T H E P R O B L E M

Businesses lack eco-friendly communication

We are working to find the best way for a business to communicate their environmentally responsible practices and commitments to their users, in a compelling and engaging way.

T H E S O L U T I O N

An application that provides insight into companies

Through extensive user research, usability testing, and many iterations, we finally arrived at our final solution that was tailored to our users. This solution provided a method for ethical companies to effectively display their policies and commitment to protecting our world, as well as, users a way to accurately track and monitor their environmentally friendly goals and activities.

C O M P E T I T I V E A N A L Y S I S

We analyzed the 4 most popular apps surrounding this eco-friendly personal goal keeping concept. We found that almost none of them had both the aspect of providing company transparency and ability to log personal initiatives. This then became our opportunity for the solution.

U S E R S U R V E Y S / U S E R I N T E R V I E W S

97.2% of our participants conveyed distrust

We conducted interviews with 8 potential users and had 82 survey participants. Our goal was to understand how important maintaining an eco-friendly lifestyle is to our potential user. We found that 100% of our interviewees and survey participants longed for a way to set up personal goals. 92% of our survey participants displayed interest in having a platform that makes researching companies’ environmental practices easy and convenient.

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

On a scale of 1-10, how engaged would you say you are with environmental issues?
What activities do you engage in that are considered environmentally engaging?
How often do you use technology to research environmental issues?
Is independent verification of a businesses’ environmentally inclined issues important to you?
Do you ever feel lied too when researching where a company stands on environmental issues?
What features might you like to see in an app that gives you information about a businesses’ environmental conscious policies and initiatives?

SURVEY QUESTIONS

How important is it to you that a business is committed to environmental issues? (1-10)
How do you find information on a business's environmental practices?
Do you ever feel lied too when researching where a company stands on environmental issues?
How likely would you be willing to utilize an application over a website or other means of information? (1-10)

T H E P E R S O N A S

Established empathy through personas

Utilizing the user interviews & user surveys, I was able to create a persona to help me relate to the potential customer.

Meet Kayla.

Kayla is an eco-friendly business owner whose goal is to be 100% transparent her customers. Kayla has found it to be extremely challenging to convey her social and economic practices.

T H E M A I N I N S I G H T

Interviewees struggled to gain reliable insight

Based on the trends in our affinity map, we noticed how big of a problem greenwashing truly is and that there is a need for transparency within companies. Using Kayla, I was able to fully understand that the problem could rest in business owners not having the proper resources. Our hypothesis for a possible solution was now validated.

Major Insights

D E S I G N

Setbacks + a new direction

At first, we spent 6 weeks trying to play with three different directions: an app that only focuses on the companies, an app that has a barcode for ecommerce, and an app that only logs personal progress. However, upon thinking about its effects we realized that an ecommerce aspect had not been validated through research, and an app with either only the companies or personal progress logging would prove to be less useful. We then landed on an app that incorporated both insight into various companies, and the ability to set and track personal steps toward improving the environment.

T E S T I N G + I M P R O V E M E N T S

3 major improvements in our design

Based on various feedback from mentors and 6 usability test participants, we continually iterated our concept over the span of 6 weeks - with 3 major improvements: