Nudging grocery shoppers to buy planet-friendly alternatives
How might we enable sustainable grocery shopping choices using behavioural UX?
For truly sustainable living, which also regenerates the planet, we need a revolution of the entire way we make, use, and reuse goods. But that change may be a long way off.
So, what can UX designers do now to enable more planet-friendly purchasing by customers?
Using insights from an analysis of current sustainable shopping UX solutions in my research article,7 behavioural UX approaches encouraging sustainable purchases, I attempted a design evolution of one of Australia’s main supermarket’s online store.
Key insights I used as a guide for this project
- Start by determining the planet-friendly product range and the metrics for rating the range
- Determine the terminology—only use ‘sustainable’ for products with fully sustainable supply chains and lifecycle
- Design a visual branding for the strategy, including a logo, and visual elements to communicate which products are planet-friendly and how (logo, icons, etc.)
- Review the product journey for opportunities to inform customers of the product range
- Explore UI patterns like recommendations and product swapping to enable easy decision-making and purchasing
I wanted to use a real-world online experience for my design to force it to adapt to the challenges of a real-world design that needs to balance user and business needs. Hopefully, this would maximise both the realism during testing and the insights gained.
I choose the Woolworths online store as the subject—I had previously run a life-centred talk and workshop with their design team (amazing, forward-thinking designers!) and had been thinking about this project as a follow-up.
To be clear, I am not employed by Woolworths, never have been, was not paid for the workshops (by my choice), and I was not asked to use their site as the subject for this project.
The goal
Test my research insights by designing sustainable grocery shopping prompts using behavioural UX and without redesigning the entire experience
As my limited spare time and budget allows only for a very guerrilla-style UXing, I knew this would be fraught with a lack of scientific knowledge and a minimal sampling for user testing, etc. But doing less with more is what sustainable and regenerative thinking is all about! I took a deep breath, hoped that others would be kind in their judgment of my foolish and reckless approach, and dove in.
Firstly, I translated the insights from my research into steps for this rapid behavioural UX project:
- Choose a persona
- Determine the product range, metrics, and terminology
- Test early assumptions using a simple concept
- Design the journey using the testing insight and Behavioural UX strategies to:
- Inform users of their options and how the products were certified
- Enable users to take action and make more planet-friendly purchases
6. Test and learn
1. Choose a persona
While I didn’t have any actual personas for any supermarkets, I thought I could at least create one based on some assumptions (and from what I knew about some friends) to help keep the design user-focused.
I thought that a parent juggling family commitments would be a good challenging persona, and male, as there is some evidence that males report lower levels of environmentally-friendly behaviour.
2. Determine the product range, metrics, and terminology
Terminology
As most products were not fully sustainable, I used a generic term, Planet Friendly, that could be applied to all products at any stage of their sustainable transformation.
Product range
With no clear indication of a sustainable range, I ran a site search on woolworths.com.au for ‘sustainable’ products to find a mix of products, some with sustainable aspects and some not. I then discovered an ‘eco’ range page that showcased all the eco brands.
But apart from some products having ‘Compostable/Sustainable” in their name, there was no clear recognition of the sustainable aspects of the products that informed users.
So, I wondered what the business was doing, and if they had any ESG commitments that might be related to products. They do, they call it People, Planet, and Product, and their ‘own brand’ products have several eco improvements that could be declared on all their products:
- All primary and secondary packaging in high‐volume own-brand products, such as cereal boxes, long-life milk, and egg cartons, have been sustainably‐sourced either through independently‐certified or recycled sources
- Woolworths Group recognises animals as sentient beings and should experience positive health and wellbeing and is committed to influencing animal welfare best practices within our supply chains, adopting the Farm Animal Welfare Committee’s (FAWC 2009) ‘Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare’.
But this product-related information was also not communicated on their online products where users make purchasing decisions.
From these various sources, I could see the scope of ‘sustainable’ aspects for the Planet Friendly range :
- Sustainable packaging
- Compostable/recyclable packaging
- Organic ingredients/low chemicals
- Plant-based food, including milk and meat alternatives, etc.
- Rechargeable and reusable items
I initially refined these into 6 indicators, but it occurred to me that while comprehensive, six was too many when considering our dad persona, Andrew, juggling his 2-year-old on his lap. I crystalised these down to three and wrote a one-liner for each, humanising any corporate/designer speak for laymen’s language, and drawing inspiration from the answers above.
- Sustainable materials — Sustainably sourced ingredients, parts, and/or packaging
- Recyclable waste -Easy recycling of what you don’t use
- Kind to life — Fair work, animal welfare, and less harm to nature
With this, I created an onboarding modal, utilising authenticity and simplicity, to help shape an initial approach for early rapid testing.
