PROJECT PROPOSAL
-- ENCOURAGING THE REVERSAL OF COMPULSIVE OVER-CONSUMPTION, THROUGH DESIGN, IN ORDER TO REDUCE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE --
INTERVENTIONS
IDEAS & EXPERIMENTS
As a group, we like the idea of combatting capitalism AND climate change by shifting the consciousness of consumers when they buy products, use excessive energy, are wasteful, etc. We understand that in modern society, some things that are not great for the planet are unfortunately inevitable (e.g. using electricity, water, buying from cheaper producers that are perhaps more harmful towards the environment than more expensive yet eco friendly sources, and so on...), thus we cannot simply ask people to go "waste free/zero waste", nor stop using electricity all together. The main change in behaviour that we can assist is the change in mindset towards our actions. Our interventions are encouraging deeper thought behind how we consume and the consequences that follow...
1. ENERGY BIKE (FOR COFFEE)
- EXCHANGE OF ENERGY RATHER THAN MONEY --- MAKING ENERGY CAPITAL !
- Snack bar? store? coffee shop?
- e.g. forgotten your reusable cup? want a coffee that is in a paper cup? - cycle on this bike and generate the energy that's equal/relative to the amount needed to make the cup
- engaging adults in play -- those that need to learn from the message we'd be communicating are less likely to be the ones up for playing publicly. How can we create an environment that would engage even the most reluctant of people?
- exercise = release of endorphins/serotonin -- how does this relate to Finn's research into the psychological effects of climate change and how it impacts our mental health?
- // where do we source our snacks ? - have a range of different snack bars from different places (some locally sourced, others imported) and consumers have to cycle a distance relative/with a ratio to the distance that the snack travelled in air miles to reach CSM. Cereal bar made with English oats, made in London = shorter distance to cycle to earn the purchase... Chocolate bar made with Belgium chocolate = further distance to cycle, in scale of km to Belgium... Exotic American candy = long distance of cycling needed to produce enough energy in perspective to the distance it flew to UK in exchange for the snack...
2. ENERGY CONSUMPTION COFFEE CUPS
- idea of paying with ecological actions in advance, earning stages of your coffee.
- linking to the idea of the sugar tax -- making it literally more expensive for sugar
- toyed with the idea of mimicking the Starbucks cup, ticking boxes down the side to indicate how environmentally friendly the customer is and how much of the coffee making process they've earned because of this // developed idea to create just a coffee cup sleeve, as we want to encourage consumers to still bring their own cups, and reduce the number of people using paper cups.
- e.g. you brought your own cup, you've been vegetarian for a year, you walked to work... you've earned the coffee, hot water and cold milk of your choice... want sugar, or any other added elements such as hot milk, top up your purchase.
- ELEMENTS OF THE COFFEE PROCESS TO PRICE IN TERMS OF PREEXISTING ENVIRONMENTAL HABITS
- ground coffee
- cold water
- hot water
- cold milk (milk alternative)
- cold milk (regular dairy milk - ranked as needing more energy as currency because the dairy and meat industry is one of the largest world polluters)
- hot milk (dairy alternative)
- hot milk (regular dairy milk)
- sugar
- sweetener (?)
- need to research the value of the coffee elements above in terms of their energy for production, and also the energy value of the suggested solutions, such as veganism, walking, recycling, etc.
3. SUPERMARKET LOYALTY CARD/APP [web extension?]
- creating a point system that clearly defines and links to the idea/model of reward/punishment = behaviour change
- e.g. team up with Sainsbury's -- earn double nectar points if you buy all your fruit loose, without packaging.
- HIGH REWARDS, LOW PUNISHMENT - buying loose bananas = +10 points, buying milk in plastic carton = -4 points -- links to the idea of inevitable consumption, unless buying glass bottled milk from milk man, which is not accessible everywhere, you can't avoid buying some things packaged certain ways. Therefore the deductions of points are lower, pettier, but still trigger that want to change habits and earn points -- reinforcing game-like system.
- changing customer consumer behaviour at point of sale, but also changing the mindset of chosen or participating stores, so hopefully they adapt their marketing tactics to promote high scoring, more environmentally friendly products.
- consumers can exchange their earned points for in-store vouchers, discounts, or reusable/environmentally friendly rewards such as reusable bags, bottles, etc...
As a group, we have divided the intervention ideas between us, so we can each input ideas towards each one, but also in smaller groups/pairs work on the intervention in more detail. This will include mocking up initial designs, user-testing and prototyping in context, as well as doing sufficient research to advance the project. By Friday 4th, we will have tested all the interventions in order to refine and reform the chosen one next week, then prepare our final presentation the following week.
iNTERVENTION 3 - STRATEGIES AND PROTOTYPING
Intervention three is an app interface, with main tasks divided between Megan and Gaby. They roughly wireframed screen concepts and designed the main interfaces on Adobe XD, to give some idea of how they would function and appear.
