Climate change continues to affect our daily lives and continues to become a bigger issue every year. The past decade has been the hottest decade on record. As temperatures continue to rise, we will continue to see more devastating effects to our environment and our daily lives. From sea levels rising to more and more powerful hurricanes to prolonged heat waves, things will only continue to get worse unless we can all pitch in and try to make changes in our environment one by one.
I was drawn to environmentalism because I can personally feel the effects of climate change and other environmental problems in my everyday life. I have friends who live in hurricane prone regions who have been affected by the stronger and more devastating hurricanes that have been occurring over the years. I have also personally been affected by climate change in my own life. My home town in California which normally averages around 105F during the late summer months was recently hit by an extended heat wave which caused temperatures to surge to 110–115F for over a week straight. I also moved to San Francisco at around this time, looking forward to the cooler temperature it is known for only to be hit by multiple days of 90+ degree weather.
My idea is to create an app named Eco-Friends which will motivate and help users to be more proactive about taking care of the environment. The app will take note of your current location and list what are the biggest environmental problems in your area, then list things you can do that would have the most positive impact in your immediate area. The app would also let you keep track of everything you’ve done and allow you to rack up points and compete with other users to further encourage everyone to be as proactive as they can.
PEST Analysis
Political: For the most part, there should not be any political factors that will negatively affect my app. As more and more governments are attempting to go more green these days, I believe demand for an app that encourages one to be more green will only be in more demand.
Economical: From an economic standpoint, there has never been a better time for an environmentally focused app. As more and more people are working from home and have more free time, they could easily download the app and see what they can around their home to help the environment.
Social: No matter where you are, nobody will look down on you for wanting to take care of the environment. Whether someone is young or old, there is always something everyone can do. There has been a large change in attitude towards environmentalism in the recent years ranging from the increasing prevalence of electrical vehicles to the shift from using plastic shopping bags to paper. However, there are some people such as climate change deniers who may push back on the idea of an app that encourages many people to group together to work on issues that they deem to be a nonissue.
Technological: With the prevalence of smartphones these days, this app should be easily accessible by millions of people and could give people who have been interested in helping the environment but are unsure where to start a convenient starting point.
Competitive landscape
In the domain of environmentalism, there are not many competitors in terms of applications meant to promote environmentalism. There are a few apps that do exist, such as Oroeco which lets you track the climate impacts of how you spend your money, and lets you compete and collaborate with friends, family, and any other users. While my idea does have overlaps with this app with what it can do, it differs by offering suggestions of what one can do have a greater impact in their current area. For example, if there is an issue with recycling in a particular area, one could be recommended by the app to recycle more, then compete with friends and family in the area who will all be recommended to do the same thing which would lead to a more tangible change for that current area.
Though I may have what I think are good ideas for my application, the same thought may not be true for others. Interviewing others will give me a better understanding of features users may or may not be interested in. Hearing about thoughts from others may also uncover new ideas I may not have previously had, or possibly reintroduce plans I have casted aside as useless.
The Birth Of My Idea
My final idea was based on a mashup of ideas from two separate categories. My first category was an app based on environmentalism. I wanted to create an app that would allow you to keep track of your daily activities so you can get a general idea of how you are affecting the environment. I also wanted the app to provide information on what one could do to have a greater positive impact on their local environment. My second category was some combination of both social media and crowdsourcing. It’s always more motivating to do something if you have other like minded people to perform those activities with. And on the same note of working with others, often, the best sources of information isn’t just an article written by one person online but data sourced from many people. Since I wanted the app to also provide information on local environmental issues, I felt like the best way to get information on such issues would be to allow users to enter in issues themselves. Similar issues would then be grouped together and ranked so other users can see what are the most significant problems in their area in order of importance. Some of my questions are as follows:
Interview Questions:
- When was the last time you encountered some environmental issues?
- Are environmental issues something that are on your mind often?
- What are some environmental issues you are most aware of?
