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ECO HERO
Overview: It is an application designed to help users track the carbon footprint of Arçelik products they use, intending to promote sustainable habits for reducing carbon emissions and conserving energy and water.
Timeline: Spring 2021 (7 weeks)
Role: UX Researcher, UX/UI Designer
Toolkit: Miro, Figma, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Procreate, Zoom, Google Forms
CALCULATE
COMMUNITY
CHALLANGES
Eco Hero is a mobile application that aims to increase users' environmental awareness, equipped with carbon footprint calculation algorithms, gamification mechanics, and social interaction features.
Eco Hero makes it easy to adopt environmentally friendly habits. Moreover, everyone here shares the same purpose. Read, ask questions, discuss, and learn! Gain new experiences by developing new habits.
Community & Challanges
Facilitate easy information flow and habit formation within communities
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Community Content: Articles, question & answer forum, discussion groups, video content
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Challanges: It is very easy to acquire new habits by completing tasks with challenges. Successfully completed tasks will be rewarded with points and special prizes. In this way, users are both motivated and can track their progress.
Development Tracking
Test your carbon footprint
Users can assess their climate change efforts through the carbon footprint test in Eco Hero. Regular testing helps maintain motivation by showing the results of their actions.
- Create awareness: Understand the impact of your daily habits on the environment.
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Set goals: Set personal goals to reduce your carbon footprint.
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Track your progress: Increase your motivation by seeing the results of the steps you take.
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Compare with your country and the world: Track your progress by comparing it with other people.
Shopping
Complete Goals, Earn Points, Enjoy Shopping!
How does it work?
- Complete Goals: Earn points by completing various tasks in our app.
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Collect Points: Accumulate the points you earn in your account.
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Shop: Choose the products you like and pay with your points.
UX Research
Overview
Eco Hero is an application that enables users to learn sustainable habits for reducing their carbon footprint, earn credits by completing challenges, and use those credits to access new knowledge or make purchases.
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Join communities
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Read daily readings
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Ask your questions and answer others' questions
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Watch videos from experts
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Join challenges
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Earn credits
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Check your Arçelik devices' water and electricity savings
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Shop from Arçelik's partner companies
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This project aims to explore the motivations behind the adoption of new habits and strategies for sustaining them. Understanding these factors can help in promoting new habits to reduce individuals' carbon footprint.
Research Plan
Turkey has the highest increase in carbon emissions compared to 1990 levels. Since 1990, greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 110.4%.
The largest portion of Turkey's total Ecological Footprint, 46-49% (1.24-1.36 kha per person), arises from the demand necessary to capture CO2 emissions.
Turkey's CO2 emissions originate from the following sources:
%21
from personal transportation
%20
from capital accumulation
%17
from food consumption
What can be done individually?
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vegan/vegetarian diet 🥗
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use of renewable energy and energy-saving products ⚡
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local production instead of imported food and beverages 👩🌾
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less plastic ♻️
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separating garbage 🗑️
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increasing plants in the environment 🌿
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reducing individual vehicle use 🚎
How do actions become routines?
I read Charles Duhigg's book "The Power of Habit" to learn the tricks of habit formation. This book's "habit diagram" was a significant element in my research.
"The key to forming a new habit is changing your routine."
"Reward creates desire."
"If you can identify the cue and the reward, you can change the routine. But some habits require another element: belief."
To think about turning it into a routine and ways to gain continuity, I made mindmaps to visualize the process and better understand it.
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Ways to Change Habits
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Begin with simple steps, such as turning off the lights 👣
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Use a calendar and "x" ("Don't break the chain strategy") ✅
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Determine what to do when and where 📍
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Change the environment 🏡
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Meet the right people 🧑🤝🧑
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Adopt the thoughts of a scientist or expert on the subject 🧐
Competitive Analysis
User Interview
24 people were interviewed: 16 interviews were conducted remotely via Zoom, while 8 interviews were conducted face-to-face.