The purpose of the app is to provide greener alternatives for shoppers at point of sale, live responses during their weekly supermarket sweep. Scanning items and checking to see if there are more environmentally friendly alternatives in the store they are currently in, with the aim to reduce, waste, overconsumption, and to make more conscious decisions in their purchases. There will also be an option to donate to a chosen charity, and earn points to promote community activity, with a leaderboard, etc.
... app design in progress....
INTERVENTION 1 - STRATEGIES AND PROTOTYPING
The concept here is to see whether people would be willing to pay with energy as capital instead of money, and cycle/generate power equivalent to their chosen snack, in order to get it for free. We carried out some first hand research [below]
Survey link -- https://www.notion.so/Finn-66ac5d0d1c3844468b723c865ff7684c#84d598b7b39d4b55b0abd4fd227889f5
In theory, customers would cycle on an energy generator bike for the average amount of time required to generate energy that equals how much it took to produce their chosen snack. In this way, no energy is being "lost" in order for them to enjoy a treat that might have come a long distance, or taken a lot of energy to produce. Finn carried out extensive research to calculate how much energy would need to be produced, and subsequently how much time the average person would need to spend on the bike, in order for this intervention to function. They then produced some test visuals in hand with the secondary research [below]
Judging by the research, which is then translated into design form of packaging, the amount of time people would need to cycle for a snack that they could easily buy for cheap and quickly elsewhere makes this intervention ineffective. 6 hours for a chocolate bar ! 3 hours for a bottle of beer ! People just wouldn't participate. However it is interesting to see how unattainable being energy balanced is, especially in the modern world...
iNTERVENTION 2 - STRATEGIES AND PROTOTYPING
Myriam and I have been designated intervention 2 to focus on.
We looked at the existing formats of coffee sleeves, popularised by Starbucks, so using that as a visual starting point. How do Starbucks use the tick box system to differentiate the needs and habits of different customers, and how can we relate that to our own project?
Look at the form and design of cup sleeves - type, colours, etc.
Would mimicking Starbucks create a greater impact and also target producers as well as influencing consumers???
Mock up of coffee cup sleeve 1
Mock up of coffee sleeve 2 - design template
Intervention in context 1
Intervention in context 2
USELESS.LONDON
https://useless.london
A really lovely, simply designed website to reiterate the issue of useless packaging and overconsumption in London specifically, providing statistics through graphics and suggesting more environmentally friendly (mostly independently run) stores to shop from.
"AS A GROUP OF PEOPLE SAT EATING LUNCH, FRUSTRATED AT THE AMOUNT OF USELESS PLASTIC THAT WRAPPED THEIR FOOD AND EVERYTHING THEY CONSUMED, A VOICE PIPED UP,
‘I FILLED UP MY SHAMPOO AT A SHOP DOWN THE ROAD THE OTHER DAY.’
A MEAL DEAL SANDWICH HIT THE DESK, SOMEONE CHOKED ON THEIR BOTTLE OF WATER, AND ALL FELL SILENT. ‘WHAT DID YOU SAY?!’ASKED ONE ONLOOKER, SUSPICIOUSLY.
‘YEH, THERE’S LOADS OF THESE SHOPS WHERE YOU CAN BUY STUFF WITHOUT THE PACKAGING, YOU JUST BRING YOUR OWN CONTAINERS AND FILL THEM UP.’
THE ENLIGHTENING CHAT CONTINUED AS EYES GREW WIDE WITH EXCITEMENT, AND USELESS WAS BORN, A USEFUL ZERO-WASTE GUIDE TO HELP YOU DITCH THOSE DISPOSABLES AND USE LESS PLASTIC."
SHAMEPLANE.COM
ConTeXtuALisiNg CoFFee SLeeVes
ChOseN inTerVenTion !
We collectively chose to continue to work on the app intervention, as it is the most accessible in modern society, has the strongest foundation of work already, and could function affectively to consciously or subconsciously change peoples behaviours.
Through discussion with tutors, we are going to steer away from connection our app design with a specific brand/supermarket, as we had previously done with Sainsbury's. This way, we have much more creative freedom, and can create a design that we like, rather than one that would look cohesive with preexisting marketing and branding. We have also chosen to design some alternative features, such as a store finder and item self scanner. This will show the app "in action" a bit more.
