Project: AIRPAIN — Katherine Mustelier

Overview

The idea of climate change is scary for everyone, and there’s often a paralysis that people feel when they think about the changing climate and the catastrophic effects it could have on the way we live. This paralysis in part comes from a feeling of helplessness when it comes to addressing one’s carbon footprint. Most steps towards reducing carbon emissions can seem intimidating and overwhelming from a monetary and lifestyle standpoint. Many people know how much carbon pollution is created just from one airplane trip, but feel like they don’t even know how to approach undoing their impact. The goal of project Airpain is to simplify the process of buying carbon offsets (which can be surprisingly cheap) and allow users to share their small victories and defeats in their battle with climate change with their friends.

View the prototype here.

Design goals

I was tasked to be the designer in a small group of undergraduates working under Professor Eric Gilbert to create an app that would encourage users to purchase carbon offsets after they had taken a flight. Early on in the design process, we determined that the target audience for this product would likely be older, wealthier business-people with disposable income. We also determined that we didn’t want the app to seem “heavy” or stressful to use, as we wanted to avoid causing users to feel paralyzed by the amount of pollution they, and their fellow plane riders, had created. In addition to all the stress of travel and the airport, it was imperative that the user not feel bogged down with more chores surrounding their travel experience. With these concerns in mind, I decided that the app needed to appear upscale and professional without feeling oppressive or intense to use.

Userflow

To begin the design process, I first created a userflow diagram to map out the options that users should have on each page. I chose a three-section design, as I wanted the layout to seem simple and intuitive, even for older flyers. This userflow helped me a lot to flesh out which pages needed which features, and to simplify some complicated design ideas into clean-looking features.

Inspiration

I felt that it would be best to emulate designs from other established apps with similar features, to make sure that our app felt at home in users hands. Reducing confusion was a major concern in my process, so I looked through my apps to study the methods of other designers and find the most intuitive ways to display information. I also looked to major airlines such as Southwest, Delta and Alaska to see how they utilized their color schemes in their apps. I also created a color scheme informed by the branding of some of the most popular American airlines. By emulating the colors and the way these companies use them in their apps and programs, I was able to create and app that feels perfectly at home in the travel process.

Final Design

Here, I'll be highlighting some of the important UX design choices that I made on the key feature screens.

Challenges and Next steps

Likely the biggest challenge I faced on this project was having to become a leader for the direction of my team. It was hard for me to know exactly what my team wanted to do and they struggled to find a time to meet up or be organized. I had to make decisions on which features I wanted to incorporate into the app’s without putting too much pressure on my teammates. Making these choices really made me stop to think about the value of each feature I implemented, and helped me to learn about what was most important in this type of design.

I have graduated and moved on to other work, so at this point I’ve handed these designs off to Professor Gilbert, should the opportunity arise for any further development on the concept.

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