Carbon tracking is not a new idea - however I saw that current sustainability apps (EarthHero, Joro, Capture) had key pitfalls that made it difficult to stick with users:
Commons’ core feature is granular tracking via card transactions
Capture focuses too much on tracking transit details to the point of minutes
Instead of focusing on the carbon footprint of the current lifestyle, Green would focus on engaging education on how each sustainable lifestyle change would lead to less carbon, not necessarily track it in an overly detailed way.
In EarthHero there is an overwhelming amount of actions to read through in the start
Information overload - often times the apps will introduce all actions at once with paragraphs of detail, making it stressful for those who find environmentalism a “high commitment” activity to consider taking action.
I focused on limiting the number of sustainable actions and introducing them slowly overtime. Because the app can be “completed” there is an incentive to follow through.
The core idea behind Green is approachable sustainability education. I believe current education doesn’t dive into the nuances of sustainable actions. For example take recycling, something everyone is taught to do from a young age. However, most people don’t know that entire recycling bins cannot be recycled if there is even one contaminated item in them and as a result only 5% of plastic wastes are recycled, making it even more important to reduce and reuse instead.
Screen Recording 2024-12-09 at 1.00.05 PM.mov
The day before each week starts (a week is not day specific but a 7 day cycle), the user is introduced to their “Goal of the Week” and some education on why that goal matters.
I provide an option to add all the goals from previous weeks to encourage continual practice of goals.
Because the user could open their app at any point in the day to set their goals for the week, the weekly tracking doesn’t start until the next day.
Screen Recording 2024-12-09 at 12.41.06 AM.mov
At any time after the weekly new goal onboarding is over, they can view their stats to see their current and all time progress. By quantifying how much actions can impact how much carbon is diverted, it provides a basis for why these individual actions matter.
I provide additional “challenges” to reward users for continuous app usage, completing their daily goals, and bringing in more goals from previous weeks.
I also allow users to look at previous goals to review past lessons and content.
Screen Recording 2024-12-09 at 12.42.32 AM.mov
In this flow, I show how at the end of each day users get notifications prompting to see if they completed their daily tasks.
Screen Recording 2024-12-09 at 12.43.47 AM.mov
They are also able to mark off their weekly tasks at any time and undo if it’s a misclick. These tasks are classified as weekly as it would not make sense to have a daily notification for them.
For the future state of this app I plan to integrate the concept of collective action as a means of encouragement. If one person’s actions are equal to how much one tree saves in a year, then a million people’s actions becomes a whole forest.
I also plan to integrate iOS home widgets as a way for users to remember to log their Goals in the app and to track progress, in case a notification is not enough to remind them.
All screens and animations were done in Figma and entire branding, logo, app design, design system, user testing, and concept was done by me. Key screens such as app’s completed state, challenges list, and challenge completion interaction were kept out of scope for this initial concept in favor of mocking up core flows. Initial idea was done at a hackathon in a few hours - subsequent refinements, refinements, mechanics, and interactive animations were done in my spare time.