~ app design in progress, photos ~
PRESENTATION PLAN
UNIT ONE PRESENTATION
- Research on issues - Climate change and capitalism - Myriam
- Concept - Choosing the problem - Gaby
- Prototyping - Meg
- Design - Finn
- Key Selling Point + Purpose (future potential) - Alice
MYRIAM - RESEARCH
GABY - CONCEPT
MEGAN - PROTOTYPING
How did you create prototype ideas? Intro: Using inspiration collected from our thumbnails & research we came up with 3 prototype ideas that
we ended up developing further to see which worked best in meeting our project proposal.
- What were the ideas?
Our first idea was the concept of an energy bike that would be cycled in order to re-purpose energy made to produce certain foods such as a bar of chocolate which Finn found would take 6 hours to re-purpose the energy for - way too long and insufficient,discouraging the customer.
Our next idea was to create coffee shop" modeled on the Starbucks the mockups created by Alice show that the boxes on the cup sleeves would be ticked off by barristers to check how ethically & sustainable our customers would be in order to persuade them to exchange their good deeds for "free coffee". Depending on their action a customer could receive a perfectly made “free” cup of coffee or just a cup of coffee beans (if they’re lucky!). Again, this idea would not work in real life because customers could easily lie and most people would give in and instead just buy a coffee from the actual Starbucks.
Then myself and Gabrielle decided that it would be more sufficient to track points via a loyalty card system that started off by altering the price points of food products in a Sainsbury's stores since this supermarket has a high value in stocking sustainable products. This idea eventually lead us into the to design an app with the original idea in the creation of a point & reward system that would change customer behavior by introducing competitiveness.
- Which idea did you choose and why?
- Conclusion: We decided to go along with the app because it was the most efficient way of allowing us to change people’s behavior since it is the most practical solution to our problem. Integrating an app into supermarket shopping can make the process not only more fun but more eco-friendly. From feedback gathered from peers and tutors we learned that it would be more beneficial to develop an app that would allow customers to compare products and find more sustainable alternatives, such as a bunch of loose apples that are locally sourced rather than buying them from a foreign country in a plastic bag. After I had created the foundation of the app we decided to step away from the Sainsbury's branding and create our own version so that we could be more free with not only the design but its more functionality.
FINN - DESIGN
- When we started to think about the design of the app we looked first at the designs of other food apps on the market - Olio, Too Good To Go, High street Supermarket apps etc
- All of them had very simple and similar colour schemes with a main colour, white and then an alternate colour as an inbetween
- Then we thought about the kind of apps we like to use and enjoy the UI of which led us to some much more interesting app design which focused a lot more on illustration and more interesting colour schemes and used some feeback we had from another one of the groups as to what UI was most attractive to them.
- We drafted up some sketches and colour schemes between us based on the kind of things we looked and what we liked
- Then we started to work that into a digital design on Adobe Xd
- We knew we want a simple colour schemes in terms of how many colours we used but also one that stayed away from that corporate look to appeal to our younger audiences which is why we settled on this pink/green scheme
- Theyre not colours that are put together very often which makes the UI of Origani stand out and be more memorable and the green is reminiscent of the planet and the natural world which fits our eco-friendly themes
- We went for two very contrasting fonts MADEBruno and Helvetica Neue to break up the UI and make very clear distinctions between different sections
- MADEBruno on headings and a lot of the numerical values
- Helvetica Neue as the main body text and subheadings
ALICE - KEY SELLING POINT + PURPOSE OF APP IN THE LIGHT OF CHANGING BEHAVIOURS TOWARDS OUR IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT/POTENTIAL FUNCTION IN FUTURE
- USP = bringing eco choices to the point of sale, which doesn’t ask that much of the customer. Gamification and competition element which encourages participation and behaviour change in a playful manner.
- evoke conscious decisions in the process of regular supermarket sweep.
- Future plans?
- Working with stores to promote and encourage less packaging/better options for food shopping
- Sparking conversations with the boss men to influence behaviour change from the top too - fighting capitalism from the inside out… ?
- Ties in to actions you’re already doing and looking for better ways to do it, engaging with people who otherwise wouldn’t go out of their way to engage
- Trying to reach the people who have enough time to write reviews in the Waitrose comment section !
As a group, we identified our unique selling point as the way the app targets consumers directly at the point of sale, rather than trying to influence against negative consumer habits before or after the actual point of purchase.
The app ties into actions you’re already doing and looks for better, more eco-friendly ways to do it - for example, buying a bag of packaged apples, it simply suggests to buy alternatives with a lower carbon footprint, i.e. loose, organic apples.
The game-like elements also encourage participation in a playful manner, engaging younger adults in using the app to improve individually through light competition within their community. This is crucial in targeting people who may not otherwise go out of their way to make changes.
If we were to develop our concept further, we could do various other interventions such as working directly with specific stores. Initiating discussions with supermarket officials in order to influence a change in behaviour from the top of the industry, down, ultimately lends to our initial topic of capitalism, and the effects it has on the climate.