Working on a gamification app
with a supergreen startup
with a supergreen startup
Product discovery, idea validation, stakeholder interviews, moderated user interviews, personas, motivational journeys, usability tests, prototyping, UI design workshop
Project overview
Zero Waste Journey
Sustainable lifestyle guide and gamification mobile app
Sustainable lifestyle guide and gamification mobile app
In September 2020 I had an amazing opportunity completing a Product Design course and start a project - the Zero Waste Journey - with a startup, a UX team and the guidance of UX studio employees as a UX researcher and designer. The stakeholder of the project was Klaudia Mascsák, founder of the Budapest based Zero Waste Journey startup company, whose idea was to present and spread the urban zero waste lifestyle among the citizens of Budapest.
THE TEAM
Our design team consisted of 5, plus our UX designer mentor, Gábor from UX studio. As we were experiencing all roles a product designer can have, we had research tasks as well as designer tasks such as prototyping, testing and iterating while cooperating with the client as well. UI and interaction design is still in progress.
The team met every Tuesday and Thursday for long hours personally at Impact Hub or UX studio office besides that we often used Google Meet, Messenger, Figma and Miro for effective communication and co-working.
The product
The vision of Zero Waste Journey:
„It is your guiding partner to live a concious lifestyle.
There is no application that includes all the functions that people need to live a zero waste lifestyle.
For every zero waste solution, there are independent applications.
There is no app that can help users to reach a zero-waste lifestyle step-by-step.
People feel pressure and social push; they quickly lose interest in actually living a zero-waste lifestyle.”
For every zero waste solution, there are independent applications.
There is no app that can help users to reach a zero-waste lifestyle step-by-step.
People feel pressure and social push; they quickly lose interest in actually living a zero-waste lifestyle.”
During nearly 6 months we designed the final prototype of the Zero Waste Journey mobile application, tested it several times and created a gamification based application that the user can learn with, be part of a community and be guided by the map network with zero waste shops, cafés, restaurants, selective waste containers, all the places that can take a huge part in living the zero waste lifestyle. The user can make an own account for free in the future, though now the app starts after the registration.
We tried to focus on these while bringing fresh ideas to the project. They aimed to have the first consistent and comprehensive zero waste learning app in Hungary, which can give information, knowledge, participation in a special community, guidance while having fun.
Challenges
The product was at a very early stage without a solid strategy. We had to find a use case where it could add value and validate the product idea in some months. We were a freshman team with limited experiences and time so we had to help each other and plan with a great care.
As it was a new product idea and the first in the market with competitors only from abroad we had to plan and build something very new. We had to validate the product idea, come up with an MVP and be actual, one step ahead from the possible competitors.
We had mentors from strong cross-functional teams to be able to develop, design productively: the CEO, marketing specialist and our UX team. However, the team members were located in their homes due to covid situation in Budapest, Hungary which was quite a challenge to our communication and processes.
UX Research for Zero Waste
Discovery and research methods
Narrowing the scope we started with 5-50 minute ideation workshops on different topics, which helped us thinking together as a team, getting us understand what our stakeholder would like to point.
To validate the product idea we made a well detailed interview with the stakeholder firstly, folllowed by several user interviews to understand how and why would they use the app, what could motivate them to use it. Then we collected problems and motivations according to these interviews, and we made groups of inner and outer motivations with begginer and advanced level zero waste lifestyle problems. After that we created 2 main personas, and focused on their possible problems. Prioritizing these problems, we made questions and from questions we formed solution ideas that we put in an impact-effort matrix.
We provided a value proposition, besides researching direct and undirect competitors for analysis, and presented several user stories to dig as deep as we can in the users’ mind and reach out for the best solution.
Goal
The goal of the research was to validate the product idea, discover all motivations and problems, dig deep in zero waste lifestyle problems, find a great way of gamification that suits well to the possible users'motivations and problems, help in deciding the direction the product may develop successfully and support the marketing strategy behind it.
Insights
EVALUATING INTERVIEWS
Stakeholder interviews
Our stakeholder had a clear view of 4 different fields the app should contain: gamification, map, social platform and some kind of monetization (coupon system, partnerships). She imagined the app as a Hungarian, cool and useful guide to zero waste life.
Problem:
It is really hard to start the zero waste lifestyle and it ir a great challenge to keep the user constantly motivated with a habit forming app.
Solution:
Gamification should be the main motivation tool of the app.
User interviews
Our UX team experts organised five 30-50 min long moderated user interviews with Google meets. We conducted them with a co-facilitator making the notes, using a well detailed interview script.
Problem:
The users are interested in evironmentally conciousness, they are worried about the future of their own and their loved ones. They already started 1 or 2 activities that are environmentally concious but they have difficulties, meanwhile they are lonely and unsure of what they are doing.
Solution:
The users must join a community that is stable and can support them with useful information. This has to a supported journey in which they can develope themselves as much as they want.
PROBLEM VALIDATION, GROUPING,
CREATING PERSONAS
CREATING PERSONAS
IDEAS, PRODUCT FEATURES
Value proposition:
Our app is for those environmentally concious people, whom would like to do more for their environment. The Zero Waste Journey app is a community builder mobile app that teaches playfully and helps to apply this mindset in the everday life. Unlike Go Zero Waste app, our product focuses not on the offering of zero waste products, but the knowledge, important places to go, and a fun game with a nice, cohesive community experience.
MOTIVATIONAL USER JOURNEY
SKETCHING
With the data and knowledge we have gathered in the discovery phase we continued the design process
with sketching low fidelity wireframes on paper and made our first ideas about the app design.
PROTOTYPE TESTING AND ITERATING
After crerating the first prototypes we have made 2 rounds of usability testing with real users and made the necessary iterations.
On the first round we gained useful feedbacks and improved the proto, then tested again and made those last tiny changes for the final presentation to the stakeholder.
After the 4 week design process the prototype we were glad to show her the results.
After the 4 week design process the prototype we were glad to show her the results.
6 Interviews 10 Usability tests 16 Iterations 27 Screens
Results of the first prototype test
-Too much text at Questionnaire, Task, Tips, Useful information pages We need to reduce the amount of text, form it, restructure it and make the pages more readable.
-Problem of the Task pages: It was not clear how the user can solve the tasks, or how the user can ask for tips and help
-The reward system stayed unclear, even after the user gained some points
-The game was not motivating enough for the users
-The structure of the app was inconsistent
-The tester was lost in the app, navigation needed to be more flexible and fluent
Results of the first iteration test
-Building in new features like the coupon system. Rethinking and restructuring the reward system with coupons will be more motivating and it provides a new sense in collecting points as well. Motivation is recharged all the time, together with the Rankings feature and the Invite Your Friends feature.
-More simplified Task screens made the motivation grow as well, and provided a sense of achievement to the user
-Extended Map - the map containes more information, more detailed shop info and we are going to connect that to the new coupon system
