I’ve officially survived my first week at General Assembly! For our first case study we were tasked to solve an everyday problem. Driven by my passion for sustainability, I decided to do my first case study on the conservation of the environment. Growing up in California and in the bay area, where we have strict recycling/waste management and where people are more socially aware of sustainability (compared to other states), I initially felt I would have a pretty good sense of where my interviewees’ stance on recycling and sustainability would be. To my surprise, this assumption proved to be very, very wrong. I asked a broad range of questions on regulations, recycling, waste habits, what problems and solutions my interviewees saw, and if they carry their own reusable bottles and bags. These were my findings.
Young professionals are aware and are concerned about waste and trash.
Home regulations are working, but public regulations are not.
Current incentives to be sustainable are too low and the inconvenience is too high.
Social pressure is needed to initiate habit change.
The problem was incredibly clear.
“In any good community, there has to be a certain social contract between people in the community and the social contract is a code of conduct. It was a moment I felt very bad because I couldn’t control myself to meet that social expectation.”
“At home you are more intentional, but in a public space is where environment issues happen more because you have less ownership for it.”
“I don’t only because convenience is a huge factor for me.”
“If I could see how much trash I was making that would motivate me to use less.”
Young professionals are aware and recognize trash and waste is a huge problem in our community or society. However, there is a lack of incentive, time, and convenience to enforce change of habit.
This news was incredibly depressing to me. Thus, I wanted to understand what would motivate people to change their existing habits. With no clear direction or solution, I came up with 3 hypothesis: carbon tracking would incite change in the interviewees, the interviewees would throw plastic in the recycling bin rather than the trash bin if the distance was 2 blocks or less, and reward points would be enough incentive to motivate change.
Through my second round of interviews, with two rounds of affinity mapping, I found the highest incentive was rewards/points.
My solution is to create a cash back incentive to change the habits of the users to motivate them to bring reusable items to participating stores. This will enforce a change of habit, and thus, encourage social reform.
Now having a clearer solution, I created a couple of rounds of user flows and sketches for what the application - named Greenify - would look like. The solution is that once a retail store partners with Greenify, they are immediately joining a community where participating users can begin to earn rewards when they bring their own reusable product during the checkout process. Purchasing through the application would result in instant cash back. I created a simple storyboard to showcase this process.
“Jane and Anne are going out for coffee. Jane always brings her own reusable mug. The coffee shop accepts Greenify. As an existing user, Jane already has an account and the app has already been synced to her bank account and credit card. She hands her mug to the cashier who charges her through the app. She gets instant cash back after paying. Jane gets her coffee and is helping the environment by not producing additional single-use waste. Anne sees this and wants to earn cash back too so she also downloads Greenify on her phone. She asks Jane to remind her to bring her own mug next time so she can also participate in the savings and rewards.”
First, I tested the app on a paper prototype and made suggested changes on the clickable prototype. This video showcases only the solution to my problem. Additional functions will eventually be added to Greenify.
Overall, my first case study was an incredibly intense and rewarding experience. I had to get out of my comfort zone of finding a solution to a problem and, instead, focus on finding the problem. I also had to get comfortable thinking outside the box, instead of thinking there is only one solution. I found out there could be multiple solutions, but among those many solutions, there are better ways of solving the problem. While synthesizing, there were a couple of times I wanted to give up and change my topic; however, I knew the topic on environment would be a challenge for me. I would have been disappointed if I gave up without finding a sound solution. Upon completion of this project, I feel incredibly rewarded and motivated to continue to make a positive change towards sustainability and environmental change for a world with less waste.
