Ole Sander Brudvik

A more environmentally enlightened consumer

2023 · Bergen · 2 min read

Team Benjamin Late, Remi André Nygård and Ole Sander Brudvik

You can read more about Way To Go here. Test the prototype here!

Problem
Consumers cannot see a product’s value chain or climate impact at the moment they are deciding whether to buy it.
Approach
Research into the UN sustainability goals and the circular economy, a workshop with eight groups, low-fidelity prototyping, and an interactive Figma prototype.
Outcome
A scan-first app: recognise a product or scan a QR code, then see its impact, greener alternatives, and your own consumption over time.
Role
Design & research (UX design, user research, prototyping)
Context
University design & research project (INFO263), Media- and interaction design

What if you could see a product’s whole journey and its climate cost before you bought it? Way To Go is a scan-first app that shows you exactly that.

Gen Z wants a Shazam for shopping

  • The users: young adults, Gen Z and millennials, moderately to very conscious about the environment.
  • At the shelf there is no way to tell green products from the rest, and no information about where a product has been.
  • A workshop with eight groups of one to five gave us both group discussion and individual views.
  • What came out of it: scanning within easy reach, a start page like Shazam’s, and a clean app with several features.

Prototype

Low-fidelity prototypes on paper first, then the Figma prototype: one green button, the scanner and the three options.

Low-fidelity wireframe sketches for the Way To Go app
Further low-fidelity wireframe sketches for the Way To Go app

Nothing new here, except all of it

Every piece exists somewhere. Vipps, the Norwegian payment app, scans bills. Many apps scan QR codes. Statistics and social features are common. Oda, the online grocer, shows the climate footprint of food, but only for what you buy from Oda. Put together, the combination has no direct equivalent: image recognition and logistics data used to show what you consume and how far it has travelled. The idea grew out of a strong grasp of logistics.

Shazam was the closest relative, and the workshop had pointed to it. So we borrowed what Shazam has surely tested, the placement of the first large button and a few menu elements, and changed everything else, because the purpose is entirely different. The full report is linked at the top.

Scan, then see

Open the app and there is one green button: start. It takes you straight to the main function, recognising a product or scanning its QR code. The product appears with three options, or a chance to scan again if it did not match.

  • Its journey. Where the product has been and its climate footprint, with the option to register it.
  • Register it. Into your library, footprint included.
  • Greener alternatives. Including local ones: the green pins on the map came directly from the workshop.

Two more screens. Stats shows your consumption by month and year and your greenest product. CO2 compensation lets you support organisations that protect wildlife and the environment, with points or money.

Way To Go prototype

The prototype runs here, from Figma, when scripting is on.

Open on Figma