The social sustainability app
Background

Climate change is perhaps the single greatest issue facing our generation today. It’s something I’m very passionate about, and I wanted to design a tool to help the average person do something about it. For this project, I aimed to explore the problem space around climate change & people’s carbon offset, then develop an app that helps them do something to lower that offset.

After some quick background research, my initial idea of a ‘Carbon Tracker’ crumbled to dust. Turned out that no one really wanted that — carbon footprint alone means very little to people. Knowing that, I dove head-first into the world of climate change, people’s attitudes toward it, and potential ways for the average Joe & Jane to help turn it around.
Challenges

The primary challenge was the extent of my problem space. Climate change is a massive, broadly reaching problem. I would need to narrow down my focus a bit to create an app many people may want to use. The other challenge — this wasn’t a new concept. Carbon trackers exist, but none of them seem to be very successful. So, how would my app be different?
What I Accomplished

Designed an end-to-end mobile app — part social network, part habit tracker, all about reducing people's carbon footprint
‍
Discovered how human psychology affects people's ability (or inability) to effectively combat climate change
Type
End to End Mobile App
Role
Research & UX/UI
Timeline
June - July 2021

01 Research

Defining Research Goals

Identify people’s primary
feelings/attitudes toward
climate change
Measure the degree to
which people want to
combat climate change
Identify any existing
apps or solutions that
help users do this
Uncover what may
motivate users to
combat climate change
Identify any actions users
are already taking to
combat climate change
Uncover habits that may
block users from combating
climate change
Establish a foundational
understanding of the
science behind combating
climate change

Acknowledging Assumptions

As the only researcher on this project, I wanted to be sure to acknowledge any biases I may have going in. To achieve this, I thought about and laid out my assumptions about the problem space. I knew going in that my assumptions could be invalidated by research.
01 Climate change is primarily human-driven
02 Most people I talk to are concerned about it
03 My network (first-world) feels responsible for it
04 My network is already actively combatting it
05 Most people I talk to would be interested in an app

Secondary Research

To start building a foundational understanding of the science behind climate change, as well as people attitudes toward it and existing solutions to combat it, I dove into secondary research about climate change & the human response to it.
The Climate Problem
01 Greenhouse Gas
Human activity releases too much
greenhouse gas into the atmosphere

02 Rising Temperature
This is causing average temperatures around the globe to rise, disturbing ecosystems

03 Fixing It
The primary fix for this is changing people's habits, so they consume less and behave sustainably
People's Attitudes

01 They Know
Only 3% of surveyed people across the globe don’t think climate change is a large problem
‍
02 They Want Change
A vast majority feel that not enough
is being done to combat the issue
‍
03 Concern is Growing
Concern is only growing, with a
majority of the planet showing
worries about the issue
The 'But'

01 No Action
Despite their worries, over 33% of
people don’t act
‍
02 Motivation
This lies in lack of motivation, many
people don’t have enough to
make the needed changes
‍
03 Psychology
Climate change is too distant of a
problem, and too large to elicit an
emotional response from people
Key Takeaways
70%Of first world inhabitants express concern for climate change
40%
Of them aren't willing to make the personal changes needed to effectively combat it
The problem lies in human psychology. People have a very hard time taking future problems seriously, like retirement saving or weight gain. Climate change also isn’t felt as much in the first world, which is unfortunately the largest consumer and contributor toward greenhouse gases.

Understanding The Human Psyche

Reading about the limitations of the human brain was revealing. I had never understood why so many people I knew expressed concern for climate change, yet did nothing in their personal lives to address it. I wanted to dive deeper to understand how individuals felt about tackling long-term and distant goals, and the challenges associated with that. So, I planned out some user interviews.

User Interviews

Interview Goal 01

Who is the user?
Age, status, location, etc...
Interview Goal 02

How do they learn new information?
Interview Goal 04

How do they tackle short & long term goals?
Interview Goal 03

How do they feel about climate change?

