Sara's Portfolio
Project Clover
Brief description & objective: During studying in MSc Innovation & Entrepreneurship course, I got a chance to work with my team on a client project to solve a real-life challenge. Our client, Easol, planned to launch “Project Clover”, a software platform for tracking and managing micro biodiversity projects. It is a marketplace to connect Bristol SMEs with local landowners. So, Easol asked our team to research Bristol SMEs' value proposition in investing in biodiversity projects and generate ideas that could add value to their investment. Then, build prototype to test it.
How might we statement: How might we provide a value adding service to Bristol SMEs that allows them to offset their environmental impact by funding local biodiversity projects.
Project duration: 3 months
My responsibilities:
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Carried out secondary research
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Interviewed Bristol SMEs' representatives
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Brainstormed ideas
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Co-created UX/UI and visual design
Approach and process:
Conducted secondary research, designed profiles of companies that prioritized sustainability and that did not prioritized sustainability, and tested them through interviews and surveys.
Analysed the results from testing and highlighted respondents' pains and gains.
Synthesized company's value of investing in biodiversity projects from secondary and primary research.
Brainstormed 185 ideas and evaluated the ideas through the Idea Prioritization Matrix.
Solutions:
Solution 1: Built the Ecoverse Enterprise Platform for companies to efficiently track, analyse and manage carbon emissions, invest and keep track of biodiversity projects as well as join in the Ecoverse game for branding and employee engagement.
Solution 2: Created a business community for the investors to build networking opportunities, gain partnerships with the third parties and receive consultancy services from professionals.
Solution 3: Operated official blog and social media to frequently update investment information and share biodiversity knowledge.
My responsibilities: UX/UI prototypes (shown below).
Our team built the UX/UI prototype for the solution 1 and I was responsible for the design of the Ecoverse game (part of the solution).
The Ecoverse game is a gamified carbon offsetting tracking for both individuals and companies.
The rule-Individuals and companies earn ‘Gold’ from offsetting carbon which are used to plant virtual trees in territories on a map of Bristol. These trees contribute to transforming the territory into a carbon-neutral (green) zone. The overall impact to each territory is the result of the collective effort of everyone who plants trees in it.
Encouraging Collaboration-The ability of an individual to plant trees and convert territories is compounded when they join or form groups called Guilds. Guild members get bonuses from Guild activity and Guilds make progress based on the contribution of its members. Thus, collaboration is promoted. Companies with Ecoverse Enterprise subscriptions will have their own Guilds in which their employees are part of, in addition to other individuals who wish to join them.
Driving Engagement-The individuals and Guilds compete to invest the most ‘Gold’ into their desired territory to claim it. Guilds also compete for better rankings on the leaderboard, which is determined by the number of trees planted and the number of territories transformed by the Guild.
Implications-As the ‘Gold’ needed to plant trees can only come from offsetting carbon emissions, companies that build an active Guild with high achievements communicate their commitment to sustainability to their employees and consumers. It enables companies to demonstrate that they are taking action to be sustainable.
The results: the solution was recognized by the client and adopted for testing.
What I learned:
Project Clover has developed my confidence in taking on client-facing roles and refined my project management skills while working in a transdisciplinary team.
It is my first time to use Figma and design UX/UI prototype. It was a useful process for me to think from users' perspectives, consider how they would interact with our service and optimised their experience. Thus, I could figure out the insufficiencies in the solution design and deliver it in a more user-friendly way. This experience sparked my interests in UX/UI design. Since then, I began to watch online design sessions and read industry articles to gain more knowledge in this field.
However, one sufficiency was that we did not test with enough users. We contacted over 60 companies but only received a few responses. This experience brought the significance of using the right way to communicate with users for more response. A more complete plan will be designed in my future user testing to define the correct target audience, deliver essential information, and communicate in the right channel.