GLOBAL FOOTPRINT NETWORK

CONTEXT

The Global Footprint Network is an independent, charitable not-for-profit organization research institute based in the United States, Belgium and Switzerland.

GFN develops and promotes tools for advancing sustainability, including Ecological Footprints and Biocapacity, which measure the amount of resources we use and how much we have. These tools aim at bringing ecological limits to the center of global decision-making.

Click iPhone for clickable prototype

Overview

SOLUTION
UX Team needs to redesign the calculator to be an interactive smartphone app with social media integration.

MY ROLE Research, Infographics, User Personas, Wireframes, UI Library, & "Eco Hacks"

TOOLS Illustrator, Photoshop, Invision, Creative Cloud, Google Slides, The Noun Project, Whiteboard, Expo Markers

PLATFORM Mobile App

DURATION 2 weeks

CHALLENGE
The Global Footprint Network has a “Footprint Calculator” that determines your ecological footprint based on a questionnaire. Currently, the calculator is in the form of a web-based Flash animation.

UX TEAM
Angel Pang • Research, Wireframe, Prototype
Crystal Chen • Research, Information Architecture, Wireframes, & "Eco Facts"

DELIVERABLES
1. Global Footprint Network clickable prototype app
2. Revised Ecological Footprint Calculator Questionnaire
3. Global Footprint Network Rebranding

1. RESEARCH

The Global Footprint Network is one of the most important resources we have to realize the human impact on a global scale. Their technology shows us our potential to unite in attempting to save our planet. Yet while they have fantastic tools to help countries, cities, and individuals understand climate change & human impact...
their website is not the friendliest user experience.

Currently, to measure your ecological footprint, you have to follow an animated augmentation while answering a questionnaire on the habits of your lifestyle.
It was a really different way to fill out a form.

The biggest problem was that this augmented world/calculator ran on Flash.

We user-tested the current GFN site to counter our initial heuristic evaluations.
Overall we got really mixed reviews from users and essentially they didn't like it.
Most importantly, they didn't learn how to change their lifestyle.

Global Footprint Network's current Ecological Footprint Calculator

The greatest challenge of this project was to rapidly learn about climate change, a complicated and heated (pun intended) issue that most of the world doesn't understand.
We also had to condense this knowledge & terminology into an interactive & effective mobile application.