1) Overview
Project Timeline: 1 month
Role & Responsibilities: Principal designer, responsible for all aspects of the design process start to finish.
Sustainability and climate change is a pressing issue in our lives today, yet people find themselves discouraged and struggling to contribute to change. This is mostly because they feel there is so much to do. I designed Evergreen to help users feel confident in their knowledge regarding sustainability, and stay motivated whether they are just starting out or they have been making the effort for years.
User
🎯 Find recycling centers in their area.
🎯 Educate themselves on topics they care about.
🎯 Create sustainable habits, like not using plastic bags, by getting reminders.
🎯 Seeing stats and numbers related to the specific actions they are taking.
Business
🎯 Help local recycling centers be recognized and utilized more.
🎯 Be a reliable and trusty resource to navigate an overwhelming issue.
🎯 Empower users to start making changes and engaging with their direct communities.
🎯 Making the world a better place.
2) Research
Understanding different motives and perceptions for sustainability.
Surveys & Interviews
Research Process:
-Interviews
-Surveys
-Competitive Analysis
-General Research
Survey and interview questions were focused on understanding the initial moments that users understood sustainability was an issue, the individual process of recycling, what resources are currently available to them, how travel or living in other locations has impacted their ability to make more sustainable choices, and of course pain points related to these topics. I am also always interested to hear about a users ‘dream scenario’ if they could make anything happen, what would that look like?
Key Insights from interviews and surveys
- Recycling came with barriers for many people including: accessibility, convenience, money, space, and time.
- There are individual and large-scale actions that need to be taken, like making recycling more accessible to all people regardless of location, and big businesses changing some of their practices. An example could be better packaging or materials for their products to reduce plastic waste and pollution.
- Location plays a huge role in what types of resources are available and any cost associated with those services.
- Some users felt too overwhelmed or unsure of where to start.
- Users felt powerless due to the fact that we have to participate in parts of consumption in order to survive.
Affinity Maps
Competitive Analysis
I downloaded apps with varying goals and narrowed them down by the ones I thought addressed the most common pain-points expressed by the users from interviews, surveys, and statistics from articles.
Key insights from competitive analysis
- All were useful in their own way and addressed user pain-points.
- Recycle Coach required further community action to unlock more information, so it felt restricting.
- Most had informational resources even if it was limited.
- UI for some was a bit out-dated.
- Overall I wanted to combine some of these features into one singular platform.
There is no denying we must do our part and work together to make collective change and take better care of our planet.
3) Define
So what’s the issue here?
Personas
POV & HMW
There were 2 distinct user groups
1. Some who had established habits and were looking for community-based ways to do their part.
2. Beginners who were overwhelmed with how much they felt there was to do and unsure if they were doing things correctly.
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How can we show users their choices are actually making a valuable change?
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How might we empower users with the tools or knowledge to actively be involved in change? (Through petitions, donations, community events, politics, groups or clubs.)
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How might we show users ways to reduce their waste and possible alternatives for things they are currently using?
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How might we empower users by helping them form eco-conscious habits and track their progress while informing them about current practices and new developments?
4) Ideate
Considering and mapping out the user-journey.
Task Flows
Sketches
As I started designing I left room for undecided components and designed up to mid-fidelity with both the hamburger menu and the banner navigation.
5) Design
Putting it all together.
Wire Frames
Branding
From the start I knew I wanted the design to have various shades of green with a clean feel.
The palette was adjusted to help create dimension and meet contrast guidelines for accessibility. The color for the logo was adjusted to be more readable and pair better with the text style used across the app.
Moodboard
Logo and Color Palette
V.1
V.2
The workload for this particular design process was hefty. There were a lot of changes along the way, but it taught me the importance of considering the small overlapping aspects of design, like color contrast, and working with word-mark logos.
6) Test
The moment of truth.
Testing:
- User adding to their ‘Actions’.
- Getting news & update notifications.
- Finding a recycling center to dispose of yard waste.
Method:
- 5 participants.
- Unmoderated testing using Maze.
Success Metrics:
- Ability to complete task with no errors, challenges, or questions.
- User understanding general component structures and page layouts.
Results:
- 66.7% Success
Individual Flow Analysis
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User adding to their actions
This task flow worked the best and made the most sense to testers.
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User turning on news and update notifications
This task would happen organically, by the user finding an article that interested them and interacting with it. The most direct path would be through profile settings, which meant skipping over some of the screens I had designed. (2 of 5 participants took the direct route).
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User finding a local recycling center
The wording of this task lead users to try to change the location that was set in the design, which reduced success rates. But this did validate the design choice and confirmed that users intuitively felt the underlined location was clickable.
Prioritized iteration list
(High to Low)
1. Adding subheadings to describe sections (Explore, Learn, etc.)
2. Changing label for ‘House-hold’ category to ‘Home’
3. ‘Recommended Articles’ below specific article view to minimize navigating back and forth.
4. Small UI changes.
Prototype
7) Reflect
Pausing for contemplation.
What I learned:
Feature prioritization and making sure you have a solid MVP is essential when building a product from the ground up. A feature that is meant to be explored can be hard to test. Having wireframe sketches in Figma as a guide is extremely important for me to work efficiently.
What went well:
Getting out of my comfort zone fostered so much growth for my design skills. I enjoyed developing my own color palette and logo. Interviews and surveys were so interesting to dissect, I moved forward knowing I had plenty of information to work with.
What I would do differently:
I think testing mid-fidelity designs in person and more refined versions through Maze could have given me better results. Maybe even trying a different testing platform in the future. I would simplify task descriptions, prototype more, and be more thorough with task flows.
Next Steps:
Moving forward I would test my next versions, ideally in person to rectify past issues. After solidifying the design I would make smaller cosmetic changes, update the component library, and send it in for hand-off. Then, start addressing customer issues, feature requests, and seeing how those compete with the features I had initially brainstormed.