UX/UI Case Study: HONEST startup - Roland Richard Toth (rolipok.design) User experience design, User interface design, Graphics

CASE STUDY

HONEST

A social good start-up with digital platforms to help people understand water pollution and its effects, and promote the ECO-minded lifestyle.

Capstone project — Google UX design course

Role

UX/UI design

Duration

October - November, 2022

Sector

Social good, Education, Sustainability

Background

HONEST is a fictional* brand and it was created as part of my Google UX design course in the final period. I was tasked to create an application for social good. Choosing from many optional categories, I found the start-ups with educational purpose the most inviting, useful and challenging topic.

*Some information has been made up strictly for this capstone project, some information convey real data. QR codes and hyperlinks are not linked to existing websites and applications.

The mission

To create a cross-platform experience tool for people to understand the effects of extreme water pollution.

The story behind it

This start-up was born as a winner of the “Educate towards green“ challenge. The competition was announced in five different categories, as a joint program of the UK government and three large environmental organisations to fund the best start-up ideas for helping, and educating people to become more eco-minded and promote the green future.

Our winner start-up idea in “Clear water” category is aiming to first design a tool what can be used across multiple platforms (screen sizes) with the purpose of spreading educational information and material about the water pollution and its effects.

The problem
under the scope

A global freshwater crisis is already present. An international survey came up with 19 points of solutions to the freshwater crisis. The 19 best solutions to the global freshwater crisis captured by a GlobeScan and SustainAbility poll of more than 1200 leading international experts in 80 countries. The very first point is: education and awareness.

Image representing environmental awareness

The goal
‍

To inform, educate and spread the eco-minded spirit. The core of the goals is to grasp the interest of the everyday people, enlighten them about the serious effects of water pollution and encourage them toward an enhanced mindset of environmental awareness for the common good and greener future.

In the end, changing the face of this crisis involves education to motivate new behaviours. The most critical task is making sure the problem is much better understood worldwide.

DESIGN PROCESS

Empathise

RESEARCH

Standing alone —competitive audit & secondary research

My online research highlighted that there is no similar educative platform on the market yet, which is specifically designed to inform the “big crowd” about water pollution. My research applied to informative platforms what serve educative material about pollution and environmental awareness in general (indirect competitors). A complete competitive audit couldn’t be conducted in lack of direct competitors.

Although there are many start-ups and and online platforms standing for environmental awareness, those are not specifically standing for water pollution.

As secondary research, first, I collected facts and data about the water crisis and its evolving impacts.

Reaching out — primary research

My primary research was focused on to figure out the willingness, motivation and time of the common people for learning about water pollution and tending to be more eco-minded. The goal was to gather insights and determine the best ways of conveying educative information to people.

Research form: quantitative
‍
Research method: survey

Location: UK—EU, remote/online

Date: sessions take place on the
4th and 5th of October, 2022

Length: sessions take average
10 minutes

25 participants, mixed age(12 - 60),
mixed gender common people

The research was accessible
in four languages

Research questions (5)

How would you rate your knowledge about water pollution on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is very low and 10 is very good?
How would you rate your willingness to learn about water pollution, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 very weak and 10 is very strong?
How would you rate your lifestyle in terms of environmental awareness? Please rate on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is “it does not concern me” and 10 is “i care very much”.
How would you rate your willingness to become more eco-minded with your lifestyle, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 very weak and 10 is very strong?
How many minutes do you think you could spare to learn about water pollution on an average day? Please select one of the following:

5 - 15 - 30 - 60 or more minutes

Research insights

The most important things the research showed that people have the willingness towards learning about water pollution, also to become more eco-minded, but it is not their priority in lack of free time.

The solution: location... location... location...

HONEST will focus on location and timing and try to grab people attention when they unintentionally have some free time on hand, and use this to make their interest learning about water pollution. QR codes and marketing material to the mobile app and website will be placed out in public areas where people usually wait: places would include libraries, waiting rooms (surgeries, GPs, hospitals, dental practices), post offices, schools, communal centres.
‍
Further, large size interactive displays will be placed to the same places for direct use of the website.

DESIGN PROCESS

Define

IMPLEMENTATION

Start-up technical challenges: find the best way to convey information when people have free time to listen. The project aims to collaborate with local councils and set up the most effective options at the given areas to promote this material then implement informative solutions.

For instance, in collaboration with the local council, we aim to seek cooperation from communal spaces to install smart screen devices featuring educational data, QR codes and promotional material linked to HONEST's website.

UNDERSTANDING THE USER

Persona 1

Peter F.

Age: 35
Education: Berlin University of the Arts
Hometown: Berlin, Germany
Family: wife, daughter
Occupation: cafe manager at art gallery

‍Goals:
‍Having an easy way to learn more about eco friendly solutions in the everyday life and teach his child about it.