01
Neriman, 21, University Student
MOTIVATION
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"I thought that if I changed, things would change. Even one person can make a difference."
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"When I bought a piece of clothing and saw how many liters of water it took to produce it, I decided to make a change."
DEMOTIVATION
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"The people I live with don't pay as much attention as I do. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one."
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"I don't know where to find the right information."
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"I want to start recycling at home, but I don't know how to begin."
NEEDS
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"Without tangible examples, people find it difficult to believe that what they are doing is effective."
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To avoid feeling alone, it is important to see that others are facing similar challenges.
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She needs a platform where she can access information.
02
Lütfi, 53, Senior Engineer, World Traveler
MOTIVATION
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"I am not a man who takes action on his own. I need someone to be with me."
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"It's not difficult to be mindful of waste and conserve water and energy. I noticed that life continues in this manner."
DEMOTIVATION
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"Nobody is paying attention. I feel like my efforts are going to waste."
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"Brands must take more action to promote sustainable living and reduce their carbon footprint."
NEEDS
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"It might be beneficial to show interest and work on things that I am hesitant to do, things I know but don't do, or things I don't know."
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"There are hundreds of thousands of people who have walked the same path. Seeking advice and guidance from them makes it easier for all of us to continue. I always receive common questions from those around me."
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To avoid feeling alone, it is important to see that others are facing similar challenges.
03
Oğuz, 29, Economist
MOTIVATION
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"Having someone with you while changing all habits can be both supportive and a morale-boosting force."
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"Instead of buying two tomatoes on my way home from the market, I go to the market once a week, saving both money and time."
DEMOTIVATION
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"I have difficulty finding the right information."
NEEDS
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"It would be nice to learn how much my actions have affected the world, how much damage they have caused, and to see what more I can do."
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"Sharing experiences can be great. I am a competitive person by nature. Everyone needs a partner. I would like to have someone to ask when I get stuck or to support me when I give up."
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"I don't think I spend much time making changes, but I do spend time researching. I don't see this as wasting time, but as taking time. I spend the time I have for myself researching what I can do to reduce my carbon footprint."
Research Findings
🧐 Demonstration of the impact of actions on the environment
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Eco Hero uses gamification mechanics to encourage users to adopt eco-friendly habits.
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Each completed task earns the user reward points, while uncompleted tasks are linked to the real-world effects of climate change.
🤝 Communication of people serving a common purpose
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Communities motivate people to take action. Users feel that they are not alone when they see people who are enthusiastic about the same goal as them.
🔎 Easy access to information
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To keep together the research channels that the user may need (video resources, articles, discussion groups, forums where they can ask questions) and provide easy access.
🦮 Guiding, motivational external factor
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User research indicates that emotional connections enhance engagement in environmentally friendly behaviors. To support users in achieving sustainable living goals, I plan to incorporate a virtual pet into the application.
UX Design
Features Roadmap
In order to idetify needed features To identify the necessary features for the app, I utilized the Card Sorting technique.the app, I used Card Sorting technique.
Must Have
Sign up/Login: Users have to be able to set their profile
Join Community: Creating a source of information and motivation by reading articles on the subject, watching videos, asking and answering questions, and participating in chat rooms.
Challenge Themselves: Taking action to acquire new habits
Nice to Have
Check the Progress: Controlling global and individual progress
Challenge Themselves: Participate in Challenges to earn credits to make more purchases or benefit from community information.
Community Readings with Credits: Users can access long and detailed articles.
Community Q&A: Users can ask their questions to other users, support their development by answering someone else's questions.
Community Chatrooms with Credits: Get the opportunity to discuss with experts by joining their chat rooms.
Community Videos with Credits: Watch long videos and speeches from experts.
Connect Arçelik Devices: See how often you use the device and what the energy and water consumption correspond to.
Earn Credits: Earn credits through challenges to spend in communities and on purchases.
