Designing a 21-Day Zero Waste Challenge
Action design that works when there are many actions
In this class, we're going to learn how to design overwhelming lists of green actions (that no one does) into elegantly designed actions people can implement one at a time.
One of the BIG challenges of any green action design is there are always sooooo many behaviors involved. This is especially true with zero waste living. I collected 148 zero waste actions for my book and game, Zerowastify.
The mistake people make is to put all those actions in a list. NOOOOOOOO!
MASTER RULE OF ACTION DESIGN: If you have more than ONE action or tip appearing to your user at a time, you’re doing it wrong.
If fact, each action doesn’t even need it’s own page. Each action actually requires at least five sections or screens for the user to absorb the information.
I’ve designed behavior-change games and apps including these 148 zero waste actions, 80 energy-efficiency tips, and UNEP's Decade of Restoration roadmap. I've deeply grappled with the specific challenge of the eco-listicle 😱🌏 and done 100+ hours of user testing with real humans, needling into the detail of how to get it right.
Using the software, ConvertFlow, I'll show you how to apply the behavior design method I’ve developed (after having the problem of designing up dreaded "eco-listicles" over and over and over again!).
Get started by signing up to www.convertflow.com for a free account. It also has a many marketing features you can use, like pop-ups, quizzes, and funnels.
I'll also show you how to use Canva's new website-maker to create web pages and widgets that have buttons and navigation that you can embed in your website.
With a bit of creative hacking (you can even do it in PowerPoint) you can make a great little web-tool that looks and works like a professionally designed app.
One of the BIG challenges of any green action design is there are always sooooo many behaviors involved. This is especially true with zero waste living. I collected 148 zero waste actions for my book and game, Zerowastify.
The mistake people make is to put all those actions in a list. NOOOOOOOO!
MASTER RULE OF ACTION DESIGN: If you have more than ONE action or tip appearing to your user at a time, you’re doing it wrong.
If fact, each action doesn’t even need it’s own page. Each action actually requires at least five sections or screens for the user to absorb the information.
I’ve designed behavior-change games and apps including these 148 zero waste actions, 80 energy-efficiency tips, and UNEP's Decade of Restoration roadmap. I've deeply grappled with the specific challenge of the eco-listicle 😱🌏 and done 100+ hours of user testing with real humans, needling into the detail of how to get it right.
Using the software, ConvertFlow, I'll show you how to apply the behavior design method I’ve developed (after having the problem of designing up dreaded "eco-listicles" over and over and over again!).
Get started by signing up to www.convertflow.com for a free account. It also has a many marketing features you can use, like pop-ups, quizzes, and funnels.
I'll also show you how to use Canva's new website-maker to create web pages and widgets that have buttons and navigation that you can embed in your website.
With a bit of creative hacking (you can even do it in PowerPoint) you can make a great little web-tool that looks and works like a professionally designed app.
Lesson 1: Action Design Sequence
Follow this user flow sequence to present behaviors one at a time, get buy-in, and keep up enthusiasm.
Dropbox Link to Images
Dropbox Link to Images
Preparation Sequence
1: Onboarding
& The Quest
& The Quest
2: Choose Your Own Adventure (3 or 5 max options)
3: Qualifiers
Action Sequence
1: The action
2: The not-action
3: Explain the why
Show Progress: Show the number of steps in the sequence
Comittment Sequence
6: The essential five response options
10: Hand-written commitment
5: Commitment reward
Product Purchase Sequence
7: Product qualifier
8: Purchase commitment offer
9: Product purchase
Levels
Lesson 2: A Creative Pledge
Create a fun pledge people that people are eager to write on, take a selfie with, and share with their friends.
Lesson 3: Making a Multi-Day Challenge in Canva
People are likely to commit to making change when the commitment is time-bound. Shorter time lengths get higher commitments.
Why time-based challenges are great:
- They involve making commitment or pledge - one of the most powerful psychological tools we have.
- Small and achievable challenges can be used to get people to try new things.
- People are able to make short time-based commitments they can stick to.
- Human motivation increases as we perceive ourselves as getting closer to the goal (that's why we need a time-based goal.)
- Star / behavior / sticker charts reflect the natural dopamine system, which focuses on a goal, tracks progress towards the goal, and gives rewards as progress is made.
- You can vary the level of difficulty for different types of user-groups. Use extremely simple and short challenges for beginners or advanced longer challenges for deep green enthusiasts.
- You can do it as a team, leveraging peer influence. You can also design a group behavior chart to have a list of all participants who track their progress together.
- If it's a group event with a specific start and end time, you can leverage scarcity and deadline commitment to keep people committed through these times.
- Written pledges and star charts are fabulously social-media friendly. In this context, social media isn't just marketing. Sharing written pledges publicly is shown to deepen the commitment to the behavior. Sharing a completed star chart is probably a good incentive to complete the challenge, too!
Tools & Downloads
Zerowastify Poster (coming soon)
21 Day Zero Waste Challenge