Kudo
Helping Gen Z build positive relationships with sustainable energy
Team
Brenda Son
Fan Fang
Yixin Chen
Yuri Kim
Duration
15 weeks
Role
UI/UX Design
Desk Research
User Research
Client
Wildgrid
About Project
My team collaborated with Wildgrid, our sponsor, a start-up devoted to assisting people in switching to solar energy, to help Gen Z build positive relationships with sustainable energy.
My Contribution
Led the ideation and prototype stage of the project.
Conducted 10 interviews, desk research, and usability testing.
Synthesized research insight to inform design decision-making.
Responsible for key screens UI/UX design, developed visual system.
“How might we build a positive relationship between Gen Z and sustainable energy to drive meaningful individual impact?”
CHALLENGE PROMPT
OVERVIEW
Solution
‘Kudo’ is an app that helps Gen Z take bite-sized climate action alongside a virtual pet. (90 Seconds)
59% extremely worried, 84% at least moderately worried about climate change
Nearly 40% of US CO2 pollution comes from power plants burning fossil fuels.
1 in 5 people who said would volunteer for global warming organization actually volunteered
Problem
Climate change is a pressing concern that affects the physical and mental health of individuals, particularly the younger generation.
Even worse, many individuals lack the confidence or motivation to take action to address this issue; only one out of every five people who show an interest in volunteering to fight global warming actually do so.
We needed to focus on this disconnect: how might we help Gen Z take meaningful climate action?
Features Preview
MEET
Start your sustainability journey with your pet.
DECORATE
Earn new outfits and personalize your pet
ACT
Take daily climate-related missions and get points
PARTICIPATE
Form tight-knit communities of sustainability.
How did we get there?
We moved back and forth between the first four phases:
01 DEFINE
Specify the problem and project scope. Acquire a more in-depth familiarity with the subject
02 DISCOVER
Conduct research to understand the user and the problem
03 ANALYZE
Analyze the raw data to find patterns. Identify design opportunities by distilling insights.
04 DESIGN
Generate ideas based on insight and shape them through a matrix that aligns with user pain points.
05 DEPLOY
Translate idea to tangible solution, constantly validate it with
“We are having difficulty getting people to sign up, and even if they do, there's less than a 7% chance they convert to clean energy.”
— Krystal Persaud, CEO of Wildgrid
01 DEFINE
Clean energy has a low adoption rate, despite being the superior option
We sat down with our sponsors to learn about the problem they are trying to solve, and what concerns they have. Then we conduct secondary research to learn more about the current situation around the subject.
During the meet-up, we gained a better understanding of the challenge they are facing:
Narrowing down the target
We chose to target members of Generation Z who are aware of climate change but have been unable to take action due to a variety of obstacles.
Why Gen Z?
Gen Z cares about our world.
Research has shown that 93% of Gen Z say that addressing climate change is critical for the future. 49% of Gen z want to work at green companies.
Secondary research
We set out to do desk research to learn about the current situation around clean energy. We did the research in four domains: sociology, economics, science and technology.
02 DISCOVER
User interviews
Goals for the interviews:
Learn about user’s opinions about climate change (clean energy, other sustainability)
Meaningful climate action decision process(push factors, success, failure)
Awareness of existing clean energy options
Interview Highlights
I think people get so overwhelmed, like “analysis paralysis,” because people being overwhelmed by climate change is a global issue. I do it a lot, too.
- Jay, a sustainability advocate
If it’s expensive to buy, install, or maintain, then I wouldn’t do it.
- Kyle, a new university graduate, living in Queens.
Since I work, it’s harder for me. I have the weekends available, but I also help out with my family.
It’s hard to find the time.
- Judith, a young working professional.
The team conducted 10 semi-structured interviews to gain a clear, deep understanding of users. We chose a wide spectrum of interviewees, ranging from sustainability advocacy leaders to people who don’t believe in climate change.
03 ANALYZE
We color-coded the interview transcript, drew an affinity diagram, and made an empathy map for each interviewee in order to identify trends and patterns in user behavior. However, the insight remains scattered, making it difficult to identify any pattern. Therefore, we chose to depict all the insights on the diagram.
Key insights
Information can be scattered all over the place, frequently misinterpreted, and difficult to fact-check.
Who are we designing for?
We created the persona spectrum, and we want to focus on the users on the left of the spectrum who are aware of the issue but have less commitment but keep the other side of the spectrum in mind when we enter the design phase.
What are they struggling with?
We found that the biggest barriers to taking climate action were:
The primary discussions surrounding climate change center on guilt, doomerism, and bad news.
The time and resources available to younger people for climate action are typically very limited.
