Tribe is a digital start-up working on a new app to encourage more planet-compatible lifestyles. The App helps users make informed consumption choices and incentivises positive action through individual and collective challenges. I helped the Tribe team to test and refine the product concept through user research and create an interactive prototype and a narrative to support fundraising and partnership brokering.
A Competitive Analysis revealed a handful of Apps with a similar goal to Tribe, all of which show limited levels of activity. Some focus exclusively on challenges, while other include basic 'educational' content on key sustainability topics. Most use leaderboards to display member progress and some offer the option to follow friends. The logging of actions happens either through posts or through a Buzz button.
We discovered that two competitors have developed versions of their App, which they offer to corporate clients as employee engagement tools.
Key enquiry foci surfaced by competitive analysis were:
Before starting to explore the user's perspective, we found it helpful to clarify our hypotheses.
User Interviews focused on current patterns, aspirations and challenges in relation to CO2-conscious behaviours; what helps people develop and maintain new habits; attitudes towards digital tools and what counts as an attractive incentive.
The insights emerging from user interviews challenged some of the team's hypotheses:
This showed us that we should:
The interviews pushed us to rethink some of our assumptions, but also confirmed a fundamental alignment between Tribe's business goals and some user goals.
Conversations with users also helped us to prioritise App features.
In the App Architecture we created a structure revolving around the core offers of: Information topics; Challenges and an individual Dashboard, with a Home Page showcasing current platform current and member activity and a More section to include information about the App, Partners and Tribe itself.
A brainstorming about brand qualities with the Tribe team surfaced consistency in the key attributes.
We created a very simple Style Guide and a Logo to capture the brand qualities.
In designing the screens we tried to create an experience where...
We tested the inVision prototype in one to one conversations
Usability tests on the prototype prompted improvements in the onboarding process to make the Tribe concept clear from the very beginning, and some tweaks to the Challenge page design, to provide more information at a glance.
We also created an MVP prototype of the App using GlideApps to test basic challenge functions with a group of users over time.
The prototype and MVP will help us to continue testing our hypotheses about the product and our users' preferences, as well as support the outreach towards investors and clients.
Drop me a line at fcignola@gmail.com
