The EasyGreen
Design question:
How might design create an experience that encourages uni students to live more sustainably?
Design For Sustainable Consumption
The Team:
Haili Wu
Julia Hong
Rong Jing
Chenhao Luo
The Project Outline:
In 1955, just five years after mass production began, plastic had become indispensable to people’s lives.
A few years later, Kenyon and Kridler found plastic waste inside marine animals, and plastic pollution was recognised as a critical ecological issue.
Today, new policies are restricting plastic use, and new materials are replacing oil-based plastics.
However, many solutions come with their own problems. Bioplastic can only biodegrade in specific environments, while recycled plastic can only be reused a limited number of times.
According to Greenpeace, the UK generates the second-highest amount of plastic waste per person globally.
These troubling facts lead us to ask: How might design create an experience that encourages uni students to live more sustainably?
Design Process
Interview
We began our field research by examining our target users’ consumption and waste-management behaviours to understand what drives their contributions to these issues. Most participants were aware that using less plastic is more sustainable. However, they made little effort to do so in practice because, as students, they cared more about living on a tight budget than about how 'green' they could be.
cultural probes
After understanding what our users do, why they do it, and what drives the problem, we want to learn what they think and dream about, and what they find personally meaningful. These insights could inspire innovative solutions. This stage should help us identify design opportunities and develop a persona for our user through an empathetic approach. We therefore chose to use cultural probes, which give users more time to reflect deeply on themselves. The probes yielded significant results, with participants sharing many exciting thoughts and ideas. Most participants were aware that using less plastic is more sustainable. However, they were not making much effort to do so in real life because they believed new technology would solve the problem in the future.
Persona
We extracted and summarised their characteristics into three user personas.
We chose Molly as our end user because her persona represents the largest share of our research participants and has the greatest potential to drive change. The group Molly represents knows they should use less plastic but doesn’t make enough effort in practice, as they prioritise convenience and price and consider their individual impact trivial. To them, environmental problems are for scientists to solve.
Design Opportunity
We realised that creating something that raises users' awareness and motivates them is critical. Our research showed that end users’ behaviours can be influenced by what they value. In this case, users value money and convenience. This led us to the initial concept for EasyGreen: a digital currency generated by users’ plastic consumption behaviours, designed to help them reduce their plastic consumption.
Idea Mockup
We choose an app because it has a lower environmental impact throughout its life cycle and fits more deeply into our users’ lives, giving them the convenient experience they value. We start with a low-fidelity framework mock-up, then refine the design through constant iteration with our users.
User Testing & Concept Refinement
Before reaching our outcome, we ran several rounds of user testing to ensure the changes would create a straightforward user experience. We used a low-fidelity prototype and held individual feedback sessions with each participant, helping them feel comfortable pointing out problems. We also used a digital prototype to make testing more engaging. The user testing process helped us refine our idea and critically evaluate the outcome.
Outcome
As the storyboard shows, Molly can scan her receipt after shopping and earn coins based on how much plastic she brought. These digital coins influence her decision-making, encouraging her to reduce plastic consumption and creating a positive feedback loop.
