NOOSHZAD NOORBAKHSH

PROBLEM SPACE

 

Scaventure came about through a common interest in sustainability between my team members and I. We wanted to pursue the idea of creating a gamified app that would be a fun way for players to learn about sustainable choices. Through the course of a quarter, we worked with a stakeholder (21 Acres) to create a running prototype of our app. This is how it all came together... 

 

QUESTION

 

Environmental sustainability and climate change are some of the most pressing issues we face right now. I knew I wanted to be working on a project towards those general directions, and when my team members and I came together, we decided to narrow down our focus within environmental sustainability to sustainable food and agricultural practices. The main question now was what kind of app would be an effective, captivating experience that would not just teach users about sustainable food practices, but inspire change as well.

 

SOLUTION PROPOSAL

 

To put it simply, our solution is a gamified app that gives users quests to complete, pertaining to sustainable food practices and organizations dedicated to food justice. Coming to this solution was full of iterating and branching off of ideas, this proved to be the most exciting and at times, frustrating part of the design process.

 

INSPIRATIONS AND RESEARCH

 

Design inspiration is all around. Aesthetic and conceptual inspiration for this project came from a variety of sources. The look and feel of the final prototype follows a color scheme reminiscent of harvesting themes. 

Conceptually, a big inspiration for this project was a game called Cool Choices. This is a “game-based sustainability program (that) supports corporate sustainability, boosts employee engagement & cuts costs”. The main idea of Cool Choices is getting employees at companies to make changes in their daily habits to live more sustainably. Sustainable changes made by individuals, as well as big companies, both contribute their respective parts to making a wider difference in the world.

More inspiration came from apps like Leafully and Joulebug. Leafully is an app that tracks a home’s energy usage through its utilities, and shows progress through trees that “offset emissions”. This visual representation of sustainable choices encourages users to think about and change their energy usage. Joulebug is similar, it’s an app that gives users ideas and nudges to make changes that benefit sustainability. It also integrates social interactions between users to build a feel of community.

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IDEATION AND ITERATION

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When we first started working with 21 Acres, we did not know how much of their actual physical organization to include within the app idea. We ran into the problem of focusing too exclusively on them, therefore becoming an avenue for organizational advertisement. Another problem was reaching a wide audience, since the main customers of 21 Acres happen to be local Woodinville residents, and we wanted to reach further. The ideas that came about include:

• Interactive map of the property and scavenger hunt

21 Acres, not surprisingly, consists 21 acres of property, including farmland, restorative land, and gardening land. They currently have informative signs throughout the property that explain the sustainable technologies in place on the property. These signs are helpful, but they are a bit strewn. They do not currently have a map of the property for visitors. We came up with the idea of creating an interactive map that would connect with the existing signs, and include a scavenger hunt element to engage younger users. With feedback from professors, we recognized that this app idea did not truly express concern for the wider issue of sustainable food practices, and served too closely a resemblance to an advertisement for 21 Acres. Moving away from this, we came up with…

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