SME Climate Hub (Live site)
To revamp the user facing site of the Climate Hub for Small-to-Medium Sized enterprises to understand more about their carbon emission and make better climate decisions with a free carbon calculator
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Tools used
Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator
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Duration
A 6-month project in collaboration with SME Climate Hub, Normative.io and Google.org
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My Role and the team
Full-time designer overseeing the development of the site.
In this project I worked closely with PM, PgM, research, copy writer, and marketing to craft a compelling message of the tool given it's new and unfamiliar to the users. I'm responsibility for the strategy, stakeholder management, the end to end product design process, and weekly leadership updates about the project.
Target Audience
Small enterprises who are committed or looking to commit to reduce carbon emissions, and be counted in the United Nation’s Race to Zero campaign. Organisations who are looking to partner with thousands of businesses and governments globally to reach net zero emissions by 2050 as part of the Paris Agreement.
Design Outcome
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Revamp the old site and create a better user journey for them to have a clear focus and Call-to-Action during the commitment process
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Demystify the climate impact of their organization, share best practices, build the community, and encourage companies to join the global initiatives to build resilient businesses for the future
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Tone of voice: simple, eco friendly, easy-to-digest
Impact
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It has helped over 700 SMEs measure over 1.7M metric tons of CO2. The calculator already has more than 700 SMEs in over 80 countries with more than half having completed a full measurement of their emissions. This makes the Business Carbon Calculator so far known as the world’s largest resource to measure and reduce carbon emissions for small businesses.​
Media Coverage
The Problem
Why
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The current site is wordy, hard to navigate with confusing information layout. Users can’t land on the right tool by going through the complicated site architecture.
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Who
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New SMEs who come to SME Climate Hub to get to know more about the information on how to reduce emission and start their race to zero journey.
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How might we design a flow that
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1) increases the discoverability of the free tool;
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2) encourages commitment rate on SME Climate Hub and help SMEs understand their carbon emissions and find ways to take actions.
Challenge: how to meet the distinct needs of two different groups of stakeholders in one design
In order to address this, I firstly reorganized the site architecture to streamline the navigation and lead users to the information they want in a clear and logical way.
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After rounds of discussions with various stakeholders and their users, we landed with a design that caters to different user maturity on their climate journey.
The Solution
The Design Process
I started with low-fi mocks to show the concept during the group cognitive walkthrough sessions we had internally among engineers, PM, and researchers to discover anything widely off the roadmap.
As learnt from the cognitive study, users are fairly confused about the main goal of the site so I experimented with various ways to surface the CTA and make it clear and concise.
I particularly like some Google hardware websites which do a good job organizing information for users, so I draw some inspirations from them to emphasis the CTA.
After rounds of discussions with various stakeholders and their users, we landed with a design that caters to different user maturity on their climate journey.
The “Start the Journey” option takes them to a new page to guide users through the net zero journey from learning about their emissions to making the climate commitment.
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In this way we meet the first goal of increasing discoverability.
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Once they are ready to calculate the emission, they will then see the page dedicated to showcase the usage of the carbon calculator and direct users to the tool page built by Normative.
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In this way we meet the second goal of increasing commitment rate.
To wrap up the 6 months project, I created stationeries and guidelines for post-fellowship implementations as part of the handover.
I’ve learnt a lot along this journey
Stakeholder alignment
There will be conflicting interests, agendas, changing dynamics and reorgs(!) and it’s important bring everyone on the same page and constantly check in on the shared goal throughout
Write for the users
Useful copy is an integral part of design. It needs to go hand in hand and included in the beginning of the design phase to participate in research and product iterations (not as an afterthought)
Design for the future
Design system is an luxury that startups don’t have. It’s important to keep a sustainable mindset and think strategically about any new process / flow to account for scalability and consistency as the organization grows
I’m really proud to be part of this effort that embraces a greener future.
Reflection
Was the project successful?
I think we were successful on several levels! Not only has the site managed to generate great traffic to the carbon calculator, it has also served the secondary goal of balancing the various needs of the stakeholders and users.
What else did I learn?
It took a lot of coordination, compromising, and team work to get things done. Program management skill is very important too to help everyone stay organized.
What this project says about me?
Ownership - I stepped in as the program manager to organize design sprints and facilitate research / discussions prior to when we had a dedicated resource. I did not restrict myself to be only the designer but instead think from the perspectives of how to make this project successful. Ownership mindset is key.
Multiple hats - walk the fine line between a designer, a teammate, and a program manager, and balance out different seemingly contradictory goals and find a midpoint for all.
Problem solving - given my limited knowledge going into the project, I was able to gather relevant information, quickly picked up the climate vocabulary and found the right links / connections / gaps in order to solve the complex issue.
Persistence - despite all the challenges and skepticism I had in the beginning of the project, I didn't take no for an answer and worked my way through the ups and downs.
Gao Fang has done an incredible job as the main UX designer++ [taking on other responsibilities as well] on the SME Climate Hub homepage, integrating feedback from many different sources and being super-proactive to ensure that the product is set up for success. Always amazed to see the progress that has been made. Thanks, Gao Fang!
- Fellowship PM
