Company
Earth Hero, Tech Fleet
Let's inspire one billion activists
Earth Hero is a non-profit organization providing tools, activities, and ideas to empower all who want to reduce emissions, improve lives and care for our shared planet.
Since its release in 2016, the EH app has been downloaded +100k times and users have taken over half a million actions to reduce their carbon footprint and fight climate change.
However, analysis of user engagement using Google Analytics showed that the app experienced significant activity on the 1st and 7th days after download, followed by a high churn rate before day 30.
the challenge
Producing problem solutions in 2 months
We were approached by Ben Gerhold (founder) to add a community feature where users could interact and work together toward sustainability goals.
We wanted to create an MVP in eight short sprints that would encourage users to engage together on the app and effect positive, sustainable change in real life.
“I hope in two months we can get a functional MVP with a good foundation, and once we get feedback we can add bells and whistles”
-Ben Gerhold, client kick-off meeting
Our high-level goals were to:
- Mobilize and empower communities to take action
- Provide a better tool to motivate and encourage users to take real-world action
- Increase the number of actions completed from 426,709 to 600,000, a 41% increase in actions completed
- Increase the number of emissions saved from 86,059,803kg CO₂ to 120,000,000kg CO₂ a 39% increase
My role in this phase
I oversaw the design of the community feature from ideation to delivery. I interviewed and selected apprentices, facilitated working sessions, liaised between Strategy and Research teams, and communicated design decisions to stakeholders.
We handed off high-fidelity screens for development on August 12, 2022.
constraints
Defining limits for possible outcomes
Discussing with the client we learned their limitations for what could be developed during this first iteration of the community feature.
EARTH HERO HAD LIMITED BANDWIDTH FOR MESSAGE MODERATION
Ben, founder, and Earth Hero’s main developer told us that due to the increased liability for public groups and chat features these options would be out of scope for our first iteration of the community feature.
CREATE A GROUP OR GET AN INVITE
Because groups had to be private, heroes wouldn’t be able to search for a group to join. Rather, they could either create one themselves or get an invite from a friend by text or email.
reframing the problem
Uncovering the right questions
To date, heroes would log in to check off completed actions and receive a push notification a week later to open the app again. Other than notifications there was no push to open the app.
The Design team weighed in on a Research planning meeting to guide user interviews with our high-level goals in mind.
- How might we motivate heroes to increase their sustainable living?
- How might we encourage collaboration and real-world action?
- How might we enable heroes to interact with and motivate each other?
research synthesis
Themes from hero interviews
ALLOWING CUSTOMIZATION TO SUPPORT GROUP IDENTITY
We found group identity to be a powerful motivating force among peers. Allowing affordances for customization was key in building this feature.
POSITIVE, ENCOURAGING ACTION
Important that this be encouraging and not shaming, creating an environment where heroes are competing with themselves to reduce emissions
ACCOUNTABILITY AMONG FRIENDS
Heroes responded 50/50 when asked about showing individual progress publicly between members of their community
wireframing
Meeting user needs with an object-oriented approach
The Research team interviewed 8 herous, all semi-regular users of the Earth Hero app in the last 6 months
BADGES: LEVELING UP TOGETHER
Earning badges as a community boosts team morale and motivates further action.
REACTIONS: POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT
Personalized emoji reactions on feed updates allow members to celebrate progress with others.
TRANSPARENCY & ACCOUNTABILITY
Community members can see other members’ progress on the Feed and Progress tabs.
[creating new group forms and confirmation screen]
final design
The Earth Hero Community feature
A team effort over the course of eight weeks led to the creation of a community feature where amateur climate activists can collaborate to effect positive climate change through daily actions.
CREATING CUSTOMIZABLE GROUPS
Customizing the group with a description and personal photo can galvanize individuals into a community with an identity. Group admins can access this page at any time, or grant other members admin access once they’re in the group.
SETTING REALISTIC EMISSION REDUCTION GOALS
From the first look at the community dashboard, admins are encouraged to set a group emission reduction goal. Setting and displaying a deadline makes goals realistic, so the goal and deadline are always present on the community dashboard.
TRANSPARENCY & ACCOUNTABILITY
Community members can see and react with emojis to other members’ progress on the Feed tabs. Members can also see standing group stats on the Progress tab.
conclusion
Recommendations for the next phase
- Android friendliness: This feature was deliberately created in the iOS framework. Developers assured us that all the work to translate designs to Android would be done on the backend.
- Test, test, test: Once the beta is released the team will want to field informal interviews with those heroes interacting with the new feature to identify painpoints and successes
- Increased permissions: Admins should be able to give admin permission to other members, as well as remove members from the group. These screens were created as part of this project but not submitted in the final file due to bandwidth concerns.
- Widgets (Android & iOS): Potential displays include group emissions goals, comparative individual/group emissions graphs, or daily climate action inspiration.
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