Through our research, we found the primary discussions surrounding climate change center around guilt, doomerism, and bad news. The idea of taking climate action is often considered inconvenient, and individual impacts of taking action, like recycling, are difficult to discern and can be discouraging.
The individual impact is hard to see and has become a demotivator for people to keep putting forth effort.
Research synthesis
Our goal is to empower young adults to transition to sustainable lifestyles and encourage them to take quick, impactful climate action through positive reinforcement.
DESIGN GOAL
04 IDEATION
We use research insights to guide our ideation process. and constantly check back on problem statements and pain points to validate our progress.
We used a double funnel process in which we first determined the theme from the insights and then generated as many ideas as we could from them. Next, we used measurable matrices to give each idea a score. This gave us the confidence to start designing the interface.
Design process
Crazy eight workshop
At this point, we had identified four potential directions that aligned well with our goals: a virtual pet, energy-saving measures, handcraft projects, and spreading good climate news. However, we are unsure which direction to pursue.
To address this uncertainty, I designed and led our version of Crazy 8s workshop because, in this way, we can quickly see tangible solutions, which will offer us a better ground to evaluate each direction. We generated ideas from the four topics above, then each of us presented our ideas to the group and organized them in Figjam.
We used eleven matrices to evaluate and score these directions subjectively, with the goal of selecting the one that best addresses our users' pain points.
Virtual pets won over other directions easily.
Design solution
Fun Vibe
+
Effort overtime
Our design solution combines fun and play in a virtual pet to bridge the disconnection between Gen Z and the climate crisis.
Virtual pets tap into Gen Z's nostalgia for other gamified pet media, are in high demand, and can be used as a means of building habits. Virtual pets serve as a nurturing outlet for our need to care for other beings while promoting sustainable actions in an easy and enjoyable manner. By seeing the visual growth of their personal (yet virtual) pets, they can see their figurative growth in sustainability.
Idea to prototype
After deciding the key features we tested with paper prototypes
Create information architecture
Then we built a lo-fi prototype and tested it with 7 potential users.
Main Features Preview
#1 Match with your pet to get on the sustainable journey
Complete the onboarding quiz to match you with your pet.
#2 From daily mission to impactful act
Every day, Kudo offers a curated mission related to clean energy.
Users can learn more about sustainability by reading short articles, testing their knowledge by taking quizzes, and more!
Once users complete the mission, they earn points for unique prizes for their pets and unlock actionable missions.
By giving small climate actions every day that are simple but direct, Kudo empowers individuals to form new positive relationships with their own climate and sustainability journeys and be more confident about committing to more impactful acts.
#3 Taking care of your pet
Get a mysterious prize every time the user fills up the cloud tank. Those prizes will allow you to decorate, and interact with your pets! Keep them happy!
#4 Community
Users can also connect with their friends to form tight-knit communities of sustainability. They can interact with each other’s pets, check their outfits, view their achievements, and promote accountability and motivation with each other.
MVP
05 DEPLOY
Become fluent in monetization
In addition to design, we also take the business and development sides into consideration.
Kudo offers a freemium model. For our free users, we rely on advertising as our main source of revenue. For our premium users, we offer additional perks like extra pet options and exclusive outfits in exchange for a monthly membership fee. And a portion of this fee will be donated to green causes, which align with our product values.
Success Metrics
Our success metrics for our MVP would be:
Objective
Our objectives for the MVP is to Build & Launch the first iOS app in 3 month
Beyond MVP
We’re excited to build Kudo into a more well-rounded product. Our goal is to expand the platforms where Kudo is available, including phone widgets and smartwatches. Additionally, we want to enhance the social aspect of the app by organizing offline community events for users to connect with others who share an interest in sustainability. Last but not least, we know the richness of the pet interactions directly impacts the user retention rate, so we will constantly look for inspiration and collaborative opportunities. One example would be working with the Cloud Appreciation Society to offer an AR daily mission where you can take a cloud photo with your Kudo buddy.
Increase clean energy transition rate
Increase net promoter score
Foster paid partnerships
Takeaways
This is the project I’m most proud of during the first semester of SVA. We tackled a challenge that we were passionate about and developed an end-to-end solution. Takeaways from the project:
Each step of design should be connected. It's important to ensure that each step of the process is connected and informed by research insights. This can be achieved by regularly looking back at the user pain points and value propositions and ensuring they align with the current direction of the project.
I found joy in creating high-fidelity prototypes with appealing visual designs. Especially for this project, it can be an effective way to communicate the concept of our product.
Involve everyone. In this project, we found ourselves lost many times; beside staring at our Figjam board for hours, talking to classmates, mentor, or even someone who has no idea what we are doing helped us get over the hurdle faster.