EcoEcho

Amping the conscious soul in you!

EcoEcho is an app designed for consumers who are trying to incorporate sustainability into their daily life more closely.
It offers a trusted marketplace with certified organic brands, a platform for sharing and learning various upcycling hacks, DIYs, and articles, and a community for easy donation and recycling services.

View prototype

OVERVIEW

Project

Academic;

User Experience Bootcamp at DesignBoat

Timeline

16 weeks;

Sept-Jan 2022

Role -

Independent

Product Designer;

Brand Development

Tools

Figma, Invision, Notion, Otter

Platform

Mobile iOS

Mobile Android

DESIGN APPROACH

I framed my design process with the Human Centred Design Methodology to ensure that I was creating solutions to real human problems. This methodology is cyclical and often non-linear and provided me with a framework to ensure that the end user is always at the focus of the design.

Research

SUSTAINABILITY AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

PRIMARY RESEARCH

With Global Warming and Climate crises staring right at our faces, a large part of our population is trying to make a change by switching to eco-friendly products in their daily lifestyle. However, according to data released by First Insight and the Baker Retailing Center at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; a significant gap exists between retailers and customers as to what consumers want and what’s actually being delivered. Several other barriers also stop beginners to step up and be a part of the change.

My primary research goal was to uncover what these obstacles are and to deliver a platform where an optimal sustainable community can be achieved.

ASSUMPTIONS

HYPOTHESIS

I started by understanding a beginner's mindset toward sustainability. Diving into the obstacles and barriers a user generally faces that stops them from beginning their journey toward sustainability helped in generating the problem statement.

How can we inculcate trust and aid society in engaging toward sustainability?

DISCOVERY

QUANTITATIVE SURVEY

Total survey responses recorded

Doing their bit towards sustainability

Trying to incorporate a sustainable lifestyle

Feel lost in trying to make the change

Buy sustainable products in-person

Feel Living a Sustainable life is expensive

Key Insights

One of the most common reasons why people refrain from incorporating a sustainable lifestyle is the lack of finding everything under a single roof.
People lack motivation and often feel overwhelmed because they think sustainability requires a lot of lifestyle changes.
Community Building is Important. It helps in enforcing a positive atmosphere and engages society to become more involved.
It is very important to know the transparency of products being purchased online, People often find it difficult to trust sustainable products online and question the ethics of the brand if they don’t know them.

DISCOVERY

QUALIITATIVE SURVEY

I conducted semi-structured interviews with 8 participants. All of them are sustainable enthusiasts and trying to level up their lifestyles by switching to eco-friendly alternatives.
The Key Goal of conducting the interview was:

To get a deeper knowledge of users’ understanding of sustainability and their pain points.
To narrow down the focus from mass data to an individual.
To get insights to define the problem statement.

Based on the interviews, I was able to narrow down user goals and their understanding of sustainability.

“More awareness is needed. I am an educated individual and yet I don't know about sustainable living and how to achieve one.”

“Usually sustainable products are becoming expensive. It has become marketing strategies more than anything else.”

“Greener ways of living need a lot of work, awareness and self-realization are the ways we can lean more towards this platform."

– Quotes from participants

MARKET SURVEY

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

At the beginning of the project, I spent some time researching other apps and websites that offered similar services.

I downloaded and tested them to understand their approach toward sustainable marketing and prepared a competitive analysis of two of them.
Completing a detailed analysis further helped me define my Key project goals.

Comparitive graph between various apps and websites I studied-

Research, user interviews, and competitive analysis helped me formulate my design challenge-

How might we, help consumers who are trying to incorporate a sustainable lifestyle by empowering them with an easy and trustworthy shopping experience and forming a community culture on sustainability?

Define

KEY GOALS

Critical Success Factor (USP)

Incentives programs for users.
Ethically certified vendors.
Education and awareness programs.
All sustainable goods are under one roof.

