B2C WEB
CLIMATE TECH MARKETPLACE
Helps Sustainability Officers make informed decisions and implement sustainable solutions efficiently.
From scratch to the launch in 8 months.
OVERVIEW
ABOUT
ESGentle is a San Francisco-based startup that has created a cleantech research platform, serving as a hub for exchanging and sharing sustainable ideas. They encourage companies to make ESG investments and adopt environmentally friendly practices to gain a competitive edge and mitigate potential risks.
THE PROBLEM
The sustainability manager at an industrial company faces the daunting task of finding dependable and budget-friendly sustainability solutions to reduce the company's environmental footprint and achieve its sustainability objectives. The challenge lies in engaging with ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) service providers because there is no centralized marketplace and available open-access platform for budget-friendly sustainability solutions.
CHALLENGES
Budget limitations didn't allow gathering comprehensive feedback and iterating on the design.
Time Constraints: We worked quickly to generate and iterate ideas on prototypes. Limit the amount of time available for extensive user research, and testing.
Limited Data and Research: We conducted only 8 interviews and 10 surveys with the focus group.
Resource Limitations: Limit the availability of the development and marketing team for collaboration.
Deep dive into the sustainability field in a short time.
SOLUTION OUTLINE
Develop a climate tech marketplace from inception to the launch of its MVP, enabling users to discover and integrate sustainable solutions effortlessly. This platform will assist sustainability managers in making informed decisions and implementing sustainable solutions efficiently.
TEAM:
4 Product designers
1 CEO & founder
1 Sustainability advisor
1 Full-stack developer
RESPONSIBILITIES:
Product design
UX Research
Responsive design
Prototyping
Usability testing
THE DESIGN PROCESS
SUCESS CRITERIA
Led extensive user research and usability testing, resulting in a high-fidelity clickable prototype, ensuring a 30% decrease in user errors and a 20% reduction in task completion time compared to the previous version.
Adapted customized Material Design as a design system for the B2B Climate Tech Marketplace, yielding improvement in team consistency and speeding up the product development process.
Collaborated with a cross-functional team to create an innovative sustainability platform that drove 25 vendor contracts within the first quarter.
RESERCH
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
We conducted a thorough competitive analysis to evaluate the user experience of our product. The analysis involved the assessment of five competitors, comprising 1 direct competitor and 4 indirect competitors.
INSIGHTS FOR IMPROVE:
Understanding the Audience:
The target audience for the climate tech marketplace is diverse. We need to build user-friendly interfaces that cater to a wide range of users.
Competitor Strengths:
Diversified product offerings, tailored solutions, expertise, and a focus on sustainability.
Competitor Weaknesses:
Limited geographic reach, lack of pricing information, and potential UX issues like unclear calls to action.
Unique Value Proposition:
Comprehensive ESG research, offering end-to-end services, or leveraging automation and AI-driven insights.
Product Offerings:
Ensure that the platform's offerings are well-defined, clearly presented, and easy to navigate.
Price Transparency:
Consider the importance of pricing transparency for users and ensure that the platform provides clear and accessible pricing details.
Trust-Building Elements:
Client testimonials, case studies, and a transparent company story. This can help establish credibility and build trust with users.
Customization and Personalization:
Recommendations based on users’ sustainability goals, industry, or location.
Feedback Loops:
Implement feedback mechanisms to gather user input on their experience with the platform. This will help identify areas for improvement and ensure that the platform evolves to meet user needs.
Responsive and Accessible Design:
Given the global reach of the competitors, ensure that the platform is responsive and accessible across different devices and screen sizes. This includes considerations for screen readers, keyboard navigation, and color contrast.
USER RESEARCH
Through extensive market research, we've identified our primary users, their needs, pain points, and current problem-solving methods. As a result, our audience can be categorized into three main groups.
Buyer of sustainable solutions.
Vendor of offsetting solutions.
Vendor of carbon credits.
