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All Hands on Deck

3rd Place Winner at #HerHackathon 2021

All Hands on Deck is the app we designed for #HerHackathon 2021 as part of the BayWa challenge. The challenge was to create an app that would help people calculate their carbon footprint and receive advice about how they could reduce it. The most important aspect of the app was that there had to be a local approach, for every community has a different way to make a change. We won the BayWa challenge and had the privilege to present our solution in the finals where we got the 3rd place.

An image displaying the design for an app called All Hands on Deck

Research

We conducted a competitive audit of other similar apps. What we discovered was there were a lot of successful and well-designed apps that helped people calculate their carbon footprint depending on their region, but the apps either didn't offer ways to reduce it or the solutions offered weren't regional. For example, eating vegan was offered in most of the apps even though it can be quite expensive and inaccessible in some countries.

 

The apps developed had little ways people could track their progress of their carbon footprint reduction, and also most of them didn't offer more than one language. Some offered opportunities to plant trees to some specific lands in exchange for carbon footprint reduction, but our aim was to encourage people by helping them make an impact in their immediate environment.

A pie chart showing the results of a poll with 3.9% No, 44.1% No but I want to, and 52% Yes.

Do you take conscious action to reduce your carbon footprint?

We also sent out a survey to learn people's approach to environmental issues, their knowledge about their carbon footprint, and if they are doing anything specific to reduce it.

What we gathered was, most people were aware that their daily routines affected the environment negatively in some ways, but they didn't know what actions they could take to lessen their negative impact.

Research

An illustration of a person.

I want the world to go back to how it was before.

Layla, 27

Layla  is a banker who lives in a big city with their roommate. They love online shopping, trying out new beauty products, enjoying holidays and delicious foods. They go out with their friends at least three times a week.

Layla hasn't given a second thought to how their actions might impact the world but lately they have been realizing the detoriating state of the world and started to become curious.

An illustration of a person.

Sure, I want the world to be better as much as the next person, but what can I even do?

Alex, 35

Alex is an ambitious freelancer who loves spending time at the third wave coffee shops in the big city they live in. They don't earn much but they get by. They love being in the nature as long as there are some facilities nearby.

Alex knows about how their actions result in increased carbon footprint but they don't know how to make changes that are valuable, yet within his lifestyle and budget at the same time.

An illustration of a person.

We don't have to be perfect. Let's do just a little for our planet, but let's do it together.

Pat, 46

Pat is an artist who lives in a small, coastal city. They eat pescatarian and they are an environment activist. They always support local businesses and volunteers to clean the beach every year.

Pat is worried about the world's state and doesn't know how much impact they can make only with individual effort. They want to be more in the loop about sustainable and affordable products. They also want to meet more environment - friendly people in their community.

User Personas

Ideation

We used Mural for our ideation process. Everyone wrote their ideas about how we could find a regional solution. While we were discussing how difficult, almost impossible, it is to reduce our carbon footprint to zero we all agreed that the solution wasn't in a handful of people doing the maximum, but everyone in the world doing at least just a little.

For a better world, we needed all hands on deck.

Most of the people who filled out our surveys didn't even know where they could go for recycling in their neighbourhood, which businesses were eco-friendly, how they could support the local economy, and how much their actions made an impact.

A screen of the app where the user can see their progress of carbon reduction.
A screen of the app where there are four buttons saying "Neighbourhood Stats", "Eco-friendly Barter", "Local Businesses", and "Recycling Bins Near Me".

We designed an app that would address those pain points. The users can find eco-friendly local businesses, barter with their neighbours, find recycle bins easily, and keep track of how much their neighbourhood is becoming greener. The neighbourhoods can earn badges by recycling, bartering, planting trees, etc. Thus, the users can see even though they do a little, with their community, they make a big impact.

The local businesses can use the app to list their shops to reach more customers. The more the demand for eco-friendly regional businesses increase, the more people will open up such businesses, and the demand for mass production will decrease.

 

We will be one step closer to a greener future with every action we take with All Hands on Deck.

Prototyping

My teammate Beyza and I created the prototype using Figma. Since this was a timed challenge, we had little time to optimize our design, so we focused on the parts we want to highlight, which was the community approach.

First of all, we added a screen for users to enter their location info so that we can provide them regional based calculations and solutions.

The user then takes a quiz to calculate their carbon footprint. To make sure our quiz was accessible to as many people as possible, we made sure to use different colors, icons, and images.

One of the most important things for us was for people to see their progress easily. Therefore we made sure the Home screen had clear KPIs for users to track themselves. The My Trees page also shows them how much more points they require to plant a tree.

We added detailed screens on the Neighbourhood page where people can see how much they help the environment as a community, barter with their neighbours, explore local businesses, and find recycling bins nearby.

We also included a How Do I? page so that people can find out small but effective lifestyle changes to reduce their carbon footprint.

You can view the prototype here.

A big image where all the screens of the app can be seen at the same time.

Conclusion

Working on All Hands on Deck was an incredible experience. We had the chance to connect with amazing women from all over the world.

 

Collaborating with BayWa for this environmental app changed our outlook and priorities in our work. I was one of the people who was lost about how to make a difference. Thanks to this challenge, I realized how much I could actually do as an individual, but also I wasn't alone in this endeavour. It gave me new ideas about the direction my design work can go. We were overjoyed that our app we put so much heart into was loved and applauded, for we truly believed in it.

We can save the world, we just need a little help from our friends...

Download The Presentation Here

The Team

A photo of Ebru Metin

Ebru Metin

Business Development

A photo of Öykü Yıldızhan

Öykü Yıldızhan

UX Designer

A photo of Emine Sali

Emine Sali

Product Designer

A photo of Beyza Arı

Beyza Arı

Product Designer

© 2021 by Öykü Yıldızhan

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