Results

I interviewed 5 participants. All of them came from first-world environments, and ranged from 26 to 48 years old. They all came from university-educated backgrounds, so I knew my research results would only be applicable to educated first-world users.
Participant 1
“Long-term goals are really tough to stick to because they require more consistency”
“The only way I can stick
to long-term goals is by
having an established
routine”
Participant 2
Participant 3
“Having friends or a
community to hold me
accountable is key”
“I try to do my part to act
against climate change, but I know I could be doing more”
Participant 4
Participant 5
“Having a tool to track new habits & compete toward lowering offset would be amazing”
Primary User Needs

01 Routine

To contribute to goals, users need to
establish a routine around habits

02 Accountability

To achieve their goals, users need to be held accountable

03 Community

Friends & colleagues aiming for the
same goal are a huge help
Primary User Pains

01 Lack of Motivation

Users lack the motivation to make personal changes, despite concerns about climate change

02 Disruption

Changing habits means changing
routine, which challenges users

03 Distance

Climate change has limited effects
on a lot of the first world, so users
don’t feel connected to the issue
Key Takeaways
4Said the biggest
challenge in sticking
to long-term goals
was consistency
5Said they lacked
the motivation to make more significant changes like flying less or changing diet
3Said community & friends were the biggest help in
sticking to goals
Similar to secondary research, users during the interview discussed challenges with sticking to long-term goals. Primarily, developing consistency was the biggest challenge. Keeping long-term goals in perspective sounded much harder than short-term goals. Regarding climate change, all users wanted to contribute, but shared the sentiment that making more considerable changes was difficult due to routine disruption and lack of emotional connection to the issue. Having friends supporting them through long-term commitments made this struggle a lot easier.

02 Define

Breaking Down The Problem

Having done my research, I wanted to break down all the existing challenges users were facing. To achieve this, I created problem statements, relating each one to a specific user need. I took it a step further and related each user need to a corresponding ‘How Might We?’ statement to postulate potential ways to address each need with my app. To measure the success of outcomes, I also noted KPIs.

Meet Josh

Research and problem statements gave life to Josh, who like many of us wants to do his part to address the climate crisis. Josh does what he can without going to extreme lengths to change his lifestyle. He recycles and tries to reuse plastic bags & containers. But Josh has more immediate concerns, like what he’s going to do over the weekend. He might go on a date, or meet with a few of his friends. Despite this, Josh expresses real concern for the planet, and knows more needs to be done to remedy the changing environment.

Defining The MVP

At this point, I was ready to start defining the features my app would include. I had got to know my target user, and had defined the key problems my user was facing regarding tackling climate change. With this information in hand, I set out to define my MVP (minimum viable product).
01 Identify & Understand Need
Why Am I Creating This App?
I'm creating the app to address a problem that I've identified during the research phase of this project. First world inhabitants are growing increasingly concerned about climate change, but lack the motivation to make the personal changes (habits like diet, transportation, etc…) necessary to have a substantial positive impact on climate change. My app aims to overcome this challenge.
How Will I Measure Success?
Number of habits changing at 'x' rate
Customer
satisfaction
Customer
adoption
Likes, shares,
comments, etc...
02 Finding Opportunities
Using 'Pains' To Develop 'Gains'
By looking at primary user pains, I thought about how the app would turn them into 'gains' by allowing the user to take a specific action. For example:
Pain:
Growing concern
but no motivation
Action:
Share changing
habits with friends
Gain:
Sustainable living
and growing
social network
03 Choosing Features
Using 'Gains' To Develop Features
After listing out all the 'gains' my app would enable users to acquire, I thought about the features the app would need to make those gains possible.
Gain 01: Educate users about the impact their habits have on the planet
Features Needed
Carbon Footprint Calculator
Footprint Tracker
Account Creation
Gain 02: Offer helpful habit changes for specific users based on their footprint
Features Needed
Reduce My Footprint
Info Centre
Gain 03: Allow users to track progress & compete with others
Features Needed
Leaderboards
Milestones/Targets
Gain 04: Provide users with a community that supports them in all of this
Features Needed
Community
Friends Activity
Friends Insights
04 Prioritising
Features brainstormed, I created a priority matrix to determine which of them would be included in my MVP.

Mapping It Out

The app was starting to come together. I knew which features I wanted to include and was starting to build a picture of how the app would look & function. To further help define the structure and architecture of the app, I created an app map and user flow.

The  Flow

03 Design

Clean, crisp & simple
Having mapped out my app and the features it would include, I proceeded to create the wireframes.

I wanted to focus on structure and placement, so I began with low-fidelity wireframes. My goal for the structure was a modern, sleek look that would attract users despite asking quite a lot of them (behavioural changes).

My plan was also to use my low-fidelity wireframes to conduct user testing, so users would be focused on the function of the app & placement of its features rather than it’s branding.

