Wholesum
About Wholesum
Wholesum is a brand that aims to assist consumers in living an environmentally conscious lifestyle by making sustainable options more assessible.
Wholesum is a community for those who want to shop sustainability. The app can assist shoppers in finding sustainable alternatives for their usual products. The blog can educate people on building more sustainable habits along with climate change related news. Social media sites can also educate others while building a community where people can share their journeys and knowledge.
HIGH LEVEL TIMELINE
9 months
MAKE OF THE TEAM
business admin, writer, environmentalist
KEY GOAL
build an app to help consumers choose more environmentally conscious products
MY ROLE
Product designer, user research, market research, prototyping, visual design
I started with doing market and user research to better understand what was already on the market and whether there is a need for such a product. I continued with a competitive analysis to see what similar companies were doing and came up with ideas of how we could differentiate ourselves from other companies. I also worked on prototyping, designing, and building the Wholesum website on Figma and WordPress.
UNDERSTANDING THE USER
Sustainable shopping for consumers can be difficult for a variety of reasons.
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There are so many brands and products on the shelves and it's difficult to look through all of them to find the most sustainable one.
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Greenwashing occurs often and makes it hard to find which products are truly sustainable and which ones are just trying to profit from greenwashing.
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Sustainability looks different for everyone. Some may put more value on the ingredients whiles others care more about the packaging. What seems sustainable to one person may not be the case for another.
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It takes time to research each brand and to understand jargon in products.
User Survey
The user survey is focused on understanding consumers, their expectations, and needs.
Some of the questions I came up with to ask consumers:
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What could help you make more sustainable decisions when shopping?
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What is the most difficult part of trying to shop sustainably?
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What aspect of sustainable products is most important to you? (e.g. rank: fair trade, plastic free, toxic free, ethical practices, 1% for the planet, etc.)
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How often do you shop online? In-person? (if online, have to think about packaging and location)
UNDERSTANDING THE MARKET
Climate change awareness has increased significantly over the last decade. There has been a rise in companies who focus on sustainability and mitigating climate change.
People have become more aware of climate change over the last decade. Many have raised concerns of the effects of climate change and are taking action to mitigate its effects. This resulted in more companies focusing their mission statement on sustainability and mitigating the effects of climate change. I focused on researching these companies and did a competitive analysis to compare what they were doing and what we wanted to achieve.
Brand Kit
The greens and yellows represent colors of nature. I wanted people to have nature in mind while thinking of sustainability. The sans-serif fonts are playful and inviting to convey the sense of community of Wholesum.
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Website Designs
The website aims to share the mission of Wholesum by promoting the application while educating people about sustainability through the blog.
Home
The website aims to share the mission of Wholesum by promoting the application while educating people about sustainability through the blog.
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Blog
The blog shares knowledge of various sustainability topics with the Wholesum community.
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About Us
This page shares Wholesum's origin story along with the mission statement and core values. It also features the team behind Wholesum.
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Contact
The contact page allows visitors to email Wholesum with any questions or comments. It also shares social media handles.
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Demo
The website interactions and animations are shown in this video.
LESSONS LEARNED
Importance of user-centered design.
After all, the users are the ones interacting with the design. It is important to put myself in the users' shoes to better understand their needs and wants. Research on users can come in the form of personas, surveys, research, and interviews.
Always learning.
Design is always changing. There's always new trends and new ways of being creative in design. I'm always on the lookout for the newest trends and designs. For example, there has been a rise in minimalistic designs and icons. This includes changing 3D icons into 2D ones.
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Accessibility in design.
Accessibility is important to ensure that everyone is included and able to experience the product. For example, I learned that there are ways to test if the color combinations are accessible to those who are visually impaired. Accessibility can also come in the form of ensuring that the website works on both desktops and mobiles.
Sustainability
I've always looking for ways to do better for our planet. Sustainability is an ever-changing space. There's always new research on ways to mitigate climate change and new discoveries on ways to do better for the planet. There's always something new to learn.
*Logo was previously created before I joined the team.