Tyler Malone

DeCarbonize

Bachelor of Design Interaction Mobile App Social Design Prototype User-centred

App Demo Here:

DeCarbonize App Demo

A carbon and petrol tracking experience.

The COVID lockdown had brought subsequent changes to the environment and people's driving behaviour. People preferred to stay at home rather than go outside. Lockdown in New Zealand made roads silent and noise pollution was at an all-time low and skies were much clearer due to the lack of cars being driven. The need for other modes of transport would be more beneficial for the environment and would also be more economically friendly than the average driver. My app would encourage users to drive less or more efficiently by rewarding them for doing so. I wanted to find a way for people to want to keep their carbon footprint low after the lockdown ended. Decarbonize is a carbon and petrol tracking app with gamified features that will reward the user with vouchers for reducing their carbon footprint and reducing their gas consumption.

With this in mind, I had designed a digital solution that aims towards users who drive very often and have to frequently visit petrol stations. DeCarbonise is a gamified data gathering app that tracks the car systems data on carbon usage and gas consumption to better improve the users driving behaviour. It will tell the user what they are doing wrong and what may be causing their petrol consumption to run so quickly. From using DeCarbonise, the user will be rewarded with vouchers through challenges and weekly goals. These challenges include taking other modes of transport such as bussing, training, walking, and even taking Uber to reduce the number of times they have to drive hopefully reducing their gas consumption and saving money.

Through researching car apps I had found a service called “Automatic” which shut down a couple of years ago which tracked data from a car through a plug-in OBD port (On-Board Diagnostics) through connecting to this port via Bluetooth they could track the cars acceleration, braking, carbon usage, fuel consumption as well as stalling times to help inform the user of what they are doing.

When I was coming up with ideas for DeCarbonize, I wanted to gamify the experience, and add an interactive point system as well as a ranking system. I wanted to reward the users for doing good things. So by keeping their carbon footprint low and the dial in the green. After a week, they will be rewarded with a free voucher and points to help rank up. The vouchers users can choose from can be either food deals (Taco Bell, McDonald's), petrol discounts (Z station), or gift cards (Farmers, iTunes, JB Hi-Fi). These can be redeemed by using the QR code on the voucher and can be scanned in-store or online. I wanted to have 4 levels for each badge. Each badge would come with a challenge that the player would have to complete to reach the next stage (bronze - platinum). Each gradually becoming more difficult and, but the rewards would be bigger. Each badge’s visual appearance changes from bronze to platinum, becoming more detailed. Completing a set of challenges would gift the player with diamonds to use to purchase vouchers. It will also look impressive on their badges screen as a way of showing how well they have progressed.

There would be challenges that the user can complete that come with the badges. Through spending time, they can complete them and claim points and diamonds as their reward. Challenges would include, taking the train “25” times or take 25,000 steps. Each of these challenges would be activated by connecting another app or service to DeCarbonize, such as the Auckland Transport app or Apple’s Health app. Adding challenges would somewhat gamify the experience and make things more engaging.