04 Testing

To ensure my app met the needs of my target users, I created a prototype in Figma and set out to test it on 5 participants. All of them came from a first-world, educated background, as this is the type of user I wanted to design the app for. Prototype done, I created several test goals to meet during testing.
Goal 1 Test overall feature functionality and ease of use
Goal 2 Measure ability of users to complete footprint quiz
Goal 3 Measure user’s ability to track weekly progress
Goal 4 See how well users navigate the community & use it to connect
Goal 5 Assess whether or not users are motivated to use the app

Scenario & Results

A friend of yours has started using an app called ‘Climate’ and won’t stop raving about it. You download the app to see what all the fuss is about.
Goal 1
Test overall app functionality & ease of use
5/5 users said app felt intuitive & easy to use
5/5 users didn’t know what app did before
starting the footprint quiz
5/5 were able to complete the quiz easily
5/5 wanted an ‘I don’t know’ option for all questions
Goal 2
Measure ability of users to complete
the footprint quiz
Goal 3
Measure user's ability to log weekly progress
5/5 users were easily able to log progress
2/5 users weren't sure goals were 'weekly'
4/5 users suggested an icon to click would be more satisfying than a slider
3/5 users suggested having 'connect socials' as a later option, not a required one
4/5 users wanted to see people's recent activity
Goal 4
See how well users navigate community & use it to connect
Goal 5
Assess whether users would be motivated to use the app.
5/5 users said they would love to use the app
Key Takeaways
5
Didn't know what the app did before the quiz
Users wanted clearer copy before starting the quiz to understand what the app actually did
4‍
Wanted clickable icons instead of sliders
Users felt that a slider wasn’t very satisfying or accurate, and wanted icons to click on to track their progress
3
Wanted easier access to the community
Users preferred not adding their socials & suggested showing other users on the platform, not just friends
4‍
Wanted to see people's recent activity
Users felt like this would be really motivating

Resulting Revisions

Before
After
Users weren’t sure what the quiz was for due to the wording on the homepage, so I changed the copy to reflect that users would be taking the quiz to actively calculate their footprint.
Users felt unsure about some quiz questions and wanted to have an available ‘out’ in case they didn’t feel confident enough to answer.
Before
After
Before
After
Users didn’t like the way they logged their progress for weekly tasks, they felt like sliders weren’t rewarding enough and instead wanted something to click on. I added in individual icons for each item they were aiming to save or reuse to remedy this.
Perhaps the most significant change, and most critical, was giving users easier access to the community. Instead of forcing users to connect their social accounts to access the community, I got rid of the requirement and made the community homepage a feed of all app user’s recent activity. Users could then add their social networks if they wanted to.
Before
After

05 UI & Branding

Low-fidelity wireframes completed, I created a look & feel for the app and added branding elements. I wanted the app to make users feel ‘green’, while having it maintain a sophisticated look to appeal to my target audience and stand out in the market. I started with a mood board.

Building The Brand

06 Final UI

Splash & Home
Footprint Quiz & Results
My Footprint, Targets & Profile
Community Feed & Friends
Info Centre
See The Prototype

07 Next Steps

Next Steps

Climate has been a project very close to my heart. I believe climate change is the biggest challenge humanity faces today, and it’s my generation’s responsibility to leave the world in a healthy place for future generations.

I designed Climate to try to help my generation make a difference in this challenge. The next step for the app would be to put it in the hands of the users for which I created it. Using the KPIs that I came up with during my MVP definition, the app’s success could be measured and iteration could be made from there.

My hope for Climate is that it becomes a tool my generation uses to start living a more sustainable life. To ensure that happens, the most important thing will be to listen to what those users say about it and incorporate their feedback.

Learning 01 Users Are Complicated

Over the past several years, climate change has become more and more prevalent in my daily conversations with friends & colleagues. I’ve often wondered why we don’t do more in our personal lives to change to more sustainable habits — like avoiding dairy, meat and driving combustion cars. This project taught me that users are far more complicated than meets the eye. Human psychology is definitely responsible, at least in part, for many people’s lack of changing to tackle the environmental crisis. If not for my research, I wouldn’t have been able to make any sense of the relationship between people’s concern for climate change and their lack of action towards it.

Learning 02 Community Can Motivate

Changing habits is tough, even if the motivation is there. For this project, that motivation seemed to be lacking for many users. The solution? Giving people something worth changing for, that they can rationalise and benefit from, more immediately than saving the planet. It turns out that we all want to be connected, and having those connections is a forceful motivator that keeps us going through the most challenging times. Designing Climate taught me that our greatest challenge, climate change, can be and will be overcome by channelling our biggest strength — working together and being connected to one another.
Thanks for reading!

Check out my other work below.
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