EMBODYING TARGET USERS

PERSONA

Based on the Data collected from the interviews and surveys, I created two personas- Meenakshi Desai and Dominique to represent an ideal user of the application. Empathy is a critical part of Human-centered design. After constructing my target users, I built an Empathy Map to reveal deeper insights into the user's needs.

IDEATION

HOW MIGHT WE?

BUILDING

TASK FLOW

For my next step, I built Task Flows to understand how users would navigate through the app to make a purchase, learn/read articles, make a donation or create an account. This helped me visualize how the process/flow of each step.

User Flow: Exploring “Shop” in Tab bar

User Flow: Exploring “Learn” in Tab bar

User Flow: Exploring “Community” in Tab bar

BUILDING

STRUCTURE & CONTENT

After gauging the ideas and features the app can provide, I categorized the app into 4 main sections- Shop, Learn, Community and Account. These sections would house the Tab bar. I further did an extensive exercise of card sorting to understand the content under each section.

Develop

BRINGING DESIGN TO LIFE

SKETCHES

After getting a clear idea of the content to be added to each screen, I started searching for inspiration for UI elements that resonate well with the concept and idea of the product.

BRINGING DESIGN TO LIFE

GREYSCALE WIREFRAMES

I translated my sketches into grayscale wireframes in Figma and created a working prototype. This prototype was key to testing the functionality of my app flow and perceiving if users could navigate within the app easily.

SMALL CHANGES = BIG RESULTS

USABILITY TESTING & ITERATIONS

This was the most crucial part of my design process! I was able to put my design to test with real users. During a series of remote and in-person moderated tests, I observed how users were interacting with the app. I performed the test with 8 people and gave them a series of tasks to perform.

Users I performed usability testing are in their mid-20s and are sustainable enthusiasts who have adopted many small and big eco-friendly ways in their lifestyle.

Tasks given to them were:

You are running out of Kitchen Towels and want to purchase them from the app.
You want to try a healthy salad bowl and want to see how to make one.
Make a donation from the app.

My Observations:

Users found the app idea interesting and needful.
They were able to perform the tasks intuitively and with ease.
The app branding and color scheme were in sync with the app idea.
Users found the illustrations attractive and gave a gist of the app idea.
One-liners in the app after accomplishing a task were encouraging.
Tracking the product after ordering it can be highlighted better bar can be highlighted better.

Deliver

GIVING A PERSONALITY

BRAND IDENTITY

After many rounds of testing, synthesizing, and revising, I was ready to define the visual identity of my application and bring it to life!

The goal was to reflect the app's intention and correlate it with the values of sustainability and humility towards nature.

I chose a combination of teal green and nude as my primary and secondary colors. They are well-grounded and calming to look at and represent the relationship between nature and earth. Pastel yellow and blue were chosen as accent colors in illustrations.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Prototype

TYING IT TOGETHER

HI-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES

View prototype

Walkthrough/Onboarding

Walkthrough stories depicting the features of the product create a coherent impression on users who open the app for the first time. Simple Onboarding allows them to start using the app easily

Home Page

The Home page is of course, the binding page of the app. Users can navigate through all the functions of the app from here.

Shop with trust and ease

The products are categorized and further sub-categorized for users to be able to easily find the products they are looking for.

Recycle and Donate often

The product offers easy Donation services. Users also gain eco coins on each donation made through the app.
“Community” in the app helps users connect with various composting and recycling facilities near them.

Learnings

LOOKING INTO THE FUTURE

NEXT STEPS

Incorporating challenges that would help a cause. (Benefit the user’s lifestyle and the environment)
Including style guides that highlight sustainability as the new normal
Creating a city-specific directory of recycling and waste services that would help connect locals better

SELF REFLECTION

KEY LEARNINGS

Developing the concept and generating ideas that I resonate with.
Conducting interviews and understanding users’ take on the problem, their pain points, and working towards solutions.
Getting to know the prospective users and creating realistic personas.
Creating the project in 14 weeks and appreciating the gradual improvement in my workflow.
Being receptive to others’ feedback but still making decisions that felt right.