Background & Opportunity

University Park sought to move beyond awareness and enable every resident to take tangible steps toward sustainable living. Facing fragmented information, lackluster community engagement, and diverse motivation levels, the town needed a unifying platform that could educate, incentivize, and empower its residents—while providing the Sustainability Committee with actionable insights.

“How might we empower all residents of University Park to adopt and sustain eco-friendly practices, while building a sense of community around environmental stewardship?”

Research & Analysis

• Market Research: Benchmarked global sustainability solutions, then tailored for local (UPark) needs.
• Expert Interviews: Consulted with sustainability leaders and neighboring committees to learn best practices.
• Persona Definition: Mapped both resident users (seeking practical, bite-sized sustainability actions) and “Green Team” admins (focused on oversight and data-driven interventions).

Information Architecture & Conceptual Design

• Conducted card sorting with real and proxy users to define a clear, intuitive information architecture for practices, badges, and community tools.
• Explored divergent low-fidelity sketches and voted on features to converge on a vision.
• Developed mid-fidelity wireframes to prototype core user flows for early feedback.

Behavioral Motivation & Engagement

• Gamification Layer: Integrated badges, points, leveling to spur action—backed by habit formation research.
• Physical Rewards: Proposed real-life incentives (e.g. garden plaques, merch) as tangible status markers.
• Continuous Engagement: Recurring challenges and frequent community-driven events.
• Community Forum: Peer support and public celebration of sustainable wins.

Design System & Visual Consistency

• Built a new design system to enable the entire team to collaborate efficiently and enforce UI/UX coherence.
• Utilized group workshops and voting to select an engaging, accessible visual language for a diverse audience.

User Testing & Iteration

• Usability sessions with 7 residents revealed clarity and navigation issues, mixed reactions on gamification.
• Key improvements: Added onboarding and a “Mission” section, clarified IA, simplified gamification explanations and dashboards.

Final Platform Experience

Multifaceted platform acting as a sustainability hub—offering educational resources, gamified practices, a supportive forum, and simple admin tools for the Green Team.

Admin Tools

Designed a clear WYSIWYG admin dashboard allowing non-technical committee members to update pages, review sustainability metrics, and track resident participation.

Outcome & Impact

• Delivered a community-wide digital solution that educated, motivated, and measured sustainable action across resident personas.
• Enabled the Sustainability Committee to target interventions and showcase community progress with real data.

Reflection & Learnings

• Balance is key: Gamification drives action, but must be carefully tuned to avoid feeling superficial.
• Onboarding and clarity: Clear communication of mission and mechanics accelerates adoption and impactful use.
• Co-building with users: Constant iteration with real residents ensured relevance and engagement at every step.