GreenCeption
Application - Product design
-- Illustrator -- Photoshop-- Figma --Blender
Mission
GreenCeption
This was a make believe assignment in where a concept of a application was to be produced with accompanying product. The application was supposed to focus on the environment and how an application could incite and encourage to better environmental living.
"Create an application that can help people live greener lives"
Process
To find a theme for the project, since environmental applications exist in abundance, a market analysis was made to find out what was already being done. Also a questioner was sent out internally on the university to ask people what they thought they wanted to improve on and or get help with regarding their environmental goals. What was found out was that tracking ones waste and getting light and easy tips on environmental thinking was something that would make people interested.
Since there had to be an artefact related to this application, and based on the research and questionnaire, the artefact became a scale. Two in fact, one was to easily be carried around like a keychain accessory and the other one a more stationary one could have at home. This was to always make sure one could measure their waste and log it properly in the application.
Decisions
Another big question was how this application could actually be useful or fun for a user, not just another reminder that our environment is going under. This was also found out in a questionnaire that most people wanted to have access to fun informative quizzes but also have some kind of community around it. This lead to the application needing to have a strong community focus since most people know about the environmental struggles today but it is hard to motivate without external pressure.
Design
The application had to be simple and not take to much time to the user to ensure that it would be used. It was not meant to become something a user would interact with for longer stretches of time, but entice a will to log on and check the status everyday. Therefore a gamification function where one could compare to friends or a leaderboard was decided on to create the since that something was being accomplished and at the same time create a good feeling that this leaderboard could represent a green conscious as well.
Paper Prototypes
Paper prototypes were made to quickly be able to asses the different possibility for artefacts. At the same time a lot of sketching on the UI was done and also planning for the flow of the application.
Prototype
After the initial paper mockups had been completed they were digitalized, due to time pressure there was no time to test the mockups with actual users. They were digitalized using Figma and was laid out so that the look and feel could be assessed and iterated to become as good as possible.
During the digitalization of the UI the artefacts came to a more "realistic" life with the help of Blender. In order to see how the product would function and work, as well as for presentation purposes. They were recreated in 3D.
Learnings
Making products to an application really elevates the difficulty in justifying its use to an user. How to think about scenarios where users have to do multiple things, but not really gain anything in the moment for it. This was challenging but also much fun since it gave an opportunity to try this thinking process out.
Have a solid foundation of why something is done. Think about broader perspectives and learn to incorporate the users into a new thinking but on their terms! If you can´t deliver a perfect solution ask what they want to have and what they can see themselves doing.