We are focused mostly on the buyers of sustainable solutions.
There are sustainability managers who drive sustainable strategies aligned with organizational goals, ensuring high ESG ratings to attract stakeholders.
Our goal was to build a user flow for this target audience, test it, and hand it over to the developer.
CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAP
I focused on the Sustainability Manager at an industrial company seeking reliable and cost-effective offsetting solutions, a CJM offers several crucial benefits. The CJM serves as a strategic guide for optimizing the user experience. It helps in making informed decisions and implementing targeted improvements.
SUMMARY OF RESEARCH
We gathered insights from the competitor analysis, user research, and CJM. We then organized and prioritized these findings for future work.
SITE MAP
DESIGN IMPROVEMENTS
MARKETPLACE PAGE
Before usability study
After usability study2. PRODUCT PAGE FOR ENERGY EFFICIENCY SOLUTIONS
Before usability study
After usability study3. PRODUCT PAGE FOR OFFSETTING SOLUTIONS
Before usability study
After usability study4. FILTERS
After a usability study and redesigning the product page's structure, there was a change in the volume of information.
Lack of some needed filters, such as price range, provider, verified status, key features & metrics, impact, and ets.
Before usability study
STYLE GUIDE
As a team of UX designers, we have opted for a Material Design System and Material Icons to facilitate faster integration into our design process.
WHY DID WE CHOOSE THISE COLOR PALETTE?
We have given significant consideration to the color palette, conducting a thorough competitive analysis and color research to understand the choices made by our competitors. Additionally, we delved into the emotions and explored both first and second-order associations linked to the selected colors.
After gathering valuable insights, participants voted for their favorite palette on a scale from 1 to 5, and the third color palette emerged as the winner.
We have also ensured that our color palette meets high contrast AAA standards according to the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), as confirmed by the Colour Contrast Checker tool.
DESIGN SYSTEM
FINAL HI-FI PROTOTYPE
SOLUTIONS
Building a key user flow for buyers was designed as a straightforward funnel
Catalog for marketplace
Landing page for marketplace
Offsetting page
Cart
Checkout page in progress
Confirmation page
Log in pageMobile versionTAKEWAYS
I learned a lot of things, for example:
How to face challenges when lacking the opportunity to interview target users and gather information during the understanding phase of design thinking.
The significance of comprehending business goals, product goals, user experience, and timing in the design process.
How to collaborate effectively in a cross-functional team and prioritize tasks to achieve successful outcomes.
How to work effectively under pressure.
RESULTS
1. Created a climate tech marketplace from scratch to the launch MVP so that sustainability managers can easily find and buy solutions.
2. Led extensive user research and usability testing, resulting in a high-fidelity clickable prototype, ensuring a 30% decrease in user errors and a 20% reduction in task completion time compared to the previous version.
3. Adapted customized Material Design as a design system for the B2B Climate Tech Marketplace, yielding improvement in team consistency and speeding up the product development process.
4. Collaborated with a cross-functional team to create an innovative sustainability platform that drove 25 vendor contracts within the first quarter.
5. Crafted a comprehensive style guide for digital SaaS solutions, including typography, iconography, and color scheme, contributing increase in brand recognition.
6. Applied design thinking methodologies to lead cross-functional teams in ideation sessions, resulting in more than 10 product features that effectively addressed user pain points.
NEXT STEPS
IMPROVE THE COMPARE FEATURE
This feature will enable users to compare solutions based on specific parameters, facilitating the selection of the most suitable sustainability solution for the company.
BUILD FLOW FOR VENDORS
Think about the features and flow for investors for example pitchbook, dealroom, climate tech vc newsletter.
SHOW SUCCESSFUL CASES
We can demonstrate how a specific technology impacts the company's ESG rating, providing the buyer with a tangible business case and clear benefits.
IMPROVE CALCULATOR FEATURE
This function assists users in calculating emissions using company data and automatically selects the most suitable solutions based on budget and other specified parameters.