For 7 years, we have been developing website interfaces for collaborative projects in sustainable industry. Our clients range from startups to international agencies, as well as government organizations. Sometimes our role involves interface development, we also provide brand identity development services for sustainable products. Additionally, companies benefit from consultation on product development and growth.
Let’s talk about website interface development. On the one hand, it’s clear that development of ‘green’ interfaces follows the principles of design for other spheres; read more about our approach to design. After all, any interface design is always about creating an efficient user experience. The design development cycle depends heavily on the client’s challenges and business objectives.
On the other hand, there are a few specific features that make design for sustainable development stand out from the rest of design jobs. We talked with Grigory Koposov, JetStyle’s Lead Designer in the department of design for green development about the specificity of design in the sustainable industry. Here’s what we found out:
Designing for green projects is unique in that it deviates from the classical 'user-oriented' approach.
The trick here lies in the plural character of the word “user”. It’s typical for interface design to revolve around the needs and scenarios of one audience group. As designers, you’ll invite representatives of this specific audience group for research and testing, and you develop the design to cater to their specific needs.
However, if you take any sustainable initiative, you’ll see that it is always done in collaboration. Given the complexity of the industry, sustainable products are multiuser; it’s natural for one product to provide functionality for several user groups simultaneously.
Accordingly, the design has to take into account all roles and their requirements. This defines the specific nature of the development process: quite often, we invest a significant amount of effort in outlining a coherent system. This helps us understand how users of different roles behave within the interface, what they expect from the product, and whether their scenarios intertwine.
Green interfaces are complex, and among all features of a good product design they prioritize error prevention and usability above all characteristics. Let’s take one of our latest projects as an example:
We created interface design for Ariadne, a transparency platform created to facilitate companies’ compliance with the European Fuel Quality Directive. Ariadne issues Upstream Emission Reduction certificates. It is a unique solution in the market, since there is currently no unified EU-level database or registry.
Before the design development, we brainstormed all possible user scenarios, because Ariadne is used by unit traders, unit issuers, administrators and verifiers. It sums up to at least 4 user groups with different rights and functions within one service.
Thorough research and prototyping allowed us to create a platform that collected positive user feedback. Read more about the development process here.
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JetStyle’s designer team is ready to dig deep into your business’s specificity, take into account all requirements of the project’s participants, and create an efficient design system that will correspond to your product’s functions. Let’s talk about your project: https://calendly.com/js_project_interview/30min
