Background

Svalna is a green tech startup which assists both businesses and individuals in estimating their climate footprints. After identifying a user interest in comparing emissions with industry counterparts, Svalna found the need to develop a comparison feature for their climate calculator. This new feature aims to give users a clearer understanding of their emission levels compared to others in the industry, encouraging companies to learn from one another and take steps to lower their carbon emissions. The goal of the project was to deliver a design proposal that integrates data comparison into the platform, enabling companies to easily view and benchmark their emissions against similar organisations.

Process

Research

To gain inspiration about how emission data can be visualised and how graphical elements can be used to visualise environmental impact we started off by online benchmarking. Additionally we conducted five semi-structured interviews with Swedish professionals working with emissions management, giving us insights about how the emission calculations are done today, thoughts about the current interface, and user needs.

Finding themes

By analysing the gathered data we identified three themes that were brought to future decision making:
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Accessibility
The data should be visualised in a clear and intuitive way, accessible for people with visual impairments.

High information density with possibility of overview
Users expressed a need for a unified platform that brings together various emission data sources with the option to get a quick overview or dig deep into each area. They wanted a simple and smooth way to manage and access emission metrics in one place.

Understanding and motivation
Users expressed the importance of simplifying the presentation of complex environmental data. Making the data clear and easy to understand is essential to get people involved, motivated, and to be able to use it as a foundation for decision-making in sustainability initiatives.

Persona and scenario

Persona
Kim is a 47 year old working with HR at the company Acme AB. Since Acme only has 33 employees Kim dedicates around 20% of her time dealing with climate-related issues within the company. Kim has no further education in the field of environment and climate, but has taken a number of courses sponsored by the company. To review the company's emissions, set goals for the their sustainability work, and to analyse their emission levels compared to other companies Kim uses an online emission calculator.
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Scenario
It is Monday and Kim is about to put together a presentation of the company's climate impact to be presented on Friday. This will be held for all employees with the goal to make everyone strive more to change and reach the climate goals for 2030. The presentation, will mainly show how the company stands against other companies in the industry and show their development over the past 3 years. This should encourage Acme's employees to meet the company’s climate goals.

Ideation

The ideation was initiated by using the brainstorming method crazy 8 where 40 ideas were generated. These where then discussed and the most promising ones were developed as wireframes in Figma for further evaluation.

Refinement

The selected ideas were refined to align with Svalna's colour and design language, with consideration given to the number of graphs displayed at once. During the benchmarking we found that when displaying more than one data element it was common to organise them as a dashboard. This layout felt relevant for this project as we wanted to include a high density of data but still offer a clear overview. The next step was therefore to combine various elements and experiment with different graphs, layouts, and configurations.

User testing

User tests were conducted with people handling sustainability issues at companies and organisations, one interaction designer, interaction design students, and our supervisors at Chalmers and Svalna. During the tests the different frames where shown where smaller interactions were done visualising how the different graphs were connected. Areas they brought up that were improved in the last refinement were enhancing histogram readability, remove redundant elements, change filter placements, and visualise an energy declaration.

Final design

Classification

A widget with a scale from A-F that provides the company with a quick overview of where on the scale they are and how much they must lower their emissions to reach the next level. The design resembles with other energy declarations and standardised by trusted authorities to enable fair comparisons across the industry.

Emission tracking over time

The line graph shows the company's emissions over time showing exact data for a specific time when hovering over the graph. This graph allows users to get an overview over their total emission or to brake it down by a specific category, always compared to the industry average.

Position within the industry

The bars represents the companies divided in four sections based on their emission levels. One can read how many companies are in each quartile and in which emission span they are. The company's data is highlighted in black, indicating its quartile and emission range.

Emissions per category

A widget with colour coded horizontal bars divided by categories showing the company's emission compared to industry average. This allows for both internal comparisons across company categories and category-specific emissions comparisons with the industry average.

Emission tracking over time

A pie chart showing the impact of each emission category to the company's total emissions. Users can drill down into specific categories to view more exact numbers. Making it possible to drill down allows for the company to identify areas for improvement.

Learnings

This project focused heavily on balancing user needs with the requirements set by the company. Exploring creative solutions while adapting to limitations and available data presented challenges, which we addressed through regular communication with our contact at Svalna and feedback from industry experts. Additionally, gaining a solid understanding of sustainability and emission calculations was crucial to get as much out of our interviews as needed.