Holistico | 2022
A sustainable lifestyle, made easy.
Holistico is a platform that aims to connect verified brands with sustainably focused customers. It aims to make it easier for conscious consumers to find, support and be rewarded by these businesses, while making a positive impact.
ROLE
UX/UI Designer + UXR
TEAM
7 UX Designers
TIME
6 months
TOOLS
Figma, Google Suite, Lookback, Miro
DELIVERABLES
Stakeholder interviews
Competitive Analysis
User Testing (x3)
Design Sprint
Mockups
Prototypes
Business Strategy
Marketing Strategy
Customer Journey
Brand Book
FINAL PRODUCT
A platform where consumers can magnify their impact and be rewarded for making empowered sustainable choices. Sustainable brands can strengthen and grow their businesses, reach new consumers and partner with other like-minded brands.
OPPORTUNITY
Even when there is a willingness to live in a sustainable way, most sustainable products are expensive, difficult to find or there is a lack of knowledge on what is actually sustainable or not.
There is a growing consumer trend towards preferring ethical products and choosing to live an eco-conscious lifestyle.
In 2021, Deloitte found 1 in 3 consumers claim to have stopped purchasing certain brands or products due to ethical or sustainability related concerns.
Other studies show that this trend is expected to continue as younger generations change their behaviors to become more healthy and sustainable in their daily lives.
Consumer behavior around sustainability is shifting
85%
of the global population has changed their buying behavior to be more sustainable
Simon Kutcher & Partners, 2021
1 in 3
consumers in the UK claim to have stopped purchasing certain brands or products due to ethical or sustainability related concerns
Deloitte
34%
of consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable products and services
Simon Kutcher & Partners, 2021
And the motivation and struggles with sustainable living varies
-
User 01 | Taylor
WANTS TO
Enhance positive impact
MOTIVATED BY
Social and economic equity, ethical transformation and environmental justice
STRUGGLES WITH
Tracking her impact and being surrounded by people who share her same values -
User 02 | Alex
WANTS TO
Adopt a conscious lifestyle
MOTIVATED BY
Environmental threats and his role as a consumer
STRUGGLES WITH
Not identifying himself as part of the “conscious living” community -
User 03 | Lina
WANTS TO
Improve her health
MOTIVATED BY
Thinking sustainability and her health are directly correlated
STRUGGLES WITH
Not being able to identify what type of ingredients fit best for her body
How it started
In 2022, our team of UX designers partnered with a stakeholder, Honest Greens, a fast casual restaurant, with locations across Spain and Portugal. They are democratizing the farm-to-table movement, while hosting diners in their stylish nature-forward spaces.
Our team conducted in-person interviews with their team and on-site interviews with customers, conducted industry research, leading to the creation and testing of a lo-fidelity prototype, and we were ready and excited to jump fully into solving unique brand challenges.
Honest Greens was already testing certain improvements, in-store and through their app, and could not disrupt those in-flight tests, but our timeline was fixed. We had to make the difficult decision to pivot.
Inspired by our stakeholder and our research, we broadened our scope, to think of the larger sustainable ecosystem, while sharpening our focus on the lack of trusted resources and community that care about and benefit from supporting a sustainable lifestyle.
From this, Holistico was born.
Nothing is every quite as straight-forward as it seems.
This is more of an accurate depiction of our journey.
While going “backwards” can be painful and frustrating, it is worth the effort for the quality of the solution will benefit.
When pivoting, pursue a sprint.
At the point of our pivot, we needed to diverge in the design process and look again at the bigger picture. To aid this diversion, our team embarked on a Design Sprint.
Our team executed a five-day design sprint, based on the methodology from the book Sprint (2016), by Jake Knapp and the Google Ventures team. This was critical to supporting the pivot as it provided direction and allowed the team to accelerate into the first testable low-fidelity concept of the Holistico product.
This Miro template was incredibly helpful.
TESTING NO. 2
Rewarding sustainable choices
The prototype that resulted from our Design Sprint focused on incentivizing the consumer to gain points with one business partner and redeem them with another in order to reward sustainable actions.
