Green App
Green app is an enterprise sustainability solution that helps organizations track employee carbon emissions while driving engagement through gamified experiences.
UX UI designer, UX researcher
My role
4 months.
Timeline
Tools
Overview
As a leader in sustainability and decarbonization, our company is committed to addressing the environmental challenges faced by businesses and society. My team were tasked with developing a B2B solution that enables organizations to advance their sustainability initiatives by tracking carbon emissions and engaging employees in climate-conscious behaviors. The main goals of the Green app are:
Empower Organizations & Support Sustainability Goals – Provide a B2B solution to help companies track and reduce carbon emissions, meeting corporate environmental commitments, including net-zero targets.
Educate & Engage Employees – Use gamification to foster awareness and encourage eco-friendly behaviors.
Measure Impact & Drive Actionable Change – Offer real-time insights on employee and enterprise-wide carbon footprints, enabling informed decision-making through data-driven sustainability strategies.
The Process
We followed the Double Diamond design process to ensure a structured yet user-centered approach. This framework guided us through problem discovery, definition, solution development, and implementation, balancing business objectives with employee engagement needs.
Discover
Understand The Problem
To ensure the Green app was grounded in real-world needs, I conducted research, gathering key data from international agencies and sustainability authorities. This provided a comprehensive view of the current global challenges in reducing carbon emissions and achieving net-zero. These insights deepened our understanding of the problem space and directly informed our design decisions, ensuring the app effectively supports organizations in their sustainability efforts.
Global carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced by 2030 by
45%
Bring global carbon dioxide to net-zero by
2050
Office buildings contribute to total energy consumption in cities worldwide nearly
40%
Energy use in commercial buildings could be reduced with better energy management
10-15%
User Research
Next, I conducted user interviews with key stakeholders, including sustainability officers, HR leaders, and employees. The goal was to understand their pain points, motivations, and behaviors regarding sustainability in the workplace.
Research method
I used a semi-structured interview approach, allowing for open-ended discussions while ensuring consistency across participants.
Participants
8 participants in total. 2 ESG Leaders and 6 employees.
Objectives
Identify current challenges organizations face in engaging employees in sustainability efforts.
Understand employee awareness and participation in corporate sustainability programs.
Uncover pain points in tracking and reducing carbon emissions at work.
Determine what motivates employees to take action and what barriers prevent engagement.
Personas
After conducting user interviews, I synthesized the findings into two key personas: an ESG leader representing enterprise stakeholders and an employee as the end user. These personas helped guide design decisions by addressing real-world challenges, needs, and behaviors.
Define
Synthesizing Insights with Affinity Mapping
To make sense of the data collected from discover stage, I conducted an Affinity Mapping exercise. I categorized key insights into themes, highlighting common pain points, motivations, and behaviors across users.
Define the MVP
Through Affinity Mapping, HMW ideation, and feature prioritization, we defined the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) scope to focus on features that would deliver the highest impact with manageable complexity, address core user pain points, drive engagement, and provide measurable value to enterprises.
Carbon Footprint Calculator
A user-friendly carbon emission calculator designed to help employees track and monitor their workplace-related carbon footprint effortlessly.
Track selected IT & energy usage.
Track common types of commute transportation.
Contextual insights & comparisons.
Game Center
The Game Center transforms sustainability education into an interactive, engaging experience, making it easy for employees to participate in eco-friendly actions while having fun.
Daily green challenge
Challenge programs
Leaderboard & rewards
Community
The Community provides easy access to company news, learning resources, and training programs, fostering a stronger sustainability culture within the workplace.
News hub
Training & learning resources
Develop
Wireframe
After defining the MVP scope and core features, I began the wireframing process to create a structural blueprint for the Green app, serving as the foundation for layout, navigation, and feature interactions.
Validate the Concept
Before moving into high-fidelity prototyping, I conducted usability testing to validate the wireframes and core interactions of the app. This step ensured that the MVP solutions effectively addressed user needs and provided a smooth, intuitive experience.
I conducted usability testing with 5 participants using an interactive mid-fidelity prototype in Figma. Participants completed key tasks, such as logging carbon emissions, joining challenges, and exploring the community module, while I observed task completion, navigation patterns, and engagement levels. Feedback helped refine interactions, improve feature visibility, and ensure a seamless user experience before moving to high-fidelity
✅ Carbon tracking flow
Users appreciated the intuitive way to track and view carbon footprint.
⚠️ Game challenge visibility
Some users didn’t immediately see the daily challenges, so we improved its prominence.
✅ Community module
Users appreciated the clearer separation between news and training.
Deliver
Final Design
After multiple iterations, I finalized the high-fidelity prototype of the Green app. My goal was to ensure that the final UI design aligns with: The pain points and opportunities identified in the Discover phase. The MVP scope and prioritized features defined in the Define phase. The usability insights and design refinements from the Develop phase.
Carbon Calculator
Users can track their carbon footprint by simply inputting some data within the app and run through the Carbon Calculator to convert their inputs into insights. They are able to view key metrics outlining their CO2 footprint and receive tips from the app about how they can adjust their behaviors to be even more eco-friendly.
Green Games
The Green Game is a fun and engaging space for users to interact with and gain more knowledge about carbon emission reduction through gamified environment. Visually, I have adopted a bright and welcoming palette to make it intriguing and exciting to engage with, also maintained visual highlights to make sure key info is clearly presented and easy to find. From the UX perspective, I made sure the flow of the games are simple and straightforward enough so that it can apply easily on individual or large organization scale.
Community Hub
The Community Hub serves as an information and engagement center, ensuring that employees stay up to date with sustainability news, receive training resources, and feel more connected to their organization’s environmental initiatives.
Impact & Achievements
The success of the Green app extended beyond design and development—it successfully earned enterprise clients and was deployed within organizations looking to strengthen their sustainability efforts.
Strong initial adoption: Upon its first release within my company, the Green app achieved a 20% adoption rate, engaging over 18,000 employees in actively tracking their workplace carbon footprint and participating in sustainability challenges.
Major industry clients: Earned partnerships with leading companies, including Siemens and Johnson & Johnson, demonstrating the app’s effectiveness in supporting corporate sustainability goals.
“The Green app made sustainability a part of my daily routine without feeling like extra work. ”
My Learnings
Designing for behavior change —balancing engagement & usability
Through usability testing, I learned how to apply gamification principles effectively to drive real engagement. I refined my ability to design experiences that not only inform but also motivate users to take action, ensuring that sustainability tracking felt rewarding rather than burdensome.
Optimizing complex workflows for enterprise users
Designing the carbon calculator pushed me to think critically about minimizing friction in data entry while maintaining accuracy. By iterating on simplified input flows and intuitive tracking mechanisms, I strengthened my ability to design user-friendly enterprise tools that integrate seamlessly into daily workflows.
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