Background
I have been given the design challenge: raise awareness around the issue of water scarcity, wastage, and/or conservation in your area. We are blessed with a lot of high-quality drinking water in Norway, and we rarely have issues with drought and other problems that affect our water access. That might be the reason why Oslo is the second to last water-efficient capital in the Nordic countries (The Waterbarometer.com, 2020).
Although the consequences are not as big as in other countries that often suffer from drought, it still has consequences for us. For instance, 90% of Oslo is supplied from the same lake, and two summers of drought might make this problematic and lead to limited water (Borgan, 2019). Water is expensive, Norwegian municipalities spend a lot of money on electricity to transport and rinse water, drain, and sewage. Findings from my primary and secondary research show that people are not aware of this, especially not in Oslo where people live in apartments, and water expenses often are included as a fixed amount in the rent.
People lack knowledge of why and how they can prevent water wastage. From primary research, the findings were that people are motivated to save water if the issue is more visible and that they get to know why it is important. Competitor analysis shows that there is no website that covers this theme on why it is important geographically limited to Oslo.
I have therefore designed a website that touches on why it is important to save water, and how the users should do it.
Design thinking process
Research
The research conducted (literature review and interviews) showed that people did not have knowledge about water usage, and what over-usage can lead to, and that they wanted to know more before asked to save water. People complained that they felt they had enough responsibility on taking care of the environment already, and did not like that even more responsibility was being laid on them.
Interview goals:
to find out how aware Norwegian people close to my area are about water consumption
to find out how much people are aware of their water source and drain
to find how much people know about water consumption
to find out if people think they would change their habits if they knew more
Interview questions:
How aware are you of your water usage?
Do you do anything to save water? If yes, what? If not, why? Do you have any tips?
Do you know what your water source is? If yes, can you tell me more about it?
Do you know where the drain ends up? If yes, can you tell me more about it?
Do you know how you pay for your water?
What would make you motivated to save more water?
How would you feel about measures such as water banning in a period of time etc.?
Can you tell me about a time when you were more aware of water consumption?
Personas
Personas are crafted based on the research done, and they are quite similar to the people interviews in the primary research. They are both interested in learning more about water consumption and what they can do.
Context scenario
Kristian is browsing the news and encounters an article about that Oslo is second to last in water effectiveness among the nordic countries. He also learns that Oslo only has one water source that provides 90% of the city with water. and that we should be careful and save more water. He gets curious and wants to learn more about why we use so much, and how he can help. He Googles “water consumption Oslo”, and finds a website with information about where the most water is lost, what he can do as a citizen, and what is planned and can be done by the authorities.
Problem statement
Citizens need knowledge, information, and tips because they don’t know how to save water.
The authorities need knowledge and information to be able to combat water wastage and water scarcity.
Citizens in Oslo are not aware of water wastage and water scarcity because they lack knowledge about the problems. If we can solve this problem, it would impact people positively because if people know how to save water, they are less prone to be exposed to water scarcity.
Ideation and conclusion
I creating a mind map and conducted a brainstorming session with a colleague to generate and decide on ideas. I decided to design a website that gave the citizens of Oslo knowledge about the water system, what over-usage can lead to, and the best tips on how to save. The competitor analysis showed that it was a shortage in websites that give statistics of Oslo and tips on what they can do to save water at the same site. Some of them have the potential for improvement on the design.
Testing
Usability testing was done to find out how user friendly and intuitive the website is, and find out if any improvements needs to be done.
