Why:
Climate change feels like a big problem that most people don’t know how to solve on a personal level. The idea behind the ZIIA app was to help people connect something abstract like carbon use to something concrete like their finances and gives them actionable tasks to help reduce their environmental impact.
What:
The ZIIA app looks at your spending patterns to get an accurate estimate of your carbon use then it makes recommendations for cutting back and allows you to directly purchase carbon offsets, or donate to a climate cause by setting up a self-imposed carbon tax and set up reminders to vote for upcoming bills and initiatives for climate action.
Who:
I interviewed and tested this app with 5 people, two men and three women based in San Francisco. This user was a climate conscious, technology fluent person looking for accurate ways to track and measure their carbon footprint. They wanted data that was more specific than what most apps provide to help them take meaningful and direct action.
ZIIA App
Paper Wireframes
After interviewing 6 potential users, I learned that one way to address climate solutions was to combine a financial app with a carbon-tracking app. Talking to users helped me understand the need for a sense of accountability in consumer’s use of carbon, as well as an immediate way to take action.
Lo-Fidelity Mobile Prototype
Final App Design
I designed ZIIA as an app first with an easy onboarding experience. The app focused on quick actions like making a donation to a carbon neutral initiative or setting up reminders to vote.
Users were onboarded and educated on how to reduce their carbon footprint by accurately estimating their carbon spend via their spending habits. Users could then connect to climate NGOs and voting information to take immediate steps to helping solve the climate crisis.
Hi-Fidelity Mobile Prototype
After iterating with users, more visible color contrast was added as well as more engaging and informative graphics like the pie chart, line graph and illustrations.
Designing Navigation
User feedback showed that tasks needed to be easily actionable and simple to understand. The flow took users from onboarding, to data management to features like the news app and charitable giving all helping them accomplish their goal of taking direct steps to lessen their carbon footprint.