3. Test early assumptions
Design V1 (Early Concept Test)—Simple introduction and category view
I had a strong assumption that information displayed on the product, at the decision-making moment, was most important. This sort of informing and enabling at a product level could also add to the use of apps like Get Greener that direct users to websites for sustainable shopping.
I created a simple discovery flow—a summary introduction pop-up, a product page utilizing the sites existing UI (popups, product badges), and a link in the header navigation. An immediate challenge was the various existing info badges on the product image (Low price, Made in Australia, the CHOICE recommended badge, etc.) competing for space— but there was rarely more than one at a time
That was enough to test my assumption and get early insight into the desirability of sustainable product information, and how it would fit into their consideration hierarchy. I posted it on Facebook to see what people thought.
Feedback
“By the time you start shopping, you will want it to be done asap. The other thing is, I read food labels so having to read another thing in that moment would be a pain. I would have more tolerance if the information was served upfront before I begin the shop.”
“I want the decision-making process to be quick”
“In usual contexts, frankly if my sustainability impact is not measured, incentivised or punished, I only look for the price and product quality/reputation — and would ignore these icons”
Some insights and redesign ideas
Insight—People do care, but they want to receive and absorb information in different ways. The point of purchase is not the ideal place for everyone to consider sustainable options.
Redesign ideas—Offer a choice of when and how to receive this information.
Insight—The icons had no significant impact and could be easily forgotten that they were tappable on the product.
Redesign ideas — Reconsider the need or use of icons for sustainable aspects, explore using just one icon to represent sustainable options and provide detail elsewhere
Insight—When it comes to food, dietary needs can limit users' choice
Redesign Ideas—Any sustainable recommendations for food products need to match specific dietary needs
Insight—Any friction to the existing decision-making can be a dealbreaker
Redesign Ideas — Push harder to reduce any friction engaging with the Planet Friendly prompt. Don’t make users find alternatives or think too much. Anything useful needs to fit seamlessly within their browsing and selecting, make it smooth, keep it simple, while allowing for further investigation of detail for those who want it
4. Design the journey using the testing insight and behavioural UX strategies
Design V2 — Sustainability modes and product swapping
At first, it seemed my assumption was way off, that information at the point of purchase wasn't impactful to changing behaviour. But thinking more in context, we weren’t necessarily just asking customers to choose one product over the other, we were also asking them to swap pre-made choices.
I needed to explore a simple product-swapping mechanism. For this version, I would need to tweak the existing UI a little.
With this in mind, I reviewed the journey for where prompts and functions could be added to further enable planet-friendly purchasing.
There were lots of opportunities and some existing UI elements to adapt, such as the Healthier option recommendation on the product page, which I could duplicate and use for Planet Friendly (PF) recommendations, but I felt this wasn’t easy enough for customers, and so I focused on a more intuitive product swapping UI.
I concentrated on three areas to swap products—at the point of selection while browsing, in the cart, and in the saved lists.
Planet Friendly shopping modes
To give users a choice of how and when they wanted to receive recommendations, I offered 3 shopping modes to choose from (or any combination).
- While browsing—utilising in situ Planet Friendly recommendations
- In cart—utilising in situ recommendations and product swapping after product selection to review all at one
- In saved/favourite lists—utilising the same in situ recommendations and product swapping UX as for the ‘In cart’ mode but for reviewing later
These were introduced in the onboarding modal and could be accessed at any time via a PF logo in the header.
The onboarding modal conveyed the key information:
- A simple explanation of the Planet Friendly strategy
- How products are certified
- Shopping mode options
The onboarding modal also acts as the shopping mode settings, to be accessed via the main navigation at any time. The information could be streamlined over time as users become familiar with the concept.
You can see this screen in the prototype here.
Shopping Mode 1 automatically displays PF alternatives whenever a user selects a product. (I chose not to automatically display the PF alternatives on page load as this would load much information on many products not relevant to the user which, using sustainable digital thinking, would be a great waste of energy.)
Users can select the recommended product instead or ignore it.
This did get tricky from a UX solution perspective, as the alternative product would be repeated in the list—once as a recommended alternative, and again in its normal place in the list (i.e. in alphabetical order). That may cause confusion, so the UX would need to clearly indicate on the every instance of the recommended product that it has been added.
You can see Mode 1 in the prototype here.
Shopping Mode 2 displays all PF alternatives in the user’s cart in accordions. These are displayed open on default as all products are relevant to this user.
Selecting a PF alternative swaps the product into the cart, collapses the accordion, and displays a tick icon. The accordion can be reopened if the user rethinks their choice and wants to choose something else or swap back to their original choice.
You can see this mode in the prototype here.
