We all know that climate change is going on. We also know, that there are a lot of issues and ethical problems with food production, especially around animal products.
WWF came to us, to find a solution, how we can convince employees to make more sustainable food choices at their work, this said, we were asked to change behaviour around food. To make the concept successful for WWF, the final concept had to be simple, low-cost, mobile, easy in and out, with a low impact on the organisation and scalable to other companies.
Date: 2018
Type of project: Student project
Project time: 4 months
Client: WWF
Team members: Anandita Punji, Bugra Kantar, Thomas Ruitenberg
Later, we also added “rewarding” to the requirements for our final concept, as we identified the importance of a working reward system for the success of behaviour change. Interesting to mention here, is the the Hook Model, developed by the behavioural economist Nir Eyal.
To form new habits in users, you need triggers, an action, a variable reward, and a continuous investment by the user.
Due to the broad topic but also limitations, we had several concept explorations in the beginning. With our client, we decided to go for one direction, the idea of challenging cards. Each day, you would draw a challenge to perform for the day, until you did all of them. According to the BJ fogg’s behaviour model, to create behaviour change, you need motivation combined with the ability to do an action, to make the prompt (call for action, trigger) successful.
We made sure to include all of these elements to our challenges. The motivation, in form of the why do the challenge, the ability, in form of simplicity of the challenge, and the prompt, in form of the challenge itself.
Nevertheless the concept still lacked a variable reward. Of course, the user would feel the satisfaction of having done all challenge cards, but it is a long-term reward and not meaningful enough. To add an extra layer of satisfaction for short- and long-term rewards, we decided to add a cardholder in which more persuasion methods would be integrated to make our concept more engaging for our user. In addition, I researched about more persuasion examples.
Facebook created one of the most famous triggers out there. A red icon which calls for attention, through its popping colour, but also its triggered suspense about the unknown.
That is why we added popping colours to the challenge cards and covered the challenges, so that each day stays a surprise.
Another nice example is the jigsaw puzzle. We all know the satisfying feeling of putting pieces in their right slots, especially the last piece. We translated this phenomenon to our concept, by creating fitting slots for each card.
In our user tests, we received mostly positive feedback about the challenge cards, but also negative, like the lack of strong immediate rewards. Because of that we developed several concepts around rewards. We made a dollar test with some users, who decided which rewards would be the most fulfilling one for them. Light was the most favoured feature by the participants. Needless to say, there was the dilemma of using only recyclable and sustainable materials for the production against the need of using variable and meaningful rewards. That is why we decided that our product would travel with WWF to different companies to create a long life-cycle, plus using recyclable materials as much as possible.
Each employee, who wants to participate, receives a box with an instruction paper. From now on, for 20 working days, they draw a challenge card to perform during work. With each successful performed card, which is put in its slot on the top, one side will light up for some seconds. With each day more sides will light up, with a changing color for each week. By the end of the month all slots will be filled and the employee will feel the satisfying feeling of success and proudness on an individual level.
For the collective success, there is a public “bee comb”, in which the finished box will be put in. Together the company can fill the installation, and realise the impact of the individual on the collective. It is a fitting metaphor, and also hints to the symbol of climate change, the bee itself.
Copyright © 2018 Lena Heinrich