Suprising and Delightful
Recommendations: It will suggest new Communities and challenges based on what they have been choosing previously.
Shopping: Users can spend the credits they earn at Arçelik's contracted companies.
User Flow
I have created a Sitemap that includes primary, secondary, and tertiary navigation.
First, I developed the primary navigation by defining the main actions users might take:
challenge, community, shopping, and profile.
Then, I expanded and explored each of these sections.
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Redeem Credits
I wanted to make the app more engaging by motivating users to develop new habits and to keep up the momentum by competing with themselves.
Users can use the credits they earn from completing challenges to access information within communities or to make purchases from companies that have a partnership with Arçelik. If they run out of credits, they can purchase more from the Wallet.
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Challenge Map
After creating the user flows, I developed a sample challenge flow to explore the challenge logic and visualize the user process.
Wireframes
I began by creating wireframe drafts for the community's detail pages, including the reading, question and answer, chat rooms, and video pages.
After that, I worked on the challenge, community, shopping, and profile pages, which I divided into 4 parts.
UI Design
Overview
I've created a color palette with one primary, three secondary, and three neutral colors. I chose the red tone-coded #CF152D as the main color, similar to Arçelik's brand identity.
The choice for typography has landed on D-DIN, a sans-serif font with a decent x-height for legibility.
The Final Design
Each feature listed below was developed based on a comprehensive process involving thorough research, user stories, feedback collection, and meticulous user testing.
Login & Register
Test Your Carbon Footprint
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After becoming a member, an up-to-date carbon footprint test is performed. Users can repeat the test at any time to see their progress.
Joining Communities & Signing Challenges
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Research has shown that signing and promising something has a binding force. That's why there is a sign button before starting the challenges.
Community Content
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Communities consist of articles, Q&A, discussion groups, and video content.
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Users can use their credits for exclusive chatrooms with experts, long videos, and selected articles.
Pet Adoption for Motivation
The pet's status changes based on whether goals are completed:
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If the tasks are completed on time, the pet is happy and healthy.
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If the tasks are uncompleted or delayed, the pet becomes sick.
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If the tasks are not completed consecutively, the pet leaves the nest to find a new owner.
Goal Completion
Unfinished Goal & Delayed Goal
Shopping & Payment
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Users can get discount coupons from Arçelik products with the collected credits.
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Users can use the credits they earn to shop from other companies with which Arçelik has agreements.
Profile
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Users need to track their progress to maintain a consistent routine. They can check their progress using the calendar.
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As they earn points, they collect rewards.
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Additionally, they can view their rankings on the leaderboard.
My Learnings
A User-Centered UX Design Study on Habit-Acquisition Processes, Supported by Mind Map and Comprehensive User Research
This project offered me the opportunity to conduct in-depth research as it was a very interesting topic for me. Studies on human psychology and habit formation processes in particular kept me quite busy throughout the project.
The comprehensive literature review I conducted for the project helped me gain a broader perspective on the subject. In particular, the books I read on the reflections of human psychology on habit formation processes played an important role in my decision-making processes.
In this project, the mind map technique was the tool I used most frequently in visually organizing complex information and bringing different ideas together. I was able to better analyze the data I obtained and the hypotheses I created during user research by visualizing them on a mind map. I also aimed to create a more meaningful whole by categorizing and associating the information using post-it notes and tables.
The interviews in this project were longer and more comprehensive than in my other projects. The in-depth opinions of the participants on habit formation processes were an important factor in my design decisions. In particular, the interviews on the sustainability of motivation and individual differences in habit formation were important points that caught my attention during the design process.
In my initial design decisions, I tried to design a fairly comprehensive interface centered on the idea of creating a community. However, later on, I decided to design a simpler and easier-to-use interface by focusing on basic information sources (videos and articles) and interactive areas (question-answer forum and chatroom). In this way, both the user experience became better and the system became easier to manage.