Shopping Mode 3—The same product-swapping function from Mode 2 could be added to the user’s saved/favourites lists for reviewing later (i.e. not while shopping, but later when they have time to fully consider their options).
Delivery options
Of course, purchasing is only one part of the user experience, there’s also delivery — devise ways you can deliver more efficiently to reduce emissions and offer a reward for users who choose this planet-friendly option, such as planting a tree in their name.
Simplified visual cues
To keep comprehension simple, I used only one logo at the browsing and category stage and introduced the specific icons (sustainable packaging, chemical-free, etc.) only when users accessed the modal for more specific information
I guerilla tested with 5 participants—two parents (to fit the persona), and three adults without kids.
User testing results
1. Were the insights used from the research article useful?
The main purpose of this test was to test the insights from my research and get a deeper insight into them.
And, yes, they all proved very useful! The insights I tested were:
Determine the product range
This helped me understand the scope of the range and informed designing UI that allowed product comparison. And exploring the business’s ESG commitment revealed business commitments that could be directly related to products and adding them to the range.
Determine the terminology
‘Planet Friendly’ was appreciated by all users, with some participants stating they were aware of the grey area with using the word ‘sustainable’.
“So much is about establishing that trust.”
Review the product journey for opportunities
This generated multiple concepts for testing different users’ preferences for planet-friendly nudges, whether while browsing, pre-checkout, or post-browsing using emailed recommendations.
Employ behavioural UX via ‘informing’—Create a visual branding
Applying one planet-friendly logo to products in browsing mode seemed enough, rather than specific indicators, such as ‘sustainable packaging, etc’, which were fine in a ‘more detail’ area like a pop-up modal or on the product page. One participant noted that after they’d tapped the planet-friendly logo on a product once, they wouldn't do it again for other products — just seeing the PF logo alone would be enough and they didn’t need specifics. Users didn’t make the time to get to know those specifics.
Certificate logos are essential for communicating a sense of proof, even if they are only seen once in the journey. “Independently certified” was much appreciated, although some were sceptical of the authenticity of the companies that do the certifying.
“Some certifiers just take money”
There was no feedback about the specific icons (such as ‘sustainable packaging’) — while they would be a nice visual touch they didn’t seem to have any real impact on decision-making.
75% of participants mentioned the importance of ‘Australian made’.
Employ behavioural UX via ‘enabling’—Product swapping
Employing product swapping UI to enable easy decision-making and purchasing was very positive, with participants saying it felt smooth, intuitive, and non-intrusive, and enabled comparison.
One concern was when a supermarket’s own-brand was recommended. One participant perceived the supermarket’s own-brand initiative as monopolising product ranges, so they were conflicted when recommended a PF product that was also own-brand—in this scenario they would not choose the PF product.
Most importantly, the browsing mode did receive positive responses in regards to how it not only triggered consideration to swapping products but also encouraged users to actually choose planet-friendly products over others.
I used the following rating system to assess the influence of the concept:
1 = “Would not make me consider sustainable alternatives”
2 = “Would make me consider sustainable alternatives but not necessarily choose them”
3 = “Would make me consider and choose sustainable alternatives”
(A rating of 2 represented somewhere between 1 & 3, and a rating of 4 represented somewhere between 3 & 5.)
Mode 1/‘While Browsing’, the most preferred mode, rated a 4/5 from 80% of participants—they also said they wouldn't review a list later.
However, one participant said firmly they preferred Mode 3/‘Review a list later’ if recommendations were sent to them based on their last order so they could review all at once.
“I’d want all modes on by default, but allow me to turn off at any stage.”
“Send me the list after with recommendations based on my last order.”
“Show me the value.”
Integrating reward points
The participant who was a big fan of Rewards Points said they would consider recommendations if they were embedded in the rewards points EDM, and they wanted the EDM to notify them when a product became certified/planet-friendly.
Also, the Rewards Points participant seemed easily persuaded by points. When presented with the planet-friendly delivery option without reward points included, they questioned a lot. When offered the same choice with reward points, they didn’t hesitate.
2. Any new insights?
In addition to validating and expanding the insights from the previous research, this testing gained some new insights.
Price remains king
Insights—While price is negotiable for some when it comes to choosing a planet-friendlier product, I didn’t hear anyone mention considering any price above 10% (unlike some research reports stating consumers are happy to pay up to 35% more for sustainable beef).
And even 10% more would be too much for some to even consider as they mentioned being hesitant due to the unknown incremental increase in their overall bill as they swapped numerous slightly-more-expensive products as they shopped.
“Demonstrate it’s good value”
“Show me sustainable products at the same price or cheaper”
“Good for the planet and good for the wallet”
“Clearly communicate values… cheaper price and better for environment”
Redesign idea—Perhaps display a total with real-time changes as users swap products to the cart.
