SUB Initiative

Why should we care about being sustainable?

Our earth is suffering and if we continue being wasteful, we wont have a future. Sustainability protects our ecosystem and preserves natural resources for future generations.

Why is being sustainable difficult?

“Sustainable” businesses are not always held accountable for their eco-friendly claims. Businesses that are truly sustainable need a centralized platform to promote themselves. It is difficult to find sustainable businesses to support and understand what part of their business is sustainable.

Purpose:

to understand the problem better we interviewed university students and several local "sustainable" companies. My role focused mainly on interviewing students and a competitive analysis.

Interviews:

We interviewed 6 students, 3 who practice sustainability, and 3 who do not in order to better understand university student's perspective on sustainability.

Some questions we asked were:

1. Do you practice sustainable living?
2. If so, how do you practice being sustainable?
3. If not, why do you not?
4. What would make you change your mind?
5. What existing technologies/solutions help you live sustainably?
6. What products/technologies could further help you be more sustainable?

Some key insights and pain points:

• People want more resources on how to be eco-friendly
• Learning how to be sustainable is difficult
• People would be more willing to practice sustainability if someone/something could guide them

Competitive Market Analysis:

We looked into two companies that focus on helping people become more environmentally conscious by providing them with more insight on where to shop, eat, and explore in order to live more sustainably.

Seattle Good

Seattle Good provides information on ethical support of the local economy, focusing on sustainability resources, events, and shops. They provide a list of shops and note a few words regarding the sustainability of the products.

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Good On You

Good on you provides sustainability ratings on clothing stores and informs users on the environmental and ethical impact of purchasing clothes from a given store.

Solution:

‍Create a website application that promotes verified sustainable businesses and allows users to filter through the category of business and type of sustainability. 

User Needs:

• A website that is intuitive, user friendly, and accessible for users of all ages and abilities
• An option to allow users to see different price and location ranges to meet users' needs
• Motivates and incentivizes users to shop and eat sustainably

Purpose:

We created a user persona to highlight the users' needs in order to brainstorm a solution that could fit the scope of the project.

Target Audience: Users who are curious or interested in sustainability.

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Low Fidelity Screens:

As we analyzed our target audience, we found out that informing the user on what it means to be sustainable just as important as giving them sustainable options.

We ideated an interface that could both tell the user what stores and restaurants are considered eco-friendly how those businesses were assessed. We designed potential web and mobile screens that met the needs of the user.

We walked through our designs to the Research, Developer, and Marketing team to gain feedback. We finalized the different screens that will be on the website along with our color pallet and typography.

We decided to go for a green, black, and white color pallet. We chose the green because it symbolizes environmental sustainability, while the black and white give it a minimalist feel, and ensure the app is accessible for those with visual impairments. We chose a san-serif typeface, because it is the most accessible and readable typeface while maintaining the minimalist theme of our website.

Our final deliverables consist of a responsive website that allows people to filter by category to find sustainable stores and restaurants near them. We have also decided to include a blog on our website to further educate people to make eco-friendly decisions.

Overall, in this project I learned how to work with a team of designers, developers, researchers, and marketers to design the end-to-end user experience of an eco-friendly website. Communication was a huge aspect of this project. Working closely with a team of designers takes a lot of compromise and keeping an open mind is imperative to work together. Whenever my team would face some kind of disagreement we would ensure that all of our voices were heard and then we would come together to find a solution that worked for all of us. Weekly syncs and working with a team of developers taught me the importance of creating feasible designs that can be developed.

I learned how to properly wireframe based on a set of user needs while ensuring our designs are accessible for all users. This project also taught me that design is an iterative process as ideas are evolving with time and users' needs may change. For this reason it is crucial to empathize with the user when designing to guarantee that you are meeting the needs of the user.