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Sustainability Organization Project

This is a group interaction design project that focus on a sustainability organization

Collaborated with Shuqi Huang (Sookie) and Rui Jiang in my Junior IXD and COMM (2022) class

TEAM

Shuqi Huang (Sookie)

Rui Jiang

Tool

Figma & Keynote

My Role

  • Research project background and brainstorm proposal ideas

  • Building user persona & user journey

  • Design and develop the space and different brand product

  • Video and soud edit


🔍Background research

Ocean Sole is a registered non-profit organization that aims to clean Kenya's polluted beaches and waterways and provide careers to Artisans in high-impact communities. They hold weekly beach cleanups to protect the ocean from further damage from slippers and plastic pollution. They also collect discarded flip-flops at the beach and turn them into art and functional products. Spread and raise awareness of Marine conservation and current pollution issues visually in a fun and creative way. It also engages with he community to provide equal employment opportunities. This organization sends an important message of how they can help improve our planet, oceans, and people by creating beautiful art that portrays the state of their oceans.

And the founder of the organization is Julie Church, who was inspired by children making toys out of flip-flop pieces. From there, she came to encourage their mothers to collect, clean and cut up discarded flip-flops into colorful products to be sold at local markets in Kenya as an alternative source of income for the family

BUT…Why we need to care about? and why we pick this orginziation?

Kilifi Beach in northeastern Kenya has a large amount of plastic waste from the ocean. This includes, in particular, thousands of flip-flops. And these flip-flops are produced more than 3 billion per year. They only last an average of two years, and people can easily throw them away and buy new ones. And most flip-flops are bad for the environment. Some are made of non-recyclable plastic materials. They are a surprisingly important part of the 8 billion tons of plastic.

Meanwhile, in addition to the flip-flops on the beach, a massive amount of plastic waste is collected from the sea. It also poses a much bigger problem. This also affects marine life and also our human demand for seafood. And some of this trash is also non-recyclable, coming even closer to polluting our planet.

The presence of the ocean affects us all, whether we live on the coastline or in the desert. And millions of flip-flops float in the world's oceans, choking fish and other animals yearly. More of them are washed up on shorelines as plastic waste, preventing hatchlings from reaching the sea.

Thus, avoiding this pollution endangers aquatic life and threatens human health. We must start working to protect and save our oceans.

Problem & Goal

NOT interactive
NO detailed data, and transparence
Broader publicity

Goal:

Increase the impact of this organization

Improve the ecosystem of the organization

- Make the information more transparency
- Interaction: focused on user experience (have follow up information)
- Increase the recycling speed, reduce the waste output

Who is the audience?

People from Kenya/Africa
People who care about environment (ocean/animal)
People who visit beach
Seafood consumer
Fishermen and other entrepreneurs

Proposal

Omni Channel Ecosystem

Pop Up experimental store

     Stores showcasing the history of the organization, art merchandise and craft experience areas.

Recycle Station

     Recycle Flip-Flop with reward system

Artwork on seaside cities

     Display Work along the beach side

Collaboration with brands

     Partner brands focus on and use recycled materials

Poster adds in seafood market, beach resort

More data and transparency

Details of where the money goes (where does it go and the percentage of inflow going to)

     communities, employees, social enterprises, environmental organizations, etc.

How many job opportunities are provided

     annual/monthly reports on jobless population percentage

Education

      annual report on the educational level of the population

Amount of collected marine litter

     annual/monthly reports on the amount of collected marine litter