The features tested with the prototype were:
Onboarding process
Transferring points to a friend
Donating to a cause
Tracking impact
Gaining points
Redeeming points
Feedback is critical to making informed alterations and enhancements
Key things we heard from our test participants
Personalization
Looking for personal recommendations based on where they had been. Makes them feel special.
Substance
Want to see more diversity of product and not just information about the brands, but why they should support them and their sustainable actions.
Understanding
The participants wanted to understand the product more before signing up and and gaining points.
Community
This connection is key for retention, sustained interest and the success of the solution. It has to be more than discounts, but a like-minded connection.
Credibility
Info about the certifications of the restaurants and products is key to trust and adoption.
Points
Like them, but not as interested in donating to a cause as they are to gifting a friend or redeeming. Keep easily accessible, but not the main feature.
It was vital that we lean into the personalization and community aspects that were so important to our target users.
TESTING NO. 3
Sustainable community
Our improvements focused on building a product that more accurately reflected the community building, encompassed many more aspects of a healthy lifestyle, provided accessible details about the sustainability initiatives of our partners, while still rewarding customers.
For this round of testing:
Visuals were further refined to mid-fidelity
Product imagery for the onboarding screens was added
Functionality for changing the points value (numerical keyboard and editing of form field) was added
App store download was designed to make the process reflect a more realistic scenario
Businesses categories were included to emphasize the types of partners we are including and to clarify the product is not limited to just Restaurants
On the Explore page, community events were included to explore the community factor among participants
Created an Apple Wallet card with the customer’s unique QR code for facilitating the points redemption process
Key learnings from our testing
20%
of participants completed the onboarding without confusion or feedback.
Using images of the product caused confusion.
Community +
Connection
Interest in participating in events
and community.
Looking for more than just information,
but connection
40%
Less than half of participants found points scanning and redeeming for a discount easy to use.
FINAL DESIGN
Holistico
Download and brand introduction
After deciding to download our app, we want to provide additional context about our mission, vision and offering while welcoming customers to the Holistico community.
Sustainable Development Goals
Partners go through a selection process to guarantee they are doing good with their business. Customers discover sustainable brands they can trust and align with the Sustainable Development Goals outlined by the U.N.
Partner details
Customers connect to their preferred maps app to get real-time walking directions to the partner’s location.
Browse the current menu to get a sense of the offering.
Attend events
A key aspect to engaging our Holistico community will be through our partner-hosted events. We want to create engaging, eco-focused events to connect, invigorate and inspire the community.
Earn points
Easily accessible QR code to earn points with partners from the app.
Scan and earn on the go with an Apple Wallet card.
Personalized insights
Receive detailed personalized insights, from our platform’s AI, that help customers make more informed choices.
Redeem points and feedback
Access a history of all point accruals and redeem them by attending Holistico Hangouts.
Consistent check-ins help inform and update insights.
Search and save favorites
Sustainability is so much more than eating well, understand our reach, browse by categories or specific term.
Access a profile with personalized favorites and settings.
For the final high fidelity prototype, the focus was placed on:
Increasing the community visibility
Providing personalized insights
Updated to visually similar illustrations for onboarding, with the intention of reducing the confusion of using product imagery when not in the product yet
Revamping the branding - color palette and logo
Increasing prominence of third-party sign up
Adding a Profile section - Favorites, Settings, Account Management, Invite Friends and Accessibility
Updating the tab bar to include more icons and improve the Information Architecture of the app
Removing the monetary value, to focus on points only
Adding an aura ball on Insights to represent the feelings they are asked to input.
Improving the visibility of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) badges and explanations for partner profiles
Video created by my talented teammates - Bea Jaime and Karen Wassef
Reflections
Adaptability is key
Adaptability on a small scale, like iterations, and on a large scale, at a product level, was essential for building the best solution. It was key to know when to step back and adjust, even if that means parting ways with the stakeholder, to pursue something larger.
Strength in diversity
Incredibly efficient and successful product teams are further strengthened by their differences and specialties. We had the benefit of representing six countries within our team, but teams are not meant to be made up of one discipline. Not having the full triad — Product, Design, Engineering — in place only stood to highlight the importance of this critical element for product development.