The Good Local project
Good Local is a purpose-driven startup idea by Sydney-based company Dynamic4 to increase local sharing and trading. The initial idea is a digital platform that aggregates sharing services for users. They contracted us to research consumer attitudes and behaviour.
Timeframe
Two week sprint
Team
2 UX Designers
Methods
Interviews, surveys, contextual enquiry, collaborative design
If people know sharing, swapping or upcycling are better for the environment, how come they don't do it? What stops people making more environmentally-friendly decisions?
These are some of the questions we set out to answer for Dynamic4.
Discovering behaviour and attitudes regarding sharing and trading
Hitting the streets and our laptops, we gather a large amount of data. We focus in on key areas of clothing, food and transportation.
31
interviews
107
surveys
7
subject matter experts consulted
1
contextual enquiry
Insight: Often an event triggers change
Curiously, not many cited ‘saving the world’ as a motivation for building sustainable habits. Often it was an event (needing to save money, moving house or influence from another person) that triggered long-lasting change.
We hear that learning can be enjoyable and empowering and that small positive experiences inspire further action. We also learn that mistrust and inconvenience are huge barriers for sustainable and shared services.
Designing to reduce barriers and strengthen motivations
Having identified common motivations and barriers, we pose the following questions as a basis for our collaborative ideation:
How might we. . .
. . . make sustainable options more convenient & comfortable?
. . . help sustainable services gain trust?
. . . help people discover alternatives?
. . . make enjoyable experiences and learning more prevalent?
. . . cater to individual needs and tastes?
We organise our ideas according to their ability to move three key groups (‘Doubters’, ‘Dabblers’ and ‘Experts’) from experimentation through to making it a habit. We identified three areas key impact areas: in retail environments, at home and on consumer devices.
Learnings
Through our study we discovered key issues Good Local needs to address if it really wants to affect serious change in the community.
Whilst the client’s initial trajectory, an aggregator, could be an important piece of the puzzle, other areas will be equally important.
Areas ripe for impact
We visualised some of our favourite ideas for the client as food for thought.
The golden juice
Summarised below are the key recommendations for Good Local to consider from the report:
To improve likelihood of habit change, GoodLocal needs to:
• be convenient
• inspire consumer trust
• appeal on a personal level other than just ‘for the greater good’
Ideally it also:
• Is present at moments of potential change
• Encourages gradual, step-by-step change
• Teaches sustainable consumption over consumerism
• Shows that sustainable living ≠ sacrificing quality of life
Ngaire Wex UX / UI Designer
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