The planet life
– A community to glue together the want-ers with the do-ers
4 weeks
UX research
Teamwork
A 8 minute read
(The longest of them all)
Did you know?
The task
Our client is The Planet Life. They are a start up, with a heart for the environment, with a need for concretizing what their brand is going to be, and what their purpose is as a business. At the beginning of the project our client had no product to offer yet, that became our job.
One of their main goals were to connect people, they want to provide jobs!
The solution
About that eco anxiety: This is where The Planet Life comes in. They are battling eco-anxiety by creating a community and glueing the do-ers with the want-ers!
This can take different forms: Contribute with great ideas or work positions, or donate money to contribute to change. What about taking one of the job openings and use your skills for good, either through volunteering, or by making it your job?!
Process
Discover
Define
Develop
Discover
The Planet life is building their business on three pilars, and have a ton of ideas of what each pilar could contain:
Discover
– Content, inspire with solutions and knowledge
Develop
– Courses and skill development
Action
– Connect the people with ideas with the right people; they want to provide jobs
Before we could help The Planet Life shape their service, we first needed to get to know the business and concretize some of their strategy, to have something to work further with.
Problem space definition
The Planet Life has too many ideas, and needs to narrow it down in a way that gives them a unique selling point and differentiates them on the market, with strong competitors.
We will focus on creating a minimum viable product, for what their business can offer.
Positioning analysis
Target audience
Based on The Planet Life's interests and secondary research concerning factors about jobs and why people change their career, we were able to pinpoint a target audience
Survey's insight
In depth interviews
We conducted seven interviews where we explored their relation to eco-anxiety, environmentalism and green jobs.
We got a lot of insight, but here is the most relevant insight for you to know:
people feel eco-anxiety, but don't feel triggered to act upon it. We also found that people need to feel they are not alone in taking action. They need a community to lean on, learn from, and be inspired by. They need to know who and what to support.
Concept testing
After the interviews we moved on to a concept testing. We created three concepts, one for each of The Planet Life's pillars, with a storyboard and description. These weren't necessarily concepts we wanted to test as our proposals to client, but rather to learn which of the pilars the target audience gravitates to
We asked our participants to give five points each to the concepts they liked the best. They could distribute the points however they wanted, and concept three, a job board, won by a long shot – action. The download afterwards shows that the third was a favorite because it was the most clear.
Interesting insight is that people saw these as a natural progression of action. Where one would begin at concept one, and evolve further to concept two and three.
Storyboard illustrations by Agnethe Sofie Holt
Card sorting
We did a card sorting to see what factors are most
important for people when staying in a job.
In our secondary research we looked at a study where they researched what factors are most important for choosing a job. We mainly used the same options, to see if we could find som interesting differences between staying and choosing a job as well.
The most important factor for staying in your job is:
•Career growth and/or further study
• Good corporate culture
• Recognition and reward
Environmental impact is important to 75% of our participants but not a deciding factor.
User personas
Based on our target group and interviews we created the following personas.
We referenced Janet throughout the rest of the project to make sure all the people with great ideas were involved in the final product
Marius is the typical candidate that The Planet Life wants to glue together with other do-ers
Define
After downloading and theme sorting our insight we could boil it down to the following pains and gains, value words, and a "How might we?"
We found that people want a space for connection, collaboration and inspiration, to help people feel more confident in what they do and what they do it for.
Develop
A quick recap:
This is also the point where we had to start thinking about how The Planet Life would make an income.
After meeting with our client we decided to merge several of the ideas
We offer a place for people with ideas on how to make a bigger change for the planet, to meet with people who can offer backing for their ideas with money, volunteer or paid work.
We let people with heads and hearts for the planet meet each other: Every idea counts and every project sponsored and started is a new step towards a better planet.
How do we help?
– by letting people contribute to help bring ideas to life.
– full of ideas! where you can share an idea or be inspired by ideas
– showcasing action being taken everywhere
Deliverables
MVP experience journey
We have divided this journey in three parts based on three behavioral archetypes: The active observer, the passive contributor and the active contributor.
This journey can take someone months or years to go through, or some people will forever stay in the first or second fase. That is okay! The site benefits from different kind of users.
Active observer
Create your account
An account is vital for interaction on the page!
The Planet Life is open for everyone to view without an account, but with an account the website is ready for you to start building community and start networking.
Look at the map
this is a geographic visualization of projects, all around the globe: A live representation of an active community!
You can learn more about the projects by selecting it. We hope that a visualisation of climate action around the world will show people they are not alone.
Look at the cork board
The cork board is place where we collect all thoughts and ideas within the community. it’s a space to be outspoken and passionate about ideas.
Comment, react with an emoji or a sticker to promote project that you would like to see happen
Small actions – Big changes
Passive contributer
Be an active member of The Planet Life by Investing your money to support real projects!
You can either do a one time donation, or become a monthly sponsor. As a contributor you get updates about the progress, as well as build out your network and get money returns in the future as you now own stocks in the project!
Post an idea of your own
If you have an idea that's been stuck in your head and you don’t know who to communicate it to? The cork board is the perfect space for you.
Once you drop an idea you can follow up on it, or leave it for someone else to pick up. You will be updated about how people react to your idea, and what happens to it in future.
Passive contributer
Apply to be part of the change
Contribute to climate action by directly volunteering or working for the projects you wish to support.
See your project and updates on the map,
and inspire your local community to be contributors as well.
Become a creator of a project
While browsing the cork board, you may be inspired by the ideas blooming in the community.
Pick up an idea, and define how you would like it to take shape, this includes specs for money, manpower and time. Your project will pop up on the map, and hopefully many people will want to help you!
The holistic experience
Next to the MVP, we also made a overview over possible expansions for The Planet Life's future: the holistic experience
You can see the future ideas in purple.
The yellow cards are the MVP features, broken down into steps
Content
One of the ideas is to have a partnership with a competitor Terra do, to produce content like podcasts, articles and documentaries, to give an even easier start to observers on the site, and hopefully make them stick around to become active contributors one day.
Visualisation of impact
Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a visualisation of the impact The Planet Life is having, or how much your project is impacting the community? This can be visualized by a forest, where every tree is someone who has benefitted from your project so far
The perfect match
The Planet Life could make a matching feature where you as a user fill in some questions about yourself and your values, and then you get matched with perfect projects or ideas for you to contribute to.
Certification
Our client wants big companies on their platform. Let them be certified, to make sure they are real. How amazing wouldn't it be if your project about green shipping was liked from Amazon, maybe there is a collaboration in the future?
Conclusion
We created a unique solution for people to use when they want to take climate action, other than the usual recycling and taking a shorter shower. Here they can contribute with their skills.
We have created a space for people, focused on connection, collaboration and inspiration. Where The Planet Life can act as a glue between want-ers and do-ers.
With tons of benefits!
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Shows more green jobs, and how to make a job greener
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Showcases action and progress
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Builds a community
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Facilitates for both idea dropper and project leader
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Allows people to do and see chain reactions
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Focus on positive, opportunities and hope.
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Help people help and give a trigger to act
All illustrations by Karla Velazquez