Making UX More Sustainable

Jan 27

Brief:

I decided to explore the potential of Design Ethics by creating a high fidelity prototype of a social media app to connect with sustainability communities. The challenge was understanding the social media space, and how those techniques could encourage/educate on sustainable practices through community. End result is a social media app that helps you find local meetups and clubs that volunteer together.

Goal:

Create a mobile app design for environmental issues.

Time Duration:

1 month

Constraints:

1. As a new designer it can be very tempting to try to make an app that solves several problems. There are so many creative ways to promote Sustainability, but I need to restrict myself to one and understand my restrictions as a designer.

2. There is not a lot of UX research addressing this problem. There are many “green” apps for e-commerce, but they are only for purchasing. If I want to help users who have no experience in this market, I want to integrate educational elements which means getting creative with research.

My Role:

As a student, I will be solely in charge of conducting research, user tests, and design decisions. In my bootcamp, my mentor acts as a guide and advisor to help me make informed design decisions.

Design Process:

I will be implementing the Design Thinking Process in order to gather my findings.

Empathize ➤ Define ➤ Ideate ➤ Prototype ➤ Test

Research

Summary of Research

1. There is a growing interest in young generations to support sustainable products, buy secondhand products, and creatively dispose of waste.

2. Many companies are redirecting resources to have better transparency with their customers, but customers are left feeling confused by conflicting sources of information, and don’t know where to place their trust.

3. Notable future solutions will be through bulk refill systems, focused private farms, and package-less products, but there is no clear source to learn about these new systems, or a space to converse about such topics.

Secondary Research

In my Secondary research, I have found that 70% of plastic waste ends up in oceans, with great contributors being the beauty, fashion, and food industries.

And it doesn’t stop from there! Even when a person thinks they are recycling, they might not be doing it right! Some bottled products such as soda, food, and makeup may have a recycle icon on the back, but they have specific rules and may need to be taken apart into pieces since there are several materials being used. Apparently, there are a lot of products that use several materials to bottle one product, but customers are not well-informed of the ways to properly recycle and separate these materials in their own trash.

Luckily, companies are exploring recycling technologies to help with future packaging waste. (Examples are popular natural beauty brands such as Juice Beauty, Tata Harper, Beekman 1802.) These brands are examples of furthering the farm-to-face movement by renting or buying farms to better evaluate and control the ingredient production process. Brands are now wanting to be in more control over the farming and harvesting practices. Besides farming practices, beauty retailers like Sephora are testing pilot recycling programs, and in efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, beauty brands, both large and small, are embracing recyclable and refillable packaging.

So, how does this affect a UX Designers potential?

The underlying issue is there are many recourses providing facts and figures, but there is a disconnect between the informations being put onto social media and people making actionable change. Users have also be encouraged for years to keep up with trends and find convenience/fast sources for buying their products. We, as creators, can sell as many new and sustainable products as possible, but it doesn’t help users learn how to make sustainable decisions when they have been conditioned to doubt media and choose easy purchasing methods.

That’s where UX Design comes in. We need to integrate convenience, enjoyment, and trust into our green initiatives. Because if we make the concept of sustainability delightful to users, they will be more eager to make an impact in their own lives.

“Ethical Design” in UX is a very popular subject. The most popular of categories within Design Ethics are Accessibility (making sure design rational considers many kinds of users and limitations) and Privacy (Building trust with users by making sure their person is safe). There are many pieces to consider, but of the various categories of ethics, I could safely say that in regards to UX, sustainability is about the last thing designers think about when designing an app. But it is one of the most impactful things we as UX Designers can do to contribute to society as a whole.

One example of a company that is integrating sustainability into their UX is Krave Beauty. They are allowing for their website’s hierarchy to promote their sustainability journey. They also encourage users to increase their shipping time to use safer packing when receiving products. Instead of making extra wait time a pain point, they encourage and congratulate the user for making a small impact in their checkout decision. This establishes further trust in their brand, while also doing positive change in a community that needs it. This was the work of their team making sure they brand as earth-conscious.

As designers, we can encourage our teams to design with sustainability being a priority. We could put sustainable options and features at the top of the design hierarchy so users notice them. We could provide better experiences for sustainable features and use sustainability as an opportunity to be more transparent to our users. As Designers, we have potential to wield our power for good.

Competitive Research

Summary of Findings:

1. Competitor apps use gamification in order to make recycling and purchasing competitive between users.

2. They also tackle too many environmental issues at once, which leaves their designs filled with nesting subjects within navigation. This makes it hard to understand how to use the app, or to find what you’re looking for.

Research:

Green-Conscious Apps are all over the market, and many have outstanding concepts and execution. Most available green apps are revolved around e-commerce and marketing. This is great, but I want to lean more toward the educational and social since there is an opportunity to solve a unique problem for users. Using Nielsen Heuristics, I performed competitive research on several other companies in order to see where they fall on the scale of usability.

Some apps, in order to match system/real world, would show descriptive imagery, and recycling animations to make them match how they would be done in real-life. For example, Some apps would animate trash cans and “points” made from recycling. They also made sure their design matched the earthy and green personality they wanted their users to emulate.

Many apps fell short with regards to documentation and real world associations. In attempt to summarize challenging concepts, some activities and actions within the apps were confusing and needed further explanation. They all also had a tendency to throw whatever topics or features that were less important into the Settings/Help/FAQ sections so preserve space. This made things very hard to find and these sections were cluttered, disorganized, and clearly a second-thought. This showed me that I need to simplify in ways that make sense to the user, rather than omitting potentially important information altogether.

To sum it up, I would need to use images and icons sparingly to help with challenging concepts, but leave in valuable information to stay credible. I would also need to simplify my solution from the very beginning so I don’t get trapped into designing dozens of features that distract the user.

