Sexy Tofu Chrome Extension
Growing energy consciousness in food and grocery shopping
Growing energy consciousness in food and grocery shopping
Sexy Tofu is an early stage startup that aims to grow awareness in sustainable eating and drive behavioral change. I was hired as a UI/UX intern to design the first iteration of Sexy Tofu’s carbon offsetting chrome extension: an extension used during online grocery shopping that calculates the user’s carbon footprint based on their grocery cart and provides a channel to offset it.
According to the book Drawdown, a plant-rich diet is the fourth most efficient way to reverse global warming. However, not everyone is willing to make a drastic change in their diet by going completely vegetarian.
Add items to your grocery cart
Finish grocery payment
Sexy Tofu calculates your carbon footprint and offset cost from your grocery cart
Make your grocery cart carbon neutral!
The problem definition was done before I joined the Sexy Tofu team. I began my exploration by doing a landscape analysis on existing Chrome Extensions that are sustainability related or additive to shopping experiences
With insights from the landscape analysis and the team’s previous research, I sketched some screens to explore what the Sexy Tofu extension would look like. In addition to having the offset feature, I explored incorporating carbon footprint breakdowns, a user profile feature, and comparative value displays (describing x pounds of carbon footprint as x miles of driving). Though we eventually decided not to incoporate some of those features in our MVP, this helped us ideate what we want in future iterations.
With our initial designs, we conducted 8 usability testing sessions. During each session, we ask the user to mock their average grocery shopping experience (the way they browse, what kind of food they typically purchase, etc.). While one Sexy Tofu member interviews the user, another calculates the user’s carbon footprint according to their actions and updates our mockup in real time. We then show the user our mockup and interview them.
Users would like to learn how to eat more sustainably rather than simply being asked to pay. They also would be more inclined to use this extension if there’s associated benefit (monetary, health, social)
When seeing info on the projects, users want to see whether their money would create direct impact (what the significance of such little money is), what the progress is, how many other people have contributed.
Users find the immediate ask to pay off putting and surprising. More expectation on the flow is needed. Users also found it unexpected that the carbon offset payment happens before the actual grocery payment. There is a sense of “I’m still not done after this payment”. Moreover, the default cart information input page seems overwhelming, users tend to click out because they either don’t want to share their card information with Sexy Tofu or they are annoyed by the amount of information to input.
We need an onboarding process to explain the interface, the plugin purpose, and establish trust. We also need more number transparency on how we arrived at final calculations of carbon footprint and offset cost. Yet we need to be mindful of building trust without overwhelming users with industry jargon.
In an attempt to visualize impact, motivate people to carbon offset, and increase trust in Sexy Tofu, I created new iterations of the call to action screen that displays the carbon offsetting projects. However, when we conducted more testing with this iteration, people reflected that the amount of information and jargon overwhelms them. When combined with the carbon footprint calculations, they are not sure what to look at.
Previously, we allowed the user to offset in the grocery shopping view if they actively click on the extension icon, if not, the extension would popup in the checkout page. This user flow creates complications if the user decides to add more items into their cart after they offset once. In the new user flow, the extension only pops up after the user finishes their purchase (in order confirmation page). If the user clicks on the extension before that, there will be a warning to confirm their shopping cart is ready to be offsetted.
Sexy Tofu's Chrome Extension is currently under development. The prototype is also going to be used to apply for further funding.
While trying to design an educational tool for users, as a design intern, I also felt like I learned a lot about food and sustainability.
This experience was also very valuable because I was designing a product that was going to be shipped and not a proof of concept that was only for the purpose of internal demonstration. I became better at conducting user interview/testing and having an open mindset to user feedbacks.
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