- Do you know of any environmental issues in your area?
- If so, do you ever wish you could do anything about it?
- If not, would you like ways to find more information about it?
- Do you use social media?
- Do you use apps which get most of their information from crowdsourcing such as waze?
- Would you be interested in a social media app, but for environmental issues instead?
- How do you communicate and exchange information with others on local environmental issues?
- What method of communication, if any, do you use to gather or spread awareness on local environmental issues that you do not see being addressed?
- What was the hardest part about getting local environmental issues you saw addressed?
- What have you tried to get around these issues?
- What would you like to see in order to help you address these issues?
How people responded:
These questions are not biased because they do not lead the interviewee to answer in any specific way. The questions only ask for people’s level of interest in the different aspects of the application. From my questions, I found that for the most part, environmental issues are something that are on most people’s minds; the biggest being common well publicized issues such as deforestation, global warming, and air pollution. However, I found that most people did not know much about environmental issues their local areas are facing. Most of the interviewees said they would be more proactive in doing things that would have a positive impact on their local environment if they had a better source of information on such issues. I found that feelings were mixed about a social media aspect of an environmental app, but most people were interested in an option to contribute their own information and also find out information from others about problems directly affecting their local environment. Many interviewees said that specifically finding information about local issues was not always easy, which would lead to them not bothering to look for more information at all. If they had an easier to access source of this information, they would be more inclined to take a look occasionally and see what they can do, and also contribute to the information database.
Product Idea and User Journey
I help people who care about the environment to more easily find information on what they can do and connect and collaborate with other like minded people interested in doing the same thing. From the ability to gain more information on local environmental issues from other users to organizing groups to combat these issues, I hope to help people feel a meaningful sense of achievement when they are able to make changes they can see in the areas they live.
In coming up with how an app should flow and what features should be included, one needs to envision what reasons led the user to look for the application and what they will be looking for in the application when they begin using it. In my user journey, Joe is an environmentally conscious person who walks home from work and passes by large piles of trash alongside a river every day. Every day he walks by, wishing he could do something about it, but there’s just too much for one person to clean up by themselves. Joe decides to search online and finds an app that allows him to see local environmental issues and downloads it out of curiosity, wondering if anybody else has seen the issue and is as concerned as he is. He then sees a feature on the app that allows him to report and mark issues on a map for others to see. After marking the issue, over the course of a few days, he can see that others have noticed his report and are concerned too. Using the app, they are able to communicate with each other and plan a time to all meet up and clean up the area together.
With my application, I hope to allow people who may have previously felt discouraged to make a change in their area due to how seemingly daunting the task may have seemed, to be able to change their wishes to reality with the help of others.
Wireframe
A wireframe is a skeletal framework of an application or a website that gives a foundation to build upon for the end product. I created a wireframe in order to get a general idea of the layout of the application. I had many ideas I wanted to incorporate into the application, ranging from an interactive map that allows users to pinpoint areas of interest, to a page that allows users to look up local environmental issues that are not only limited to reports by others, to a page that allows users to interact and collaborate with others in order to organize groups to tackle local problems.
I incorporated these ideas into my wireframe into four different pages. The home page would show general information, including updates of new daily issues which would include information from credible local sources and also user reported sources. The page would also show the user’s own contributions and give them the ability to add more contributions they’ve made and would like to record. At the bottom of the page, there would also be an area that shows more information about other issues possible from previous days or weeks.
The second page would contain the map which will have icons showing all issues or incidents reported by other users. The user would be able to click on these icons to find out more information, such as date and time and specific information along with the ability to contact the user who added the information.
The third page would be more of a social page, showing any posts made by others asking for help to clean up certain areas or other activities along with all the conversations and updates the user is participating in.
The final page would be a general information page that shows a more detailed view about all reported environmental issues in the area along with the ability to search for any other environmentally related information. The page would also include an area that displays suggestions about what else the user could do for their area if they have nothing left to do.
