Particularly because of the pandemic, online shopping has become an essential part of many lives. However, the convenience of e-commerce operates at the expense of the environment.
My team was curious about how to better promote sustainable development within an existing online shopping app. In 5-weeks, my team and I collaborated on extensive user research and prototyping to reimagine Amazon’s mobile interface in a greener light.
WHAT I DID
Despite having more sustainable options, it's difficult to find these items. Additionally, as humans, we want to be good and conscious, but many users do not realize the ecological implications of their orders unless they are explicitly told.
My team sent out an online survey to gauge the mindset of online shoppers and the degree to which they practice sustainability. Out of 20 responses, our survey revealed that:
— 13/20 users preferred Amazon because it is cheap and convenient
— 13/30 users are aware that Amazon can be unsustainable, but still actively use it
— 5/20 users are willing to pay more for sustainable options < cheaper options
This led us to investigate:
Our hypothesis is summarized below.
Informed by user research, my team created quick sketches to ideate how best to implement our solution into the Amazon shopping experience. Our sketches explored how to make Climate Pledged Friendly items more accessible, as well as how to clearly display to users' the impact of their packages and provide options for them to take action.
Diving off of our sketches, we collaborated on the UI of the additional features. We tested our wireframes with 8 users to gain insight about how our features integrated into the shopping flow and to test whether our concept features would be used.
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We wanted to leverage current green shopping options, in particular Climate Pledged Friendly items. While there are indicators of items that are Climate Pledged Friendly on the current interface, we discovered that our users had difficulty finding these items. In response, we implemented a toggle feature to allow users to quickly filter items.
— 8/8 users said they would be more likely to shop for Climate Pledged Friendly qualified items because of the filter
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Users want information to be easily digested and convenient, so we implemented a carbon footprint calculator to present how much carbon emissions a consumer's order would hypothetically emit within the app. Since orders are trackable, we thought it could be possible to use Amazon's current technology to calculate the projected energy and fuel that it would take to transport the package to a consumers' doorstep.
— Users liked that there is a breakdown of how their package contributes to their carbon footprint so they are aware of their habits
— Wished there was an explanation for users who are new to what a carbon footprint is, the graphic was not informative enough
— Wish their footprint was calculated before they checked out so they could make edits to their order
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A number of our users expressed their desire to be sustainable, but not knowing how to start or if their actions are really making an impact. We tested out the addition of allowing consumers to offset the carbon footprint of their order by donating to a sustainability advocate organization.
— Positive reaction to how offset amount is personalized to their own order
— Wish they could see how much their donation adds to their total before checking out
Taking the feedback from our user testing, we iterated on our designs to create hi-fidelity prototypes.
Something that my team found challenging was figuring out the scope of our project, specifically narrowing it. We had a lot of ideas, but given our time constraints, we couldn’t design everything. As a result, we learned to focus on features that could leave the most impact, but could also realistically be weaved into the current design system.