Context
Aria Earth: start-up environmental tech company
Aria Earth is a start-up environmental tech company that allows users to plant an indigenous tree under their name in order to help fight climate change and alleviate their feelings of Eco-anxiety. Users will experience their impact through regular photo updates about their tree posted to their personal Aria Earth dashboard.
The Problem
Users feel hopeless about their efforts and lack motivation to fight climate change with Aria Earth
Aria Earth’s mission is to address these two points but they are currently falling short. So how might we design new features and refresh existing functionalities to help Aria Earth more effectively deliver their value proposition to users?
How might we redesign Aria Earth’s dashboard to relieve users’ negative feelings and restore their motivation to combat climate change?
Final Designs Preview
Designs to reignite users’ hope & motivation for a cause!
Community News Feed shares environmental efforts from around the world to inspire users
Real-time growth status of users’ planted trees fosters trust and transparency
Highlighting user’s tree achievements kindles positivity & shows users their real impact
Why Design?
Aria Earth’s current designs fall short in delivering their desired value propositions to users.
Aria Earth’s value proposition is to provide users with a service that allows them to easily help fight climate change, see their impact, and relieve feelings of Eco-anxiety. However, their current dashboard designs fall short of doing so.
User Research & Interviews
How are people reacting (or not) to climate change?
I first conducted user interviews to better understand people’s general feelings about climate change and their thought process behind what actions, if any, they’ve taken to help fight it.
I grouped my findings from my interviewees and research into an affinity map to look for major patterns. Since my interviewee pool was small, I conducted secondary research to find out if my interviewee’s behaviors were representative to larger samples of people. Any statistically significant supporting evidence I found was noted below its corresponding interviewee insights group.
Main Insights from User Research
Ideating Solutions & Design Goals
Drawing design goals on a Constrained Blank Slate
Next, I looked for connections between the insights from my user research and the overarching problem Aria Earth’s mission was trying to solve. Finding these connection points, I could visualize where and why Aria Earth was falling short in their mission and why they were failing to resonate with users. So, I created 3 major design goals that would help Aria Earth solve these shortcomings:
I used these design goals to frame my brainstorming about what form(s) my design solution might take. These goals also provided a basis for design & content requirements that would need to be considered when creating wireframes of my solutions.
Some initial ideas that fulfilled our design goals included:
public discussion forum
newsletter publication
media sharing platform
Back to the Drawing Board to Create Wireframes!
(Caution: Roadblock!) Constraints to Consider:
Aria Earth would like to offer more community activities for users in the future. But as a start-up, they are currently constrained with limited human resources for generating and monitoring content at launch.
Prioritize the most feasible parts into the winning solution!
Keeping this constraint in mind, I decided to try combining the most feasible aspects from my three initial ideas into one idea: a community news feed that gathers positive environmental news from inside and outside Aria Earth into one convenient monthly post shared to users. With a renewed solution idea, I drafted wireframes and content framework to highlight the functionalities of my winning solutions:
Wireframes for the My Tree Status and Overview pages were also sketched to visualize redesigns that would support the Community News Feed in relieving users’ feelings of Eco-anxiety and showing them their planted trees are truly making an impact.
Design & Problem-Solving Breakdown
Driving Home the Solution & More
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Reduces Aria Earth’s workload in needing to create and monitor shared content (compatible for limited human resources)
Aria Earth maintains control over filtering and picking out positive news and information to share with their users
Mix of articles highlighting Aria Earth’s planting site updates & achievements and articles that highlight the efforts of people & organizations around the world fighting climate change
Feed design leaves room to grow in accepting user-posted content in the future
I also redesigned Aria Earth’s other pages to support the new Community News Feed feature with solving pain points: 1) users feeling disconnected from their impacts and 2) users’ feelings of Eco-anxiety.
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Clashing color system causes visual strain and creates impression of cluttered info architecture
Ambiguous wording such as “107 days till next status” lacks context and leaves users confused
Lacks transparency about location & status of users’ trees while they are waiting to be planted remotely
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Missing context and metrics in achievement progress bars cause users to doubt the effectiveness of their efforts
Top banner highlights third-party business sponsors (users don’t appreciate being greeted with advertisements!)
Discontinued projects clutter info architecture with outdated or irrelevant content
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Added clear numbers, icons, and progress status bar so that users can clearly understand their impacts from a glance
Replaced sponsor banner with real-time total trees planted to greet users with optimism and hope upon landing
Showcased latest Community News Feed to remind users they are not alone in fighting climate change
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Matched colors and visuals to system to clarify info architecture and fit seamlessly with page contents
Reworded content to be more digestible to users (e.g. 107 days till next status → Next Diary Update: Oct 18, 2023)
Added summary bar with more tree status info to increase transparency with users and appeal to their trust
Cross-Departmental & Stakeholder Feedback
Aligning Designs to Reassure Internal Stakeholder Concerns
After presenting and walking our PM and CEO through my designs for feedback, I was asked to create additional designs to problem-solve logistical issues Aria Earth and its users may face after launch. These additional feedback were used to refine my designs in preparation for future user testing and product launch.
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Solution: Aria Earth is already planning to take multiple photos of the entire tree grove, which include each user’s individual tree. These photos can be used as placeholder photos for the user, and the diary post will be tagged accordingly to notify the user.
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Solution: Since business owners have the option to plant up to 500 trees, uploading multiple photos of the entire grove of trees from different angles instead of each individual tree would best balance transparency and feasibility.
Final Designs & Solution Overview
Designs to reignite users’ hope & motivation for a cause!
2. Real-time growth status of users’ planted trees with “My Tree Status”
Transparency showing the status of users’ trees before & after planting
Users can easily track their tree’s growth and contribution over time
Regular photo updates assure users that their trees are truly making an impact at the planting site
1. New feature for rekindling positivity: Community News Feed
Regularly share positive news about climate change relief efforts
Helps users feel more hopeful and optimistic
Reminds users they are not alone in fighting climate change
3. Celebrate each & every users’ tree achievements
Metrics highlight total oxygen, water, and carbon offset generated by the user’s tree
Helps users understand their impact clearly through tangible numbers
Reinforces users’ sense of accomplishment
Next Steps & Impact
Next Stop: Usability Testing & Metrics Collection
Due to the time constraint of my internship, I was able to create mockups for each of Aria Earth’s dashboard screens on desktop and mobile. I was able to help prepare our product for testing & launch, but unfortunately didn’t have enough time to collect user feedback and metrics on my designs.
If I had more time with Aria Earth, I would have loved to:
Takeaways
Growing Hand-in-Hand as a Team with our Product
Working with a cross-functional team — During my internship, I had the chance to work with the engineering and product management teams. The engineering team helped me practice explaining design choices as a designer, and the product management team helped me ensure our project fully develops and delivers Aria Earth’s value propositions. Thank you to my wonderful team for the opportunity to work together and help me learn many new things throughout this project!
Referring back to interview and research data to justify design choices — Clear, open communication in a cross-functional team is incredibly important, especially when I need to explain my design choices to our PM and the rest of my team. I made sure to always prepare and refer back to data collected from user interviews and secondary research to further justify my decisions.
Adapting for organizational constraints — Compared to my previous student projects, my work with Aria Earth was my first project for a real client. This project pushed me to practice ideating designs that fit within the client’s organizational constraints. I made sure to think of multiple design options for each feature and run them by our PM to narrow down what designs would be most feasible and effective.
Thank you for reading!
Psst! Want to get a sweet treat and chat?
Reach me at: cm.chelseamai@gmail.com