treep

design thinking, benchmarking, lean ux, user interface

Research paper

Problem

Indonesia has the highest deforestation rates in the world, exceeding even Brazil, while having only a quarter of Brazil’s forest area. Indonesia‘s forests are among the most carbon-dense in the world . Due to the fact that the forest has absorbed a lot of carbon for numerous of years. When cleared and burned, trees release their stored carbon into the atmosphere, contributing to greenhouse gases, which then contribute to climate change.

To prevent deforestation, one needs to address the root of the problem and figure out solutions for each sub-problems, which is not an easy task at all. The problem is identified to be an 'evil cycle'. Because of poverty and lack of perspectives, locals decided to work in animal or plantation agriculture. And because of the law and regulation for environmental protection, it results in cheap land, cheap labour and subsidies on the agriculture, to get the most profit as possible. This also results in corruption, which leads to illegal loggings, due to the lack of fear for authorities interference. Then it will lead to destructions of the land, which leads people to migrate to a better land, and again the cycle continues.

Telapak stands as the first NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) and non-profit organization which implements international FSC-certification on sustainable forest communities in Southeast Asia. The Community Logging Program is a strategy for community-based, responsible forest management. It aims to reforest areas for the development of a sustainable timber industry owned by the local people. This strategy will create an alternative field of income that should lead to financial independence for the locals. This community manages timber, non-timber forest products and environmental services in state forest areas, in accordance with the applicable law.

With telapak, the goal is to reach economic growth through sustainability. This is done by selling FSC-certified woods. An illegal wood costs about 38 Euro per log, and FSC-certified wood costs 400 euro per log. But Telapak also has a few problems that halt their goals.

Therefore my intervention, as a designer is to connect Telapak to the people worldwide so that they can get a more steady donation and scale up their business.

User Research

Electronic donation, from the organizations perspective, cost less money to implement. That is due to the fact that electronic donations are mostly a place where users voluntarily go to, instead of traditional donation, where human resource is needed to approach the users. According to literature research, interactive media savvy generation seem to engage and respond very well to electronic fundraising, compared to the older generation.

Research also stated that individuals between 18 and 30 years of age, middle to upper middle class, living in cities and are experienced with modern technplogy such as smartphones and social networks, contribute the least amount of money to charity in comparison to what they earn when compared with other age
groups. Therefore, interviews were conducted with this age group, to see valuable insights.

From all the responses, the reasons people won't donate can be concluded into 3;

- Money reasons

- Unclear credibility

- Ignorance

Benchmarking

As part of understanding of where to position the concept for this project, research on existing tools was performed, in order to gain insight on which data is available and what is being done with it. How are these tools adding value to the process of donating and which monetization strategies are they using. These tools have the characteristcs of utilizing consumers engagement to a product, and monetize from it. The column on the left is the list of criterias and requirements in order to be a succesful fundraising digital product. The products are: Carbonfund, Treedom, FreeRice, Ecosia, and Forest.

Key findings

Based on the benchmarking research and comparison test, most users will use Forest app. The product that works well and has positive feedback, is the one that doesn't require real money from users. But rather a product, that has other added value on top of the donation itself. The products that are basically digitalizing the process of donating money, receives not as positive feedback.

Target Group

As it was difficult to define a generic problem definition for a large group in the targeted age (18-30), to execute a more precise solution, this project took a turn by narrowing to a more specific group. It was decided that tourism and travellers would be the main concerns while analyzing further data, as this target group came into view as the one who contributes more carbon emissions than the one who does not travel. It was estimated that the tourism industry contributes to 5% of global carbon dioxide emissions 34, while transport (with air travel dominating the sector) may be responsible for over 90% of its overall contribution to global climate change.

User Persona

User Journey

User Personal Goals

Find information

Find places

Read reviews

Meet people

Find discounts

Document memories

Ideation

Travel Q&A Platform A social media platform which enables users to ask specific and precise questions to fellow travelers or locals. The goal of this platform was to exchange experience and opinion to collaborate in a more personalized way, instead of just googling a question and finding the answer on a random website or forum, The platform will use a point system, where the users will earn points when other users follow their submitted questions (that means, the question is relevant) or when other users vote up their submitted answer (that means, the answer is helpful). Therefore, it will encourage people to contribute relevant and reliable pieces of information. In addition to that, point and gaming system will motivate users to achieve more things.

This idea was selected because the user persona of this project is usually very curious and eager to learn about the latest information from real people in real time, share their experience and give out knowledge to others. Therefore, this idea could bring all of them together in a collaborative community.

Unexpectedly, this idea also could be used in all phases of the customer cycle.

TREEP

TREEP is a question-and-answer platform which donates its profit to non-profit conservationist organizations called Telapak, which focuses on tree planting and fighting deforestation in Indonesia. The questions are asked, answered, edited, and organized by its community of users. The platform helps citizens of the world to navigate through their any new environment, while creating a positive impact environmentally.

The service goal is to tackle the main excuses that people made when they refuse to donate, which are:

• Money reason. Either they have low income, high expense, or just not willing to give out money at the moment.

• Trust reason. They do not trust the organization, they don‘t know whether their money will actually go to said cause, or if their money will make an impact.

• Ignorance reason. They simply said they don‘t care enough to give out money.

As the purpose of this service is to tackle these excuses the users made, so they no longer have excuses or barrier between them and the act of donating.

This can be done by:

• Enable them to donate with a non-money currency. By generating money utilizing display ads and native ads that will then be donated.

• Have a full financial transparency and create a regular update on how much money the users have raised, and information on what is being done with the money they have raised.

• Raise awareness, by having a forest-related theme to start the conversation. And regular e-mail updates about their impacts and motivations about how one person can change the world.