‍Frustrations:
‍Working too much and in lack of free time, he can’t afford to read through long online articles, he has only pop-up 3-6 minute breaks during work.

Problem statement:

Peter is a barista at a small cafe, who needs an easy to use education platform about pollution, because it would help him and his child to live a greener life style.

Persona 2

Anna W.

Age: 42
Education: West London University
Hometown: Manchester, UK
Family: husband, son
Occupation: financial agent

‍Goals:
‍Having an easy way to educate her child toward a responsible and eco-minded life style.

‍Frustrations:
‍She doesn't find easy to read online educational material for her 14 year old son, who has problems to focus on studying for a long period of time.

Problem statement:

Anna is a financial agent, who needs an easy to browse and use digital platform for her son, because she wants him to live an eco friendly life.

DESIGN PROCESS

Ideate

User journey

Goal

Learn about water pollution, understand how to become more eco-minded.

Phases

Open the app/website

Complete a seminar

Actions

Deciding to learn about water pollution
Download the app/open website

Choose the 5 min seminar
Complete the seminar

Share the app/website with a friend
Return to home screen
Learn more/leave, come back later and learn more

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

Challenges
in design

The responsive website is tailored for mobile, tablet, laptop, desktop and large (43" vertical) smart screens. The dedicated mobile app and the responsive website must share strong similarities in their basic perspectives, ensuring a cohesive user experience across different platforms.
HONEST aims to reach out to the most possible number of people, where the "sharing" function is crucial.
The motion aims to grab the users attention in their vacant moments, the design has to be gripping enough - also simple enough to understand and absolve the information -, for anyone above the age of 10.
The target audience is the people waiting in public places, using the platform on their mobile, therefore i used the mobile first approach in the design process.

This is some text inside of a div block.

Accessibility

The first version will be designed in English, there are further plans to add 3 more available language options to the platforms
There is a light and dark theme design as well for all platforms
The mobile app and responsive website text content is accessible for screen readers

My responsibilities

Research

Wireframing - Prototyping

Conducting usability studies

Accounting for accessibility

Information architecture

Iterations on design

Responsive design

DESIGN PROCESS

Prototype

DESIGN

Wireframing — Mobile app

Mobile app basic userflow, first digital wireframes

HONEST mobile app - wireframes, basic user flow

DESIGN PROCESS

Test

Usability study

Unmoderated - Online (remote) - 5 participants

Participants were asked to accomplish 3 tasks. The main task was to complete the main user flow above.
After gathering and organising observations, establishing themes, the identified insights to the main user flow:

There is no button or link to the Home page from "lesson page 1"

P0 insight: clear indication for return to the Home page needs to be added to the "lesson page 1"

Users don't feel comfortable paging with a button in a short reading, they prefer one, scrollable screen for one chapter

P0 insight: "lesson page 1" and "lesson page 2" needs to be merged into one scrollable page

Users did not use of the "Discover" button

P1 insight: "Discover" button needs to be removed from the navigation, leaving all call to action buttons clearly indicating to an exact topic

DESIGN PROCESS

New iteration

Implementing the test results

Applying changes based on the insights

Insight no.1 becomes unnecessary after applying the next P0 insight

Wireframes - responsive website

Homepage - Web - Desktop and smart screens

HOMEPAGE - WEB - TABLET AND MOBILE

Mockups — mobile

Mobile appp home screen — Dark/light theme

HONEST mobile app - dark and light theme

STYLING

RESPONSIVE WEBSITE

Web home screen — Dark/light theme

Mobile

Tablet

Desktop/Smart screens

CONCLUSIONS

Nationwide project requires bigger team, longer planning, more time and finance

The start-up first ambition was to create digital solutions what can be adopted by certain public places, integrates sustainability goals in the fresh water field and helps society adopt green lifestyle ideas.
To achieve this, the start-up would need a much larger volume in many aspects, such as man power, technical infrastructure and funding. Although it’s a possibly workable way to start off in small, implement the solutions in few public places, then grow by the time, spreading word and marketing.

Possible next steps

If there was more time I would:

1: conduct more usability studies, reiterate on the design based on the insights
2: conduct new research to understand more the average user, then adjust implementation according to the insights

What have I learned?

As a capstone project of my course, this project helped me to practice and gain more experience in all steps through a whole design process. It helped me to deepen my knowledge in user experience and user interface design. It also helped me to explore approaches to educative and informative digital platforms and to find out how their efficiency can be optimized in accordance with environmental awareness goals.

Further:

Big challenges needs more time to success. When it comes to goals like forming the willingness of people to learn, and forming their thinking about sustainability, we need to think in the long run, this process can not happen in a short amount of time.
Designing for “everyone” is much more challenging than designing for limited user (target) groups.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME!

Interested in working with me?

Let’s connect: rolipok@icloud.com

CASe STUDY: HONEST