Problem:

The question I have to be asking myself is, “What are the biggest pain points for users trying to practice an eco-friendly lifestyle?” Some can possibly be:

1. Green washing and fake products build distrust with the user?

2. It’s too expensive and time-wasting?

3. No obvious resources?

With these problems/POVs written out, I can reframe the problem into a clear HowMightWe statement:

How Might We…

Help users begin practicing sustainability by making education enjoyable and easy?

User Interviews

Target Demographic:

Young women from 18-30 who currently have jobs. The rational for this is that women-centered products tend to push more sustainable advertising, and this demographic will not only be the ones interested in new practices, but they have the financial means to invest in new practices. They are also Located in Silicon Valley because that is where I’m based.

Summary of Interviews:

1. Users are driven by influencers and friends when thinking about spending money.

2. A close second is reviews of products online, but there is suspicion when relying solely on those reviews.

3. DIY and thrifting have become buzz topics and women are interested in learning more. (Especially during COVID)

4. Users will impulse buy because of sales or speed, but will be disappointed in the purchase. (Dark Patterns!)

Interviews:

My interviews showed me that women in this age group have all had very different experiences with sustainability. Some are extremely aware of emerging practices and companies making changes, but others fall easily for marketing dupes and second guess decisions.

All users have been very disheartened by the E-commerce industry, primarily because they end up being disappointed by the products they buy. Either way, I found out that users are indeed sensitive to their spending, and would much rather make the right choice, even if there are easier/cheaper options available. A lot of users have even started making hobbies out of earth-consciousness. For example, some have started growing their own vegetables, or even started re-using glass bottles for other things.

After surveying 20 users from a broad spectrum of backgrounds, 5 were selected to be interviewed. Here are some key insights I received from these users:

“I really like seeing real people talk about the product and the images people post of them using the product. I like videos of the product being used. If it looks like a casual post from a consumer rather than PR from the company I trust it more….I don’t trust it; I can’t tell if it’s gonna work so I just give up. Cost/return efforts are difficult and frustrating. ”

“White and green natural looking packages, neutropenia products, advertises a natural quality to them. I check the ingredients to investigate further. Physicians formula has a bottle shaped like a leaf.”

These interviews showed me how different consumers interact with marketing and companies. When asked if they were aware of any initiatives being made by brands they were familiar with, they either didn’t care, or were very excited to talk about companies initiatives. One user was very excited to talk about Lush’s recycling program, and how gratifying it is to return the empty bottles after a few months. She told me how she feels better about choosing to shop there over other brands, and feels like she always sees online how they are making new changes every year.

Affinity Mapping:

After interviewing the 5 women, I sorted the data into an Affinity Map to see if that would help identify some emerging Personas. Some common traits that the users had are their need for convenience, their trust in eco-branded companies, and word-of-mouth reviews from friends.

I started envisioning two personas, and in the image above I started by having them on the left and right of my stacks. The bottom cards were unique qualities referring to confidence and hobbies. These cards felt hard to pin to just one of the Personas, so I considered them to be a common goal between them.

Personas:

The “Emilia” persona considers supporting causes an opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals and be part of something bigger than themselves. They are more socially driven, and although they are young, they want to do something important with their time, and share that experience with new friends they make when doing it. They are also more visually aware of “false-marketing” and political topics.

The “Natalie” persona is categorized as a working-class user who is willing to spend extra money for convenience and speed. They want to appear professional, and have greater priorities and don’t allow for a lot of free time. This would mean that this user will expect a very quick, yet satisfying experience, and might not be as interested in making connections via the app.

User Flows

Starting off with a two major red routes, the User Flow illustrates one path to learn and share content, while the other is about joining events and groups where the user can meet like-minded users. These would be the two major features of the MVP, and I felt they culminated the problems of education and community that would help users feel more confident about their decisions. Likewise, Users would be more encouraged if they see others being productive, and groups could help provide outside resources that aren’t provided from the app.

Mobile Wireframing

Reflecting on the interviews and research I conducted, I needed to focus on simplicity and clear instruction. With that, this would be a social media experience, but it would also need to be familiar in some ways so Users felt more comfortable. I began making wireframes in greyscale following my user flows, and also adding screens to simulate animations that I would include in the final prototype.

Wireflows

After the wireframes completed the MVP’s end-to-end experience, I began considering the user once again while making wire flows. I had to make sure I was providing the correct social elements for one persona, while also making a very intuitive and fast flow for the other persona. I joined them with the same sign-up experience. The rational was to make the sign-up a typical name and email experience for both personas, so there weren’t any unnecessary surprises when creating an account. After completing a series of wire flows to simulate a user’s movements through the app, it was time to create a working prototype and conduct usability testing.

Prototyping

Summary of Usability Tests:

1. Usability tests were conducted twice, each with 5 users.

2. The most significant benefit to the tests was establishing a predictable information architecture. (User’s felt lost on the main page and wanted to understand what the differences were between features.

3. Users also expressed they would need more visual cues when looking at educational content because those screens were less self-explanatory than the screens for groups. This came as no surprise to me since the educational content was more explorational then the more “social” content.

With that, I made changes to the structure of the app, and then created a working prototype!

Outcomes and Lessons

1. Simplicity is key when working with new and foreign subjects to the user.

2. IA is also an important consideration to helping the user move through the app.

3. Research was very reflective of this demographic’s concerns for the environment, and this genre of apps is increasing by the day.

Check out the Prototype

The resulting product is an app that specializes in green resources and news, joining groups to do service and volunteer work, and gamification techniques such as achievement trophies.

Madison Brown