Green

In order to understand people's needs in relation to my project focus area, I started off by conducting 8 interviews and administering an online survey about eco-friendly products to gather both qualitative and quantitative data. I recruited people from all age groups to be able to gauge the project’s potential relevance to them. As I was to design in different formats, in addition to the users’ needs and expectations, I investigated which medium each participant was most likely to use.

KEY INSIGHTS
The vast majority cared about the environment / was worried about climate change and was generally willing to use more sustainable products. However, many participants reported being overwhelmed by the task of educating themselves online due to lack of time or low technology experience. The need to rely on newsletters or browser bookmarks to keep track of read blog articles and Internet resources also emerged as a pain point.
Younger respondents tended to use a wide variety of devices, whereas participants over 60 were more likely to use their smartphones only.

I couldn't identify any direct competitors to Green. Indirect competitors included:

• specialized webshops

• sustainability blogs, podcasts and publications providing advice on eco-friendly products

• apps allowing users to check the sustainability level of a product, usually through barcode or label scanning

• apps tracking a person's carbon footprint and offering advice on how to reduce it
  

KEY INSIGHTS
Blog, podcast and print content was limited in scope, mostly focusing on one product category only. That means one has to read many articles across multiple sources to cover all the products commonly used in everyday life. Digital content was scattered over different websites and audio streaming services, making it difficult to track (the users I interviewed either used browser bookmarks or didn't save the content at all for future reference). These issues also applied to webshops. My previous user research had also revealed that people tend to be wary of the promotional nature of content (i.e. articles that are more or less disguised advertising for a specific brand). Product scanning cannot be used exploratively, but could be useful. Sustainable lifestyle apps encompassed a wide range of activities (i.e. transportation, food, etc.) and exceeded the scope of the Green project as a quick tool with the specific purpose of finding product alternatives.

In order to quickly produce a wide range of creative ideas, I used the 8-minute Crazy Eights ideation technique.

After review, I retained the idea of including guides for specific sets of products (e.g. products used in the kitchen, bathroom, etc.) and enabling users to scan a product barcode to find an eco-friendly alternative. Both were intended as an addition to the main userflow of the product, i.e. searching for a product and receiving a list of more sustainable alternatives.

Crazy Eights sketches

I then created a low-fidelity prototype to be able to conduct the first usability study, which I carried out as a think-aloud study with predefined tasks and follow-up questions. The 5 participants were aged between 25 and 66. In assessing the results, I focused mainly on task completion rate, time on task and use of navigation vs search, and of course made notes of the participants' verbal and non-verbal reactions as well as any comments.

KEY INSIGHTS
The main findings uncovered by the usability study and addressed with the high-fidelity mockups were:

• Barcode search - In most cases people don't have access to the barcodes of the products they are currently using

• Local shops - People want to see local shops where they can buy the eco-friendly products shown by the app

• Settings - People had difficulty locating the app settings

• Navigation vs Search - Most people resorted to the search bar for quick access to what they were looking for. However, participants with lower tech proficiency (e.g. older users) tended to tap their way through the category tiles to find products. My general approach in the final prototype was to design for less skilled users, making the product as easy as possible and possibly achieving a sort of curb-cut effect.

In order to cater to users of all ages and abilities, I applied the following accessibility considerations to my design:

Next, I created wireframes and prototypes for the different screen sizes (phone, tablet, desktop), leveraging the design system I had created for the app to ensure consistency.

Click on the images to open the (final) Figma prototypes for the different screen sizes.

The main thing I learned with this project was the peculiarity of working with older adults. During the interviews and usability tests I realized how intimidated by technology and anxious to live up to the perceived expectations they can be. Therefore, it is even more important to make sure they feel at ease and not judged, in order to gain authentic insights into their needs.
It was also very rewarding to be able to provide people with a UX design that allows them to do something they wanted but couldn't do due to a lack of suitable tools.