Or explore offering the ability to set a price range of what planet-friendly products are shown, such as “Show me the same price or less”.
Challenge—The extra amount consumers are willing to pay for one product range (e.g. cleaning products) might be different to others (e.g. meats).
Even though this testing was from a small sample, it calls into question the research that says consumer shopping is increasingly driven by their values and sustainability concerns. While I’m sure the research itself and how it was done was valid, there might be a discrepancy between what the participants tell us in research and what they actually do at the moment when they are committing to which ‘Buy’ button they press. Hence concept testing is very important!
Brand
Insights—While brand familiarity can help users decide when a planet-friendly product is more expensive, not all customers are brand loyal.
While some customers doubt the quality of supermarkets’ own brand range, others believe it is like-for-like. Considering Woolworths’ ESG commitments directly relate to the planet-friendliness of their products, there is an opportunity for them to show the whole value of their own range through a planet-friendly lens and translate the no-frill aspect into a planet-friendly benefit like ‘simple is better’.
“If more expensive, I look at brand.”
“I dont mind own brand, I think it’s like for like.”
“I’m not a massive brand loyalist, happy to change.”
“I think they’re monopolising and I wouldn’t choose them.”
There is a tension here with supermarkets recommending their own brand products over others. I’ll explore this further in a forthcoming article, with non-user and non-human personas representing those beyond the user experience who might also be impacted by this product-swapping approach.
Personas
The preference for different modes suggested the need for exploring potential personas or behaviour types:
- Browsers
- List lovers
- Reward points fans
A planet-friendly rating system
Going beyond just displaying a planet-friendly logo/indicator, a rating system would help users compare planet-friendly products and also communicate the different levels of planet-friendliness of each product.
Ideally, the rating would be based on data and science, perhaps on such metrics as reduced carbon emissions and fair work certifications. However, until that metric system is in place across product lifecycles, perhaps we could develop a rating system based on the number of certificates a product has for each lifecycle stage.
For example, if a product has certified planet-friendly activity for 3 stages (e.g. material extraction, supply chain, and recycling), it would get a higher rating than a product with only 1 stage certified.
Another consideration is how this rating could be mentally digested with other key ratings, such as the existing nutrition rating and ‘Australian made’ logo.
There were also some great UX/UI improvements suggested, which I won’t go into in this article.
Final thoughts
Right now, utilising behavioural UX to enable sustainable purchasing is very much about prototyping, testing, and learning. That’s important to remember, that we need to recognise no person or business is going to get it 100% right the first time. As long as we are committed to always improving and involving citizens along on the journey.
While this guerilla testing was fast and with only a small sample, online markets could develop these insights much further and use experimentation in the digital space as a stepping stone toward greater systemic change.
Experiment in digital
Unified labelling on all physical products will cost a lot to implement, so we need to get it right, and full traceability to inform those ratings is most likely a while away. That gives us time to experiment and learn in the digital space — test behavioural strategies, develop rating accuracy, and get real user feedback on meaningfulness, usefulness, and impactfulness.
Also, certain products are tricky to recommend, such as food for dietary requirements, like milk varieties and baby formulae. Perhaps online markets could focus on things that are easy wins, like cleaning and household products.
Citizen education and codesign
Customers, retailers, manufacturers — we’re all consumers. We all need to learn more so that we reduce the impact of our consumerism. Online retail giants and markets, for example, could lead the way on this, with incentivised and gamified citizen and child education, running month-long awareness campaigns for each sustainability aspect to consider (e.g. material extraction, supply chain, packaging, etc.).
Collaborating, supermarkets could:
- Run awareness campaigns about how each retailer is trialling planet-friendly recommendations and ask for consumers to give feedback to help make it more meaningful for them, even running a design competition
- Further involve consumers, producers, manufacturers, suppliers, recyclers, and circular economy experts to co-create sustainable shopping solutions as part of a bigger change, exploring more circular models, like using refillable containers, establishing city farm collectives, etc.
Get the Research Summary Guide
You can get a 12-page PDF that summarises these powerful behavioural and UX design strategies to be used as a guide for UX Designers to enable sustainable online shopping — Access the strategy deck here.
Read the follow-up article
In my follow-up article, ‘Experimenting with non-human personas and UX’, I applied life-centred thinking to this project by creating a non-human persona to analyse the design ideas through their eyes and needs — check it out!
More from Damien…
Explore Damien’s two design innovation labs:
- Life-centred Design Lab — expanding human-centred design to include nature and invisible communities
- Future Scouting — Designing life-centred, values-driven future tech products with speculative design
Get practical with tools and courses:
- Life-centred Design Books and Toolkits
- Life-centred Design Courses
- Life-centred Design Innovation Cards
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