EKKO
An app making sustainability action fun and impactful
Ekko: The Backstory & the Design Problem
Ekko are pioneers of the sustainability space, offering a digital marketplace and information hub of all things eco for businesses and consumers. They promote sustainable products and services, provide literature on practicing greener living, and are helping people become more aware of greenwashing in their day-to-day.
Their latest initiative is a concept called "Ekko Score", an algorithm that cleverly processes a range of smaller eco credentials to produce a larger aggregated score. This is to allocate accountability to a basic consumer for their sustainability choices, allowing them to improve their scores through various eco-conscious ways and elevate their civic blueprint from "consumer" to "citizen". They have been developing an app that scores products only, but were wanting to expand the idea so the individual has responsibility and awareness of their habits in areas beyond their product purchases, including but not limited to recycling, conservation, and emissions.
Source: https://ekko.world/
Project Overview
The project timeline from conceptualisation to presentation was 7 weeks.
My role was to develop a client-facing app designed to support Ekko's digitised sustainability initiatives that incorporated the scoring algorithm. With primary focus on UI and less on the research process, the additional consideration was to keep users coming back. This could have been achieved by making improvements to the existing app and/or add an extra feature. I chose to incorporate both of these ideas in my design.
Reframing the Problem
Following extensive brainstorming to construct a solid problem statement, I landed on one that encompassed all of the client's concerns:
HOW MIGHT WE...
Tackling the Research
How do people really feel about sustainability?
I engaged 4 people who were considered basic consumers to participate in rapid interviews and usability tests for this project. The opinions of the 4 users revealed that words such as "sustainability", "eco-friendly", "green" and any other designations have associations with extreme left-leaning politics, are too hard a concept to grasp, and/or other than "doing good" on an environmental scale, have very little personal benefit.
What did people think of Ekko's initial app design?
Ekko provided us with wireframes pre-designed by their internal product team as a point of reference. Although there was no interactive prototype, I showed the wireframes to my 4 test participants who still offered a range of valuable insights:
-
Add some vibrancy to the look and feel (colour scheme, images, animations)
-
Make engagement with content more fun and playful, such as through the use of more encouraging language
-
Make the content/wording more interpretable by breaking down information in more accessible chunks
-
Keep each navigation tab simple and in its categorical element
-
Add a feature that will maintain interest (gamification, reward, health benefit)
Source: Ekko
In other words...
Ideation
I went back and forth on possible ideas, particularly with a way to keep users engaged and returning. I kept circling back to one that was difficult to overlook.
INTRODUCING: EKKO BUCKS!
Ekko Bucks are essentially a reward system, in which, based on particular traceable and verifiable actions, a user can collect coins that have real monetary value. This money can be redeemed at any partnered company with Ekko (including product listings on Ekko World), donated, or invested.
The benefits of this include:
-
Driving engagement in a gamified way
-
Potentially improving consumer sustainability habits and get them to think more like "citizens", especially if there is reward for effort
-
Good promotion of sustainable companies and increased business relations
-
Greenwashing awareness, as users can only spend the money at Ekko approved businesses
Designing the Solution
With Figma as the core prototyping tool, an iterative process took place in attempt to strike a nice balance between usability and graphical structures. I also designed the Ekko Bucks logo from the existing Ekko insignia and incorporated it into the concept.
The Prototype
After many iterations, multi-fidelity work, trial-and-errors, and good old caffeine, I was ready to present a newly created web-app to the client with some UI modifications to the original design and a fresh monetary feature to strengthen user retention.
Feedback
What did users have to say about the app?
I conducted another round of usability and user testing on my final design with the same 4 participants who provided initial input. Here's what they had to say.
Easy to use and straight-forward navigation.
The Ekko Bucks concept is awesome. It's exciting that I get to make money from a good action and use that money on good quality products.
This will definitely make me want to walk rather than drive to short distance locations.
What did the client have to say about the app?
These were the thought and sentiments expressed by Jennifer Nielsen - Founder and Director of Ekko, and primary stakeholder of the project.
-
Enticed by the use of graphical elements to make the app more interactive and engaging
-
Questioned whether Ekko Bucks should be used exclusively for eco products and rather offer expansion to promote sensible (rather than restricted) spending
-
Highly intrigued by the Ekko Bucks idea, and considering discussing with board members to potentially implement as they had a similar concept in mind
Final Thoughts & Reflections
There is much to celebrate with this project - particularly with producing a prototype for a completely new app in such a small delivery time frame. I look at the wins, the limitations, and the learnings.
Industry education: I identify as someone who resonates with Ekko's target audience (i.e. normal consumer), so exposure to the sustainability space not only revealed the scope of product and service offerings there can and will be in this sector, but instilled a cognisance of my own place in an increasingly green world.
More research = more insights: The lean time frame and emphasis on UI delivery meant there was little opportunity for some deeper research, such as competitive analysis to identify UI and conceptual trends in similar apps and user surveys to cast a wider net of perceptions.
Design outcomes: I treated the solution as an MVP, in that it displayed and behaved exactly as intended, bringing what I felt was an appropriate graphical construct without going too overboard. Was this the correct approach? Would my solution stand tall amongst potential competitors? Would users be continuously engaged and committed to Ekko's mission through this design? How could I have enhanced the accessibility of the product, namely in the colour palette to account for red-green colour blindness? These are considerations to take forward if I iterate and refine the app down the line.
Keep an eye out for Ekko as they take sustainable living to a whole new level!