "whale". And the circle shape is intended to represent a globe.
COLOUR PALETTE
SITEMAP
MEDIUM FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
HIGH FIDELITY MOCKUPS WITH UPDATED FUNCTIONALITY
