Creating a digital solution to keep
ClimaTech competitive in the
Carbon Accounting space
project overview
ClimaTech Innovations provides climate action solutions to businesses that are now being held accountable for their carbon footprint.
The Carbon Accounting platform is a digital SaaS solution that analysis company’s carbon footprint and guides business leaders through making informed decisions about reducing or offsetting their emissions, based on their company’s objectives.
My role
I was the lead designer responsible for research, creating a style guide, user flows, sketches, visual design, interaction, and prototyping.
Scope
Style Guide | Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Limited to by a four week timeline, our scope was limited to a style guide and the foundation of a full SaaS offering, including a dashboard and key pages for the measure, reduce, and offset user flows.
business goals
Deliver a minimum viable produce (MVP) ClimaTech can use in marketing campaigns to bring in new business.
Highlight investing in forest preservation and restoration services through ClimaTech as a way for businesses to offset their carbon emissions.
problem
ClimaTech currently offers their clients a Carbon Footprint Analysis report, but it’s not competitive with digital solutions offered by their top competitors.
Problems with the current physical solution…
⭐️ challenge
Our challenge was to create a Carbon Accounting solution that shows business leaders their current carbon footprint with clear, actionable plans for reducing or offsetting their company’s carbon emissions.
exploration
To create the best solution, we needed to understand the problem we were trying to solve. We began the project with a wide net of research.
Research conducted
Stakeholder interviews
Competitive analysis
Data visualization usability principals
Audit of ClimaTech’s Carbon Footprint Analysis report
Audit of ClimaTech’s digital mockups
Stakeholder interviews
We interviewed ClimaTech's founders to understand who their users are, along with their business and product goals, informing the project scope and uncovering a key selling point; the opportunity for users to offset carbon emissions by purchasing trees through ClimaTech.
Major research takeaway
Competitor solutions were overly complicated
User’s subject knowledge ranged from novice to expert
ClimaTech’s current report doesn’t included clear steps to reducing carbon footprint
Early ClimaTech mockups had no user journey, just an overload of data widgets.
audience
ClimaTech's primary users are sustainability managers and environmental officers within companies, tasked with the responsibility of analyzing and reducing their organization's carbon footprint to meet regulatory and corporate sustainability goals.
USER goals
Now that I had a better understanding of who the user was and the problem that needed to be solved, I defined our user goals and user actions for our key screens.
The Sustainability Manager's goals when using a ClimaTech's platform is to understand what their carbon footprint is when looking at the data, and to get recommendations in reducing their carbon footprint.
What are our user's goals?
brainstorming solution ideas
With the user's needs defined, I began brainstorming ideas and features that would solve those needs.
To be sure my solution concept was inline with the business goals, I created a quick wireframe mockup of the main screens to present to the founders. Their feedback gave me some claity I needed before moving to the high fidelity mockup.
usability testing
Usability tests were run with v1 of the high fidelity mockup. The main takeaway was that we didn't provide users clear instructions to complete their desired tasks. I needed to clearly direct users from point A to point B.
solution
To guide users through 1-understanding their carbon footprint, and 2-reducing their carbon footprint, I needed to rework the user story with a simplified narrative.
Main user flows
Understand
Open Dashboard.
View "Total Carbon Footprint" chart by year. Allows user to quickly se the company's progress.
Basic Understanding: View Dashboard chart & hover over important statistics.
Deep Understanding: Interact with chart + clicks into chart to visit Measure Page to view carbon footprint details.
Reduce
Open Dashboard.
View reduction options in Manage Section.
View offsetting options in Mitigate Section.
View available plots to purchase through ClimaTech.
See updates reflected in totoal carbon footprint.
Validating the design
Testing was run wih the improved designs and validated that the changes I made resolved many of the usability issues.
Some positive outcomes
The simplified dashboard made it easy for users to understand their carbon footprint
Users understood the choices to offset or reduce their carbon footprint
Users appreciated the suggestions on the dashboard
Users liked seeing prices and cost savings under the reduction opportunities
iterations
Taking the top issues from the usability testing, I made the necessary updates. These are a few of the major changes that were made.
Problem: Dashboard Charts
Multiple charts made it harder for users to understand their carbon footprint.
Solution 1
Created 1 main chart for Dashboard making it easier for users to understand their current carbon footprint.
Solution 2
Created a separate page for detailed charts available for users who wanted more data.
Problem: Using the Dashboard
Unclear directions confused users in reducing and offsetting sections
Solution
Added clear instructions
style guide
Using ClimaTech’s brand color as a starting off point, I selected a color scheme and typography style. To create visual interest, I added a couple different shades to the primary green pallet.
I chose a typography style that had clarity, organic shapes, and consistent, monospaced numbers.
final designs
The layouts and design style was chosen to simplify the user experience. My main objective was to prioritize clarity, to help users complete their tasks.
User Dashboard
Overview of company’s total carbon footprint
Recommendations for offsetting and reducing carbon emissions
Mitigate Page
Users can offset their company’s carbon footprint by purchase plots of land from ClimaTech
Once land is bought, the company's signage is put on the trails. Allowing users to search and select plots near their business means they can visit the land they have bought
Manage - Recommendations
Users are shown options for reducing their carbon footprint
Users can select options based on the amount it will reduce their total carbon footprint (tCO2), cost, and return on investment (ROI).
Modal gives detailed information on the recommended reduction actions, including recommended vendors to go through to implement a specific change.
Manage - Action Plan
Once user has selected to implement a recommended reduction opportunity in their office, it is added to their action plan.
Once the company has implemented the change, the user adds details to the table. This data is analysed and has a direct positive effect on their carbon footprint.
Measure Page
Page includes additional charts, breaking down the company’s carbon footprint by different metrics.
Interested users can see a more in depth view of their company’s carbon footprint.
takeaways
I believe that limiting the scope to the foundational pages, gave me time to create fully thought out designs that helped us communicate to ClimaTech our vision for the full SaaS solution.
Combine all options for reducing the company's CO2 into one chart.
If I had a little more time, I would revisit the main dashboard page. I was exploring the possibility of combining the Mitigate and Manage sections into one table that would not only give users top recommendations for reducing or offsetting carbon emissions, but would compare those options side by side, instead of as two categories. I would have been interested in testing this idea with users.
what's next
Using these core pages along with the Style Guide, ClimaTech can build additional pages needed for their complete SaaS offering.
ClimaTech will use the MVP as a preview to the full digital Carbon Accounting SaaS